Pure religion: James 1:27

Most of us are rightly afraid of becoming infected. In circumstances like the ones we are currently experiencing, our sense of invisible dangers is heightened. Although we are not used to this type of danger on a global scale, the history of humanity is marked by contagious diseases that threatened the existence of communities, large and small. It is this threat to life that has given these invisible enemies, often with very visible symptoms, the potential to enter the religious imagination and vocabulary. Contamination, disease and impurity, as threats to the lives of individuals and communities, have taken on a new meaning. For us Christians, we are led to think of the book of Leviticus and all its guidelines on contamination and impurity. In ancient Israel, this concept of contamination and impurity encompassed both health issues, such as diseases and bodily fluids, as well as physical and moral issues. For example, animals could be considered “clean” or “unclean,” and people’s behavior could generate impurity and cause contamination of sacred objects. Unfortunately, this way of understanding contamination and impurity could be applied to ethnic issues. The New Testament is full of controversies about this at the beginning of the movement of followers of Jesus. Among these controversies, the most notorious is whether Jews and Gentiles could have communion without worrying about contamination from impurities? James, who was both a Jew and a Christian, turns this whole discussion on its head. His way of understanding contamination and impurity is very significant for all times. However, as our sensitivities on the subject are heightened in the face of a pandemic, reading the letter of James is even more significant today.

"God, the Father, considers it pure and undefiled religion to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, keeping oneself untainted by the world" (James 1.27).

In the first chapter of James' letter, there is a compilation of wisdom sayings. This chapter introduces various subjects that James will deal with in the course of the next 4 chapters of his letter. By concluding the first chapter with verse 27, James converges everything that has come before, and what will come after, in this brief statement about "religion". So in this verse we have the summary of the whole letter and of James' theology. Like a good Jewish sage, James has an excellent ability to create proverbs that are short in content and dense in meaning.

James' starting point is God, but not as a concept, but as a person with a specific identity: the father. The basis of this identity, as far as can be seen in James' letter, is that God is a generous giver (see James 1.5; 4.6). This is how, for example, God's fatherhood is explained in James 1:17: "Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father who created the lights in heaven". Thus, God's fatherhood lies in his willingness to care for all creation by giving good gifts to everyone. Precisely because he cares about the good of all creation and everyone, God, the father, has a special care for those in society who are deprived of enjoying these good divine gifts in creation. For this reason, both in the letter of James and in its theological source from the Old Testament, God's fatherhood is linked to the way God cares for orphans and widows (for example, Hosea 14:3; Psalms 10:14; Psalms 68:5-6). It is the fatherhood of God, who cares for the whole of creation by dispensing gifts to all, and his special care for the most vulnerable in society, that explains an important insight of James. For him, God has chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that God has promised to those who love him (see James 2.5). Thus, we see that orphans and widows represent the group of people and social groups in a situation of great vulnerability and need.

Having this starting point, we can understand all the other issues in the verse: the definition of pure and undefiled religion for God, as well as the contrast between God and pure and undefiled religion on the one hand, and the world on the other. Let's start with the latter: the world.

For James, the world is not creation or the place where people live. The world is a reality in opposition to God. So, if God is a generous father who takes care of all creation, especially the most vulnerable and needy, dispensing good gifts, what would the world be? Firstly, the world must be a place marked by greed and not generosity. Secondly, the world must be a place marked by selfishness and not by concern for the whole. Thirdly, the world must be a place of self-exaltation, privilege, status and contempt for the most vulnerable. In a way, James establishes the characteristics of the world from the lifestyle of the affluent rich. According to James, the rich live according to "earthly, animal and demonic" wisdom (James 3.15), based on "bitter envy and selfish concerns" that lead to pride (James 3.14). This reality of the world, lived by the rich and powerful, is a threat to the lives of the most vulnerable. In their greedy and selfish designs, these rich people oppress, condemn and even kill the poor (see James 2.6-7; 5.1-6).

The contrast between God and the world, as can already be implied from the paragraph above, has a personified outline in James. God has the character of a father and is associated with the most vulnerable, while the world has a violent character associated with the rich. This outline becomes clearer when James talks about how people can live in such a way as to be "friends of God" or "friends of the world". As stated in James 4:4, being a friend of the world means being at enmity with God. This is an obvious conclusion, since God and the world are in opposition. But we can consider two important issues here. Firstly, friendship with the world is enmity with God, because those who live this way disregard God and become gods unto themselves. That famous passage from James about people who plan their business trips and good profits without considering God's will is exactly about this (see James 4.13-17). Secondly, since God is bound to the most vulnerable, any action taken against them becomes an action of enmity towards God. Thus, those who despise and abuse the vulnerable, in doing so, show that they despise God himself and place themselves at enmity with him. In this way, the way we relate to the most vulnerable in society is the litmus test of whether we are friends of God or friends of the world.

