"If I had been a journalist at the time of the crucifixion, I would have been hanging around Herod's palace talking to Pilate and disregarding [Jesus]."
Out of the deluge of words spoken at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Washington, D.C. in January 1978, this statement by Malcolm Muggeridge stood out. First, it had immediate personal relevance to this reporter: I was so busy chasing down celebrity Christians for interviews that if Jesus Christ had walked in, I certainly would have rushed by the out-of-place character.
On second thought, the words of the 75-year-old Britisher seemed to apply to more than the journalists or broadcasters at the evangelical extravaganza. At the time of the crucifixion, most Americans would have focused their attention on Herod, Pilate, their armies, their courts, and their rationales for doing what was "necessary" for law and order. Or for morality and family. Or for keeping the economy on an even keel. Or for the integrity and stability of the empire.
Most us of would have done it then, because we do it today. As good American citizens, and as reporters and as consumers of the news, we wittingly and unwittingly tag along with the crucifiers. We are fascinated with power.
The fascination with power carries over from our secular life to our religious life. Come Easter and the resurrection, we feel quite comfortable glorifying God the almighty, the omnipotent. We forget where we were three days earlier. We neglect our complicity in the cross event. And in the process, we ravel the whole fabric of Holy Week.
What struck me most at the NRB convention was the tendency, by word and deed, to collapse Holy Week into Palm Sunday and Easter. By jumping from triumphant entry to empty tomb, we nicely short-circuit the nitty-gritty in between. This, I believe, is why so many of us are at ease in Zion. The cross is not central. It does not implicate us. Ours is a resurrection faith, freed from the scandal of the cross.
At least that seemed to be the faith at work at the convention and, in broader ways, at work in the evangelical movement today. Never before have I been surrounded by so many high-powered claimants to born-again status. And never before have I seen so clearly what being "born again" means in our culture. Instead of a new order in Christ, it has come to mean climbing the ladder of success in the old order. It means, for some, new life without dying to the old. It means Easter without Good Friday.
Several convention speakers moved beyond the emphasis on personal piety to address some of the harder issues facing Western civilization in general and America in particular: nuclear weapons, the arms race, poverty, human suffering. I thought: we're getting close to the nitty-gritty. Then every such speaker suddenly leapt from here to kingdom come, concluding that the American system is the solution--if we only bring all people to know Jesus. The implication was clear: in this world there are no crosses to bear, only converts to gain.
If there are no crosses to bear, only converts to gain, then the evangelical thrust becomes a numbers game, and its religious broadcasting becomes show business competing for good ratings.
And so it has come to pass with the advent of celebrity Christianity. Power and personality, not service and suffering, become the marks of Christianity. Most of American Christendom, and not just the evangelicals, prefers to think of Holy Week in terms of the ribbons on our bonnets rather than the nails through Christ's limbs. We like to skirt the issue of death. It's part of our national gospel of positive thinking. We like neatness, and the crucifixion is messy. We prefer the happy ending, not the painful struggle.
What distinguishes the born again is a certain arrogance of having arrived--suddenly, and often painlessly--at the happy ending. It's birth without labor, birth under heavy cultural anesthesia. The means become irrelevant, though. The end is what matters: the born again have the Answer. The journey, the struggle, is over. They've found it.
This leads to triumphalism within the fold and judgmentalism toward those outside the fold. It's not their sins that abound, but everybody else's. The cross, however, intrudes in the midst of evangelical crusading and its cheap grace. On the cross, even Jesus couldn't save himself. And neither can we who would ignore the full implications of that cross. With a little more humility, we would recognize that Jesus was talking about all of us when he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Malcolm Muggeridge counts himself among Jesus' disciples, but he lays no claim to being a better disciple than the original 12 who would fall asleep at Gethsemane and later deny and betray Jesus.
That's why the Muggeridge statement stood out at the NRB convention: It was humble confession in the midst of repressive triumphalism and evangelical empire building. With good-natured wit, he regularly confounded others' pretentious and crusading mentality. Out of his wisdom, he confessed that God had not yet given him all the answers. Muggeridge agreed with the convention's conservative politics. But politics was not the critical point of the convention. The deeper issue was theology with or without the cross. Muggeridge, at least, seemed to discern that something crucial preceded Easter.
If Christ didn't die to this world, then our Easter parades are a farce, our Easter eggs empty shells.
If Christ did suffer and die for us, then all who would dare claim to be "born again" must similarly be broken for others.
Jim Stenzel was a Sojourners associate editor when this article appeared.
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