Right Action or Right Belief: Which is more Important?

September 7, 2024

When we think of the era of the early church, a time when the apostles were still around, as well as others who had walked with Jesus, many of us probably think of a time when Christianity was practiced as perfectly as possible. But the truth of the matter is that, both in understanding and in action, the early Church faced a number of difficulties.

Today’s second reading gives us just one of many examples of behaviours in the early Church that were certainly not in consonance with how Jesus wanted his followers to live.  So we have James bemoaning the fact that despite all the teachings of Jesus including the one that says it is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle, the rich were treated far better than the poor. But this is not the only case. We know that Paul complained to the Corinthians that even at the Lord’s Supper there were those who were getting drunk and others who remained hungry (1 Cor. 11:17-34). Then there was discrimination practised in the Church at that time against the widows of non-Jewish Christians, who were left out when food was distributed (Acts 6:1 ff).  

At the understanding level too there were significant differences among the leaders of the early Christian community.  The most famous disagreement, between Peter and Paul, on the issue of which Jewish laws should be applicable to new Gentile Christians, is recorded in the New Testament (Galatians 2: 11-12),  But this was not the only case for we have many references to the problem of ‘false prophets’ who offered interpretations that the Apostles, Paul and other elders in the Church thought were unfaithful to Jesus’ teaching (e.g. 2 Peter 2,   1 John 4:1 ff).  In a sense this was inevitable, since once the original and influential thinker/religious genius passes away, all ideologies give rise to interpretations that may vary.  

But this disagreement among the Christian leaders on beliefs about Jesus had an unfortunate result. Over the centuries that followed, the Church became more and more concerned about Orthodoxy (having the right beliefs) and less and less on issues related to the living out of Christian lives (Orthopraxis, or doing the right actions). But in focusing on the former, unfortunately (I would say) the Church got sucked more into debating metaphysical questions (e.g. the ontological nature of Jesus, or how Jesus was present in the Eucharist or whether Mary was the Mother of God, etc).  Consequently most of the Councils spent a huge amount of energy in clarifying what was to be considered orthodox, and on condemning heretical views and persons. It is only since Vatican 2 that the Church has refrained from any kind of condemnation of heresies or heretics, and focused more on how to live our Christian lives, even to the extent of praising the holiness of those who did not agree with the Catholic Church.  A good example of this change in approach is found in Pope John Paul II’s apology for the Church’s action in burning at the stake the medieval Czech reformer, Jan Hus (1415), who was convicted of heresy at the Council of Constance. What is important to note is that while making this public apology the Pope also acknowledged the reformer’s moral courage in standing up to the religious authorities of his time.

So today, should we consider Orthodoxy (having the right beliefs) as irrelevant, and consider only Orthopraxis (doing the right actions) as our only criterion to decide who is a true follower of Jesus?  After all  Jesus himself had insisted that  it is only one’s actions (praxis) that would be the ultimate criterion to judge who should enter heaven (Last Judgement Parable, Mathew 25:31-46) and that liberating the oppressed was the essence of his mission (Luke 4:18).

However, the answer to this may not be so obvious. Let me take as an example, the mandate that Jesus gave to all his followers to love our neighbours and liberate the oppressed,-  remembering that Jesus was not just speaking of some feeling of love of our neighbour or of just internal liberation, but also of a practical and real release of those who are held captive by poverty, or ill-health, or oppression or any other evil.  Keeping that in mind, if we look at just the past 100 years of our world history, we will see that many have fought in different contexts for the liberation of the oppressed,  So there were those like Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr, but also many other groups like the VIetCong, the Taliban, the LTTE, Hamas, the Israelis and so many others - all of whom were quite clear that they were fighting to overcome oppression of some sort or other.  But looking at these various kinds of actions taken to free the oppressed, we may feel like asking ourselves, as Sobrino, a Liberation theologian, does: “Is there such a thing as a Christian practice of liberation?”.  In response he himself suggests that while “doing what Jesus did,” (i.e. liberating the oppressed) is important, doing it “as Jesus did it.” is equally important. Butner argues that Sobrino concluded that “Jesus has a certain ‘manner of being in his service to the Kingdom of God, and in his relationship to the Father’”, and  that requires Christians to respond or act in a similar manner”.  Sobrino therefore coined a new term, Orthopathy, which Butner defines in this manner: “Orthopathy indicates a broad and fundamental orientation (of Jesus) toward God and the world.”   

However, while the examples given above (Gandhi or Hamas/Israel for example) are quite stark, it is not always clear what this fundamental orientation of Jesus to liberation actually means when we try to apply it to the realpolitik world in which we live today.  Historically the Church has responded to this question with different attitudes.  For instance there is the response of “Non-resistance” which was based on Jesus teaching  "do not resist him who is evil" and “turn the other cheek” (Mathew 5:39). But then, when Jesus was slapped during his trial, he forcefully challenged the unjust violence and refused to turn the other cheek. Then there is the “just war theory” that was popular in Church circles, which acknowledged that violence is an evil but sometimes in situations of immense evil, when there is no other way, it could perhaps be condoned. Expanding on this, some in the Church have justified the possibility of a just “preventive war” to overcome a clearly perceived imminent evil.  Of course, the weakness of the just war theory was demonstrated in reality, when historical accounts tell us that initially most people in India  believed (e.g. Subhash Chandra Bose) that creating an army to fight the British was the only way to overthrow their oppression of Indians, whereas Gandhi actually found a way to do it without violence. This ‘pacifism’ is another of the options that some in the Church advocated, and this was the response of the Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. More recently Liberation theologians offered us a distinction between institutionalised/structural violence (e.g. structures which keep the poor poor, or women and blacks as second class etc) and the minimal and necessary violence that may perhaps need to be used to liberate people from such structural societal violence.  And the action of Jesus himself using physical violence to throw the money changers out of the temple was perceived by some of them as an action against an exploitative system (structural violence). On the other hand, this action of Jesus against the moneychangers (one of the few incidents found in all four Gospels) seems completely out of sync with the rest of his life, for it certainly goes against Jesus’ admonition to Peter, that he who “lives by the sword will die by the sword” (Mathew 26:52).

All these are therefore struggling efforts to understanding Jesus, and we too are still struggling to find out which of these ways, or some other newer insight, would best express Jesus’ fundamental orientation towards how to liberate the oppressed.

It is clear then that these are not easy questions to answer. And because some of the issues we are struggling with today are not the issues that Jesus either chose to focus upon, or did not have to struggle with, we will find the same difficulty in finding out what ought to be our orientation towards issues like feminism, alternate forms of sexuality, family and marriage, economic structures in our world today, international relationships, political and governance issues, migration and refugees, environmental issues, euthanasia, and so on and so forth.  In all these areas, and in many more, we really are struggling to find answers. But that does not mean we should just quickly jump onto the bandwagon of the right or the left, without really making the effort to explore different approaches. As Christians, we choose to 'use' Jesus as a starting  point, but that does not mean we close our minds to what others from other religions and ideologies have to offer.  And so this call to explore is always an ongoing task, but it is a task we cannot ignore if we must function as adult Christians.  Let us always remember that our Church too is struggling to find its way, for the Pope and those who run the institutional Church are all people like us who are struggling to find what we can call our Christian way forward. But what is clear is this: Praxis without understanding is blind, while right beliefs without action is sterile. 

First Reading: Isaiah 35: 4-7a

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
    “Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
    He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
    He will come and save you.”
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness
    and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;

Second Reading: James 2: 1-5

My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality. For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here in a good place, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

 

Gospel: Mark 7: 31-37

Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”  And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.  Then Jesus[a] ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.  They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”