Miserere mei

Somebody asked me the other day how I could identify as a Christian, after all the horror and misery the Christians have inflicted on the world, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the patriarchal abuse and reduction of women to virgins and sluts, the twisting of the healthy human sexual drive into a suicide-provoking homophobia, and on and on.

That should tell you something about the kind of people I hang out with. Lots of LGBT people with a searing laser-beamed loathing of the church, at least the authoritarian wings of it like the traditional Catholic Church, the Mormons, the bible-thumping born-agains and the rest. Lots of professed atheists and agnostics who find Christianity and religion in general somewhere on the spectrum between oppressive and no longer relevant (thank God - pun intended).

I don't defend doctrinal Christianity. I am not a theist and share the view that theology is an eccentric cousin of philosophy, a form of poetry. And like poetry, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes tacky and off-putting, sometimes inspiring. But I usually try to avoid taking on theological issues these days, preferring to identify myself simply as a non-religious Christian. A "cultural" Christian. Someone who grew up surrounded by Christian people with their Christian narratives and ways of structuring a moral universe, but who ultimately found, as one sometimes does with Japanese ways of presenting gifts, that the container can hold greater interest than what is contained within.

I am intimately familiar with the question (and the people who ask it), "Do you believe in God?" Since  "believe" covers the territory of both "think, suppose, trust to be true" and "have a positive opinion of" it strikes me as the wrong question. The question should be, "Do you believe that there is a God" and should immediately be followed by questions probing exactly what that means. Do you have a single unseen identity in mind? Does it have gender and other human characteristics, like an interest in whether one writes with the left or right hand or thinks that race and gender are consequential?

What people usually mean by the question, though, is "Are you a member of my tribe?"  Do you believe in the God that we Lutherans, Calvinists, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses have come up with? Or do you buy into the Roman Catholic or Greek, Russian, Macedonian, Serbian or other of the seventeen autocephalous Eastern Orthodox communities' claims that their pope, patriarch, or other male head has been given the keys to heaven and therefore speaks for this deity?  "Do you believe in God" is not a simple question.

I usually cut through the complexity and answer no. And that tends to put me on the spectrum that runs from hostility to disappointment and sadness among people who are inclined to answer yes.

I wish that were not the case. The Christians of the world are no longer the bad guys they became for a bunch of centuries after climbing onto Constantine's bandwagon and going mainstream. It is a truism that power corrupts.  You know, the way that Americans, similarly, went from good guys to bad guys between the time they wrote that wonderful We The People thing and the time they began the slave trade, blamed the Spanish for the destruction of the Battleship U.S.S. Maine to take Cuba and the Philippines away from Spain and evolved a national morality in which lying and dying for empire became a virtue. And the way the German speaking world went astray after producing Bach and Mozart. And the way Jewish Israelis are systematically trashing the rights of Palestinians who live among them. Humans are so hopelessly corruptible sometimes.  These days, except for those Christians who can't tell the difference between religion and power politics of the authoritarian right, most Christians are lovely people. Kindly. Generous. Charitable. The kind of people you want to find common ground with.

So I enjoy engaging in that pursuit. Tell me you're a Christian and my response will be, "Great." And I will move the conversation, as best I can, to topics like how can we make the world a better place for widows and orphans and the undereducated and the poor. I know somewhere in the Christian heart there is a familiarity with the Sermon on the Mount and Christ's focus on helping the poor. And I know they are proud of the material things of cultural Christianity I too am glad to call part of my cultural heritage. I didn't crow when Notre Dame burned; I cried.

I listen to the debates between Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod Lutherans over who's reading Luther's Small and Large Catechisms the right way and who needs to be excluded from the communion table, and the assertions by the Sedevacantists that Pope Francis and all the popes since Pius XII are illegitimate popes and I marvel at the fact that the medieval debates over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin continue unabated today. Human folly can be downright entertaining, if you look at it just right. And no one has farther to fall than those with the arrogance to proclaim themselves spokespersons for an unseen Almighty creative force of nature embodied in a historical son of a Galilean carpenter who hung out with his fishermen buddies some twenty centuries back, walked on water (no idea why he needed to) and brought dead people, including himself, back to life.

Christianity has two parents, one Hebrew-speaking, one Greek. But equally important is the fact that it was adopted by European foster parents when the Hebrew parent decided they had gotten too big for their britches and the Greek parent couldn't keep them down on the farm any longer.  Anybody who, like me, sees themselves as a cultural Christian also sees themselves as a lucky inheritor of the cultural spin-offs of this Europeanized Jew - the small mundane stuff like the habit of chopping down fir trees at Christmas and bringing them inside and decorating them with candles and colorful balls, and the loftier stuff like the architecture of Gothic cathedrals, stained glass windows and mighty pipe organs, and the music of Bach and Mozart and Handel.

Have a listen to this lovely boys' choir singing Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei from 1630. Tell me you don't believe in angels when you hear that kid hit the high C.

That's cultural Christianity, and it belongs to all of us, whether or not we were raised in the Christian religious faith. It doesn't even belong exclusively to Europeans anymore, since there are Japanese, Brazilians, Africans and, at least theoretically, sopranos from Pago Pago who can make that exquisite pure sound, two Cs above middle C, with a bit of practice.

Here are the words in Latin, and Elizabethan English, if you want to hum along...

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.

According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies remove my transgressions.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.

I knowingly confess my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.

Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil before Thee: that they may be justified in Thy sayings, and might they overcome when I am judged.

Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea.

But behold, I was formed in iniquity: and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti: incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.

Behold, Thou desirest truth in my innermost being: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Asperges me hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, make me whiter than snow.
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam: et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.

Open my ears and make me hear of joy and gladness: and my bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis: et omnes iniquitates meas dele.

Turn away Thy face from my sins: and remember not all my misdeeds.
Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.

Create in me a clean heart, O God: and make anew a righteous spirit within my body.
Ne proiicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.

Do not cast me away from Thy presence: and take not Thy holy spirit from me.
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui: et spiritu principali confirma me.

Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Docebo iniquos vias tuas: et impii ad te convertentur.

I will teach those that are unjust Thy ways: and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae: et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.

Deliver me from blood, O God, the God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing of Thy righteousness.
Domine, labia mea aperies: et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.

O Lord, open my lips: and my mouth shall spring forth Thy praise.
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique: holocaustis non delectaberis.

For Thou desirest no sacrifice, where others would: with burnt offerings Thou wilt not be delighted.
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum, et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.

Sacrifices of God are broken spirits: dejected and contrite hearts, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion: ut aedificentur muri Ierusalem.

Deal favorably, O Lord, in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes, et holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with small and large burnt offerings: then shall they lay calves upon your altar.

Note, if you will, how civilization has progressed since the time when the pope Urban (as opposed to Pope Rural?) of the Catholics could excommunicate anyone for transcribing those words and music, so enamoured was he at the beauty of the piece. He wanted, in hilarious Christian charitable irony, to keep the piece for himself.

Mozart is said to have followed Pope Urban's dictat upon hearing Allegri's Miserere in the Sistine Chapel, the only place Urban would allow it to be performed. But only until he got home to Austria, whereupon he reproduced the whole thing from memory. And made corrections.

We have inherited this wonderful heritage. My view is that we should treasure it - Allegri's Miserere Mei and the notion of being sprinkled with hyssop and made whiter than snow,  Mozart's phenomenal recall and musical skill, the Lutheran tight-asses from Wisconsin, the boys they used to make eunuchs out of, the whole shebang.

Cultural Christianity belongs to us all.