So what would it mean to be a friend of God? Here we can consider our verse, James 1:27, more directly. Objectively speaking, friendship with God has to do with trusting in God's identity as a generous father, who cares for all creation, and therefore has a special care for the most vulnerable and needy. Such trust, in James, is always active and never intellectual or mental. Therefore, trusting in this identity of God means living a life in accordance with this identity. Thus, the key to our verse lies in the activity of "visiting orphans and widows in their distress". As we will now see, this prescription of James is the key that will unlock the whole meaning of our verse, as well as the whole theology of the letter of James.

When James talks about visiting, he's not talking about stopping by someone's house for a brief period of interaction. The expected activity is to go and meet someone with the intention of caring for them, staying by their side, identifying with their problem, and doing something that will bring a solution to their situation. This is all very clear when James talks about "afflictions". It's a visit in which we enter the other person's life and make their problem our own. No wonder this kind of visit is how the incarnate coming of God, in Jesus, is imagined. Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, when filled with the Holy Spirit, said of what was to come: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people" (Luke 1.68).

Visiting orphans and widows in their distress, therefore, establishes us as friends of God on two counts. As we have already seen, for James, God is a generous father who is especially committed to the good of those who are most vulnerable and in need. By visiting these people, we are doing what God himself does, hence our identity as friends of God. On the other hand, when we visit orphans and widows, we are identifying with them and taking their afflictions upon ourselves. We therefore become humble and dependent on God's "visit", his grace and generosity. In this way, as God has a special commitment to the most vulnerable and needy people, we become targets of this special commitment from God, and are therefore considered friends of God.

It is in this tension between friendship with God and friendship with the world that we can understand the tension between purity and impurity established by James. In both the Old Testament and ancient Judaism, purity and impurity had ritual aspects, but also moral aspects. Even while maintaining the moral character of ritual observance, ancient Judaism saw the tension between purity and impurity as a requirement for certain exclusive behaviors, that is, segregation. The best-known and most notorious aspect of this, which we know from the New Testament, was the prohibition of table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles. In other religious circles, including today, where there is an emphasis on purity and impurity, there is a tendency to create rules of isolation and social exclusion, as well as taboos on people, places and certain activities. In this view of reality, the world and God are literally associated with certain places, people and activities. When James speaks of friendship with God and friendship with the world, as well as purity and impurity, he establishes as a criterion a moral aspect of God's identity. We remain pure by following the logic of God's action in creation. We contaminate ourselves with the world by following the logic of human action in the world. God's logic is the generous care of a father for the good of all, especially the most vulnerable. The logic of the world is greed, selfishness, arrogance and violence, that is, that which leads to self-benefit at the expense of others, creating affluent rich and oppressed poor.

The most interesting thing about the way James establishes the tension between purity and impurity is how he creates a causal relationship between the two. For many Christians, the way to avoid being contaminated by the world, i.e. greed, selfishness, arrogance, etc., comes through a kind of sanctification, or purification, based on isolation, exclusion and intellectual and introspective exercises of piety. James is very hands-on about this. For him, we keep ourselves uncontaminated by the world by visiting orphans and widows in their afflictions. In James' theology, sanctification is identification with God, in other words, friendship with God. And this friendship, as we have seen, inevitably involves visiting the vulnerable and needy. This makes perfect sense, because greed, selfishness and arrogance are combated with practices of solidarity, generosity and humiliation, simple as that.

Finally, the most important part. How do we understand James' statement that God considers this to be pure and perfect religion? What James means by religion are acts of worship in conformity with who God is in his actions in creation. There is thus a tenor of intellectual understanding about God's identity. However, for James, we know God by his actions, and our knowledge of God is likewise tied to our actions. For James, the religion, piety, creed, confession of faith and theology approved by the God of Jesus Christ is to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions.

This is an extremely relevant message in any circumstance of our human experience. But it has a very profound meaning when the situation of vulnerability and need of millions of people is aggravated by the contamination of a virus. If James is right in his theology, and we have many reasons to believe that he is, then this is a crucial moment for the Christian religion. Will we be marked by friendship with the world? Will we make greedy, selfish and arrogant decisions, allowing ourselves to be contaminated by the world, even if they are seemingly pious decisions? Or will we be marked by friendship with God? Will we make decisions based on parental generosity for the good of all, especially the most vulnerable and needy, making us humble and dependent on God's grace and generosity? The big question that every Christian must answer at this time is this: does my religion lead me to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions?