When people fail to win their point fair and square, they often resort to name calling. It’s not intelligent or decent; but, it isn’t intended to be. Often times, a name that, for all good reasons, should be considered a compliment is actually intended as a humiliation. For example, in the past, people who helped the poor were called “do-gooders.” When I was a kid I used to think, “Can’t they think of something more imaginative than that? After all, none of our parents wanted us to grow up to be ‘do-baders’.” People who resisted racial bias, and identified with the plight of African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s were called “nigger-lovers;” the term was meant to be offensive --and it was. You would think that either of the above phrases would have been compliments --they weren’t. To resist racial bias or to help the poor and disadvantaged were thought of as the height of stupidity and evil by many Americans.
That brings us to the word heretic. It is a word born of political necessity. After seeing the shape of the cross on the face of the sun, Constantine sought to bring the growing and divergent forms of Christian communities into line with one another --thus, helping to stabilize the disintegrating Roman Empire as he founded his new eastern capital, Constantinople. To accomplish this, Constantine brought all the Bishops together at the beginning of the fourth century and strongly encouraged them to agree on what would be accepted as scripture and what would be rejected (this was called the canon). The process continued for many years, and was still not completely settled at the time of Martin Luther. The resultant consolidation of texts, decisions, and agreements was called orthodoxy, meaning straight; those whose views did not fit into the resultant rulings were call heterodox, meaning not in accordance with established or accepted doctrines or opinions. People holding heterodox opinions were called heretics (heterotics).
Actually, the heretics of the past have now become the heroes of the present. Their names read like the Who’s Who of Christian history: Joan of Arc, John Huss (Jan Hus), John Wycliffe, and the followers of Saint Francis of Assisi, to name a few. Charges of heresy have resulted in imprisonment, torture, and death for the accused. Defining what constituted heretical beliefs and determining who held them became a preoccupation for religious and secular institutions alike, once church and state became intermixed.
The heretics that interest me most were the followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. Most Franciscan controversies lay in the issue of holy or apostolic poverty. Although he was born to relatively well-off parents, Francis abruptly changed his life in his early twenties. He lived as a hermit and devoted himself to charitable works, aiding lepers and other social outcasts, and restoring abandoned churches. His actions were based on directions given by Jesus to the 12 disciples in Matthew 10:7-10: “You received without cost; give without charge. Provide no gold, silver, or copper to fill your purse, no pack for the road, no second coat or shoes, no stick; the worker earns his keep.” They followed Christ’s directions down to giving the blessing “Peace be upon this house” when entering a dwelling. The original Franciscans lived in crude huts built near their chapel. Francis urged the monks not to accept gifts or property from churches saying, “The Lord called me by the way of simplicity and showed me the way of simplicity.”
After Saint Francis died, many of his followers kept on with their sacrificial service and their rejection of materialism, while the church grew wealthy. Their lifestyle and message was a confrontation to the church which, in the views of the Franciscans, had strayed far from the teachings of Christ by owning not just churches but castles, palaces, towns, and farmlands. Franciscan leaders that were considered too spiritual were removed from office. In 1318 four Franciscans were judged heretics and burned (executed) in Marseilles for refusing to give up practicing and teaching this austere life-style. Today, materialism has been cleverly woven into the fabric of much of our Christian teaching. Yet, most of us would still consider Mother Teresa as the truer follower of Christ – as compared to say, the evangelist wearing his Armani suit and Rolex watch, driving his Jaguar or Mercedes.
Mother Teresa was spiritual, rather than materialistic. Heretics are very often those who follow Christ too closely.