Dealing with a figure like Remigius can be its own challenge. In part because we confuse consequential for good. Even if he may be both.
Remigius
John 14:3–7
One of the challenges we have with our past is in honoring the difference between what is consequential and what is good. These aren’t always the same.
Much like celebrating the rise of the Christian church also mirrors its adoption by empire. The transformation of the cross from the device that tortured and killed our Lord to the pattern emblazoned on shields to terrify the enemy is one we too easily overlook. But it is one we also too easily play off as righteous.
Let us briefly remember this bit of our history. It was the first great council, called by the emperor in 325 after Christianizing the Roman Empire that sought to settle the matter with Arius. Before there were things we call heresies, or wrong teaching, there was a bishop of consequence named Arius who sought to explore the humanity of Jesus.
There was no orthodoxy (or right belief). No Catholic Church or traditional teaching. It didn’t exist yet. Just a man who wondered aloud what a fully human Jesus would tell us about the divine.
These questions would lead to literal war.
It would also lead to the creation of catholic teaching (that’s catholic with a small c). Because it sought to bridge the gap between the extremes of a divine Jesus and a human Jesus. They wanted a common belief.
This impulse toward unity through a common belief was not only alluring, but sensible. It seemed like the way to bring an end to conflict under the banner of unity.
In reality, this simply reoriented the existing conflict around the boundaries they were setting. And these new boundaries were written so that Arius’s followers would be on the outside.
Setting those boundaries didn’t bring peace. It just changed the nature of the conflict. And by the second great council in 381, Constantine’s own sons had made the conflict worse. That the Arian Controversy was still rearing its head in 496, some 170 years later is at least as condemning to the effectiveness of catholicism as it is proof of its necessity.
Clovis
Which brings us to Clovis, who we just heard, is a consequential figure because the geopolitical unity is won, not through theological conviction, but in relationships.
If you listen to someone like Sam Harris talk about the relationship of Christianity to history, you would hear that it is the source of our conflict. But in this case, it seems nothing more than the convenient excuse. Or perhaps the altruistic hope that justifies the realigning of division.
It also goes to show the shifting power from what we know as the Middle East toward Europe. Away from Rome and toward the Anglo-Saxon. These are deeply consequential moves.
Again, not good. This isn’t progress. The consequence of the rise of catholic Christianity isn’t just order, but the separation and reviling of huge numbers of Christians as heretics, more intense wars, the rise of Islam, the Crusades, and the roots of what would become known a thousand years later as white supremacy. Not good. Consequential.
Remigius
There is much to interrogate in our history, particularly in the development of heresies, the vilification of fellow Christians, and the violence perpetrated in the name of Christ. All of it full of consequence.
It is funny that we are brought here by this saint, Remigius, Remi. Who we know relatively little about, save that he was deeply consequential to the course of events. Even the statement attributed to him is open to interpretation:
“Worship what you have burned, and burn what you have worshiped.”
Given where the church would go as a consequence of these events many centuries later, these words seem like prophesying.
But they draw to me the famous Buddhist teaching:
“If you see the Buddha in the middle of the road, kill him.”
Which is striking as much for its violent imagery (which we don’t associate with Buddhists) as to it’s seemingly sacrilegious message.
Of course, the point is that it isn’t the Buddha. And you aren’t killing a person, but a figment of your imagination.
A similar tone can be found in several indigenous traditions which guide us to center our prayer on those animals we have killed for food so that we kill nothing more than we need. Worshipping our burned sacrifices and sacrificing our worship for salvation seems like a path of wisdom rather than violence.
Perhaps we apply the same to Jesus.
These words that “No one comes to the Father except through me” are far more consequential than they are good. They’ve led many people of great faith toward an exclusive view of the world and of God. They have made this about The Church. And by that, Catholic Christianity. And by that, the organized tradition rather than what he actually said:
Through Jesus.
Rather than working through all of the means of hierarchically ensuring grace, perhaps we start by naming precisely why these consequential decisions aren’t good. And instead turn to Jesus himself as the way to the Father.