He was a prince who had everything and was not happy, not satisfied, still suffering despite the attempt of his parents to keep him sheltered from that which would cause discomfort. After sneaking out into the world and encountering an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, he swung to the opposite end of the pendulum--extreme self-denial. His rigorous asceticism and fasting left him emaciated but not enlightened, still subject to suffering. Finally he vows to sit until he figures it out and after attaining enlightenment through a 'Middle Way' between the extremes.
The reason I mention this is not to compare religions or try to reconcile or synthesize radically different worldviews, but to rather point out that the idea of a "middle way" in Christianity does not square with the call to Christ, for "Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in Heaven." (Mt 10:33). Despite that fact, I see a strong temptation to chart such a middle road between Calvary and Jerusalem in our contemporary culture, a road that ultimately leads nowhere, as is written "there is a pathway that seems right to a man, but in the end it is a road to death." (Prov 14:12).
What does a "middle way" look like in a post-Christian culture? Though I'm not endorsing these novels/films (Mother Angelica called The Last Temptation of Christ "a blasphemous film that has the power to destroy souls eternally", and Endo's Silence, while nuanced, was troubling to many Christians, and not well-received by descendants of the Japanese martyrs themselves), and also do not want to do a full on synopsis, I do use them to illustrate just exactly the kind of nefarious and subtle temptation we face as Christians today:
The first is Shusaku Endo's Silence, a historical novel. The scene in question involves Fr. Rodrigues, a Jesuit missionary captured and forced to apostatize by the authorities by trampling on a fumi-e, a an icon of Jesus or Mary. He has a very clear choice here, but with a complicated twist (temptation): he can refuse to renounce his faith and be tortured and killed; or he can trample, marry, and live a comfortable life (another missionary, Fr. Ferreira, did just that). The temptation for Rodrigues is that his people, the Japanese Christians, are being tortured for their faith and if only Rodrigues will trample, they will let them go and end the torture against them. A noble motive. In what seems to be an act of selflessness, Rodrigues supposedly sacrifices his faith and apostasizes, trampling the fumi-e, to save the Christians from torture.
In Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial The Last Temptation of Christ there is a scene when Jesus is tempted to get down from the cross by Satan in like manner--in a "you would do more good alive than dead". He gets down, goes on to marry Magdalene, and lives out a life in the world of men. It all ends up being a dream-like temptation in the film, but the message is clear: you don't have to do this, there is another way and this is it.
I do not think either of these novels/films should be used as a model for faith, especially for new Christians. But they do back-handedly lend insight into the temptation many of us face in our walk of faith, the whisper of the serpent in the Garden: "Did God really say?..."
I think some Christians today are trying to make this 'middle way' of compromise and reconciliation with the world. It is a kind of what I would call a 'practical apostasy':
"If you would tone down your rhetoric," it goes, "you would attract more people rather than drive them away."
"If the church only changed a,b,c teaching, I would definitely join."
"I don't think Christ really calls us to x,y,z. Jesus did not want us to live a life of unhappiness."
Now, Christianity is absolutely reasonable in its doctrine and theology; that is, the tenants of Christianity are in accordance with reason and Natural Law. But the demands of Christian discipleship are another story. We don't want to hate our mother, leave our dead father to bury himself, be estranged from our siblings. "I have become estranged from my brothers, and an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me." (Ps 69:8-9). So it is understandable that we would seek to make concessions.
Christ puts us in an impossible situation, does he not? We either follow him, "baptized into his death," (Rom 6:3), or like the rich young man, we "go away sad," (Mt 19:22; Mk 10:22; Lk 18:23) when we are unable to unsaddle ourselves from what weighs us down to follow Him, unwilling to pay the cost for a 'yes', an assent, when it puts us at odds with the world. The world knows Him not, as St. John says, because it neither sees Him nor accepts Him (Jn 14:17). There really is no middle way when faced with assent or apostasy, and no place for compromise or assimilation (see 2 Chron 20 to see the seeds of compromise in the life of King Jehoshaphat), though the temptation in a post-modern world is strong. There is only life and death. There is no middle way, for a middle way seeks to retain what is in the world. "If the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father is not." (1 Jn 2:15). There is only the Way (Jn 14:6).
When you start to follow Jesus, not on a complicated middle self-made path, but on the one He lays out that leads to life and costs, there is a weird tension--there is deep joy and suffering co-existing. The early apostles "rejoiced" after leaving the Sanhedrin, that "God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:41). Who in their right mind rejoices at facing derision and humiliation in the world? Those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit and know that they are not living for this world. They gladly forsake a home here for the many mansions prepared for them in Heaven (Jn 14:2).
Those who follow Jesus to His death know that there are only two paths, and that compromise with the world only seeks to make lukewarm people (Rev 3:16), salt that has lost its saltiness, good for nothing, not even the dungheap (Mt 5:13), and accomplishes Satan's work. Let the words of St Faustina reassure you--there is no middle way:
"One day, I saw two roads. One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell. And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them.
And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had tears in their eyes, and all kinds of suffering befell them. Some fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very first instant they forgot all their suffering." (Diary, 153)
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