Blumhardt on Wheat and Tares
Still working my way through the Blumhardt reader, Thy Kingdom Come. It connects in many ways with the strands of mystical theology I've been tracing through Spiritualism, Christian Science / New Thought and the roots of Pentecost -- as well as the Anglo-Catholic contemplative tradition, such as Merton, and the postmodern/emerging church -- that emphasise oneness and the love of God.
One of the features of the theology of both Christian Science and A Course In Miracles is its take on 'judgement' as being something very different from the 'separation of good people and bad people' which it is often read as in modern evangelical/Pentecostal churches -- and which fuels much of the right-wing political movement.
The parable of the 'tares and the wheat' recurs as a key metaphor in several of these theologies (particularly in Frances Bird's 'The New Dispensation' and in Rick Joyner's 'The Harvest'). Here's the Blumhardts -- at the dawn of the Holiness/Pentecostal revival movement -- on the subject:
My friends, you must never look upon people as being weeds, or tares. The tares which are harvested as the sheaves (Mt. 13:24-30)—those are not people themselves. We would make a great error if we were to say, “These men are tares, and those are wheat.” No, oh, no! Consider that what we see as evil, as criminal, as sinful in people—of all these things we also bear the trace, even though we lready venture to call ourselves children of God, body and soul. Who presumes to look into the depths of human nature? There, we are all alike.
Yet, on the surface, in the outer sphere of life, the lawbreaking that shows up often is directed against human laws, not divine ones. There, pushing up, is the vile, criminal nature which is the outgrowth of the tares, crowding out the wheat kernels and stalks so that even a truly noble person
becomes an evildoer. I venture to assert, indeed, I dare say it before God: we must guard ourselves from making this malicious distinction. Strike out against evil we must—but, for God’s sake, don’t damn people! These old tares that have been scattered throughout Christendom—for God’s sake, don’t see them as being people! We poor people, we are all tangled up in them.Have you ever seen the wind in a grainfield? There is little one can do to stop it; it tears up the delicate plants and destroys them. And so it goes with many people. Somehow a seed has come into their neighborhood and now is growing in an inhuman and unnatural way. It grows all through people, pushing into their feelings, influencing their wills. Often we label them as fools because of their behavior; and, consequently, they are put down and considered by us as “sinners.” Yet, if we were to think about it, the trace of those scattered seeds could be found even in our own lives.
Therefore, in all we are called to do in the way of holding human society together, the greatest blessing is this: although humanly we have to distinguish between righteousness and unrighteousness, these distinctions go no further than our own opinion. Would you go so far as to damn people for eternity? Do you want to take over the work of God? Is it then, O man, that you would make eternal decrees?
What I don't yet understand is what such a theology of infinite human value -- which I've come to believe is the true Christian belief -- implies for politics, particularly our society's treatment of criminals, prisoners, the sick, mentally deficient and poor. It is easy to ignore obviously 'wrong' prejudices such as racism. But what if *none* of our standards of measuring and classifying people -- even the 'rational' and 'scientific' and 'just' ones -- are actually right? That seems like it would deconstruct all of the values on which civilisation itself is built -- all the divisions that separate the violent from the gentle, the insane from the sane, the destructive from the productive, the liars from the truthful.
What would it mean, for a whole society to live forgiveness as if it were real?
And how many people would die as a result?
