{"id":7456,"date":"2015-04-03T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T12:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/?p=7456"},"modified":"2021-01-13T10:42:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T10:42:09","slug":"christianity-when-properly-understood-is-a-religion-of-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/04\/03\/christianity-when-properly-understood-is-a-religion-of-losers\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity, when properly understood, is a religion of losers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A thought for this Friday<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"PoweredThis article titled “Christianity, when properly understood, is a religion of losers” was written by Giles Fraser, for The Guardian on Friday 3rd April 2015 11.00 UTC<\/a><\/p>\n

When he was nothing but a suspended carcass, dripping with his own blood and other people\u2019s spit, there were no worshippers around clapping their hands and singing their hymns. They were long gone. At the very end, ironically at the moment of greatest triumph, he had no followers left. That says something profoundly counterintuitive about what a successful church looks like. For if the core of the Christian message \u2013 death first, then resurrection \u2013 is so existentially full-on that nobody can possibly endure it, then a church that successfully proclaims that message is likely to be empty and not full. Which is also why, quite possibly, a successful priest ought to be hated rather than feted. For here, as elsewhere in the Christian story, success and failure are inverted. The first will be last and the last first. The rich are cast down and the poor are exulted. The true king is crowned with mockery and thorns not with gold and ermine.<\/p>\n

Christianity, properly understood, is a religion of losers \u2013 the worst of playground insults. For not only do we not want to be a loser, we don\u2019t want to associate with them either. We pointedly shun losers, as if some of their loser-ness might rub off on us. Or rather, more honestly, we shun them because others might recognise us as among their number. And because we secretly fear that this might actually be true, we shun them all the more viciously, thus to distance ourselves all the more emphatically. And so the cock crows three times.<\/p>\n

But it is true. Deep failure, the failure of our lives, is something we occasionally contemplate in the middle of the night, in those moments of terrifying honesty before we get up and dress for success. Ecce homo, said Pilate. Behold, the man. This is humanity. And the facade of success we present to the world is commonly a desperate attempt to ward off this knowledge. At the beginning of Lent, Christians are reminded of this in the most emphatic of ways: know that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Those who used the period of Lent to give things up are invited to live life stripped bare, experiencing humanity in the raw, without the familiar props to our ego. This has nothing to do with the avoidance of chocolate and everything to do with facing the unvarnished truth about human failure. There is no way 100 top business leaders would endorse the cross. It is life without the advertising, without the accoutrements of success. It is life on a zero-hours contract, where at any moment we can be told we are not needed.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing. The Christian story, like the best sort of terrifying psychoanalysis, strips you down to nothing in order for you to face yourself anew. For it turns out that losers are not despised or rejected, not ultimately. In fact, losers can discover something about themselves that winners cannot ever appreciate \u2013 that they are loved and wanted simply because of who they are and not because of what they achieve. That despite it all, raw humanity is glorious and wonderful, entirely worthy of love. This is revealed precisely at the greatest point of dejection. The resurrection is not a conjuring trick with bones. It is a revelation that love is stronger than death, that human worth is not indexed to worldly success.<\/p>\n

In a world where we semaphore our successes to each other at every possible opportunity, churches cannot be blamed for failing to live up to this austere and wonderful message. The worst of them judge their success in entirely worldly terms, by counting their followers. Their websites show images of happy, uncomplicated people doing good improving stuff in the big community. But if I am right about the meaning of Christ\u2019s passion, then a church is at its best when it fails, when it gives up on all the ecclesiastical glitter, when the weeds start to break through the floor, and when it shows others that failure is absolutely nothing of the sort. This is the site of real triumph<\/a>, the moment of success. Failure is redeemed. Hallelujah.<\/p>\n

@giles_fraser<\/a><\/p>\n

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010<\/p>\n

Published via the Guardian News Feed<\/a> plugin<\/a> for WordPress.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A church that successfully proclaims the message of the cross \u2013 death first, then resurrection \u2013 is likely to be empty and not full<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[214,59,215,213,48,212,138,217,69,101,211,51,281,216,53,46,68],"class_list":["post-7456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-anglicanism","tag-article","tag-christianity","tag-cif-belief","tag-comment","tag-easter","tag-editorials-reply","tag-giles-fraser","tag-life-and-style","tag-london","tag-loose-canon","tag-main-section","tag-opinion","tag-religion","tag-the-guardian","tag-uk-news","tag-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NRDR-1Wg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7452,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/04\/03\/christianity-for-hard-working-people-the-gospel-according-to-dave\/","url_meta":{"origin":7456,"position":0},"title":"Christianity for hard working people, the Gospel according to Dave","author":"diana Stone","date":"April 3, 2015","format":"quote","excerpt":"You couldn't make it up or could you? \"The Christian assertion that God loves everyone, the malformed, the poor, the disabled and even the foreigner ... is an idea that Mr Cameron\u2019s government has defined itself against.\"Posted by The Guardian on Friday, 3 April 2015","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5855,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/02\/23\/the-guardian-view-on-journalism-and-advertising-selling-the-news-short\/","url_meta":{"origin":7456,"position":1},"title":"The Guardian view on journalism and advertising: selling the news short","author":"diana Stone","date":"February 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Telegraph faces searching questions about editorial independence from within its own ranks. 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