The Original Theobros: A Holy Tuesday Meditation

For Jesus, Tuesday is yet another day of mounting tension with religious fundamentalism. He must have arisen early to walk the two miles back into Jerusalem, returning to the scene of yesterday’s crime. He spends the day giving a series of final teachings while being cross-examined by the religious leaders. “Which commandment is the first of all?” “By what authority are you doing these things?” “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” They are playing checkers while Jesus is playing chess.

These conservative gatekeepers are playing a game most of us in the deconstruction community know all too well. The biggest tell of religious fundamentalists is their dualism. Everything spiritual is neatly divided into good and bad, left and right, saved or unsaved. Trapped by legalism, absolutism, and polarized thinking, the self-righteous both then and now are as certain about their purity as they are convinced about your sin. Conditioned by purity culture to practice spiritual rigidity, they create external boundary markers and spiritual litmus tests to determine who is deserving and who is not. One could argue the entire conservative evangelical movement is a grand diversion of false dichotomies and "either-or" thinking.

And once everything religious is divided, the natural next step is to compare, condemn, and crucify all nonconformists. Especially in white evangelical spaces, there is an almost fetish-like thrill in their disapproval of anyone who falls outside social, sexual, gender, and theological lines of demarcation. Seen recently in the “Theobro” social media attack of Dr. Kristin Du Mez, Dr. Beth Allison Barr, and transgender activist Chrissy Stroop. “These Theobros seem to revel in their misplaced swagger and sense of superiority as they badger and bully people on Twitter who don’t agree with their theology,” warns author Rick Pidcock. At least when it comes to religious fundamentalists, there really is nothing new under the sun. The Pharisees of yesteryear and the Neo-Calvinists of today “habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from the ‘other,’ and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong,” writes author Pema Chodron.

“The entire conservative evangelical movement is a grand diversion of false dichotomies and “either-or” thinking. ”

But Jesus refuses to play along. Instead of bifurcating reality, He offers a third way. Even His retort “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” is a clever way of changing the conversation and exposing the futility of dualism.

In large part, our spiritual maturity consists of doing likewise. The real task of faith deconstruction is to grow beyond dualism into paradox and contradiction, hiddenness and mystery because these spiritual concepts offer access to the deep wells of wisdom.

Jesus embodied a form of faith unfathomable to fundamentalism. He understood the more you know, the more you don’t know. The looser your grip on right and wrong, the greater your grasp of transformative wisdom. He lived inside a spiritual tension held together by grace and compassion, not right belief, and he was hated for it.

This Holy Tuesday, you are invited to embody this mysterious, third way of Jesus where compassion is paramount to purity and people always trump the soundest of doctrines. “The source of spiritual wisdom is to hold questions and contradictions patiently, much more than to find quick certitudes, to rush to closure or judgment, as the ego and dualistic mind want to do,” explains Father Richard Rohr.

Maybe that is our task today, to embrace the nondual mind, to find comfort in this liminal space where our faith finds its footing in the abyss as Jesus enters into the great Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection, weakness and power, humility and unending glory.

Amen.

Gary Alan Taylor