\n"}\n\nYoung people in the Galilee Sea Area are being increasingly drawn to \nthe so-called \u201crighteousness community\u201d, a movement of twenty-something \nfisherman types with exciting new perspectives on virtue, Scripture, and\n the end of the world.
\nThe righteousness community is based on the orations of Yeshua ben \nYosef, a self-taught rabbi who developed a cult following with his \nconcerns about an impending Armageddon. According to ben Yosef, problems\n with Temple sacrifices and over-adherence to the ritual law will lead \nto a \u201cJudgment Day\u201d in which God comes down to punish sinners and throw \nthem into a lake of fire. Although it sounds far-fetched, celebrities \nlike Saul of Tarsus and Joseph of Arimathea have thrown their weight \nbehind it, saying the threat of Judgment Day is \u201cvery plausible\u201d.
\nBen Yosef wondered: what if God, instead of wanting strict compliance\n to Pharaisacal principles, actually wants us to love one another with \nall our hearts? And what if those who fail to practice this, far from \nfulfilling God\u2019s will, will actually face His wrath when He returns to \njudge His creatures? Frustrated that mainstream theologians failed to \npay attention to these concerns, he thought he could best spread his \nmessage by creating a culture of righteous behavior. The righteousness \ncommunity is an attempt at creating that culture, and has attracted a \ndiverse crowd interested in divine judgment. The community has also come\n to discuss and sometimes emulate ben Yosef\u2019s other interests: universal\n love, Messianic fervour, consorting with prostitutes and tax \ncollectors, and stories about lakes of fire that sound like they come \nstraight from fantasy books.
\nThe righteous take a somewhat paradoxical approach to keeping hold of\n their humanity. Believing that all people are sinful, many think that \nin order to shed our wickedness, they will have to abandon their bodies \nto become perfect spirits in Heaven (our physical selves are, for the \nvast majority in the community, not intrinsic to who we are). One of the\n righteous, Simon Peter, say he believes that not only could we someday \nlive forever, but we could purify our souls so as to abandon human \nfrailty and doubt, and \u201cspend Eternity praising the Lord\u201d.
\nPeter, a fisherman, was first drawn into the community by ben Yosef\u2019s\n fictional magnum opus, \u201cThe Parable Of The Prodigal Son\u201d. He loves the \nrighteous\u2019 \u201cworld-scale ambition\u201d and lack of bias towards localness, \neither in time or space. \u201cWhy care only about the Israelites when there \nare so many nations out there?\u201d He sees no reason not to take the whole \nRoman Empire - indeed, the whole Mediterranean - as a playing field. \nAfter all, it is likely that the vast majority of people who will ever \nexist are Gentiles. Converting the Gentiles is a major goal, a value \nthat he holds because, he says, \u201cAll humans are pretty similar in the \neyes of God\u201d.
\nDespite their commitment to the idea that all believers are bound \ntogether in an intangible Church, many of the righteous have affirmed \nthe importance of community in the flesh as well. Galilee Area \nrighteous congregate into communal living arrangements, often with whimsical names invoking saints or Scriptural locations. In \nbuilding a shared culture, they draw on the example of Jewish \ntraditions. Last spring, the several dozen of the righteous gathered \ntogether beneath stained-glass windows to observe \u201cEaster\u201d, singing \nhymns and eating a communal meal. It\u2019s a powerful visual, albeit one \nthat feels like a processed and repurposed Passover seder. Apart from \nsongs, the event featured organ music, prayers, and a \u201csermon\u201d by one of\n the community leaders. Peter considers it hugely successful at \ncapturing the trust-building and bonding functions of Jewish rituals. In\n a way, the righteous\u2019 approach to holidays is like the righteous \nthemselves. They avoid formal rules and rituals in the preparation of \ntheir celebrations, preferring to rely on a shared sense of community \nand divine love.
\nPeter and his friends are responding to a lacuna in the \npresent world not by shrugging but by trying to build something to fill \nit. The righteous are quite right that mainstream contemporary Judaism \nis in many ways legalistic, even uninspiring. But to act more \neffectively on these good desires for holiness, the righteous could use a\n more robust anthropology. Many of them mock the traditional institution\n of marriage, preferring to remain celibate in preparation for the \ncoming Judgment. Some of them participate in \u201cordinations\u201d, a \nGalilee-area rite where people promise to stay celibate for their whole \nlife. Often this is combined with communal living and the sharing of \nproperty in common. In my view, the righteous are blind to grave \ndangers: they are making themselves human test subjects in a social \nexperiment that is bound to prove destructive.
\nI told my righteous interlocutors that, frankly, I feared the \nrighteousness community would come to represent the social equivalent of\n the Divine Judgment that ben Yosef is worried about. After all, if they\n convince the Romans to adopt an attitude of meek nonviolence, the \nEmpire could lose its military might and collapse, leading to a Dark Age\n that kills millions. The righteous are a powerful, loving, \ncompassionate entity, interested in forgiving everybody. How can we be \nsure they aren\u2019t creating the God they claim to worship?
\n(source, sort of)
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