The Need to Be Right (or for Others to Be Wrong)

  Can we talk?

Is it just me, or does it seem that, in general, Christianity has evolved into a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong? Even among the theological elitists, there is almost a smugness in finding something "wrong" in someone else's witness. 

Maybe it’s always been that way. The New Testament Gospels, written in the last half of the first century partly responded to heresy. The epistles, written a generation or so earlier, even though they were primarily personal letters addressing practical questions, also addressed foundations of doctrine and confronted “false teachings.”

Peter and Paul, the primary influencers of the first generation of the church—Peter in Jerusalem among Jewish converts and Paul throughout Turkey, Greece and into Rome, working among Greco/Roman converts—carried on a bitter disagreement until it was resolved at the Jerusalem Council (cf. Acts 15). What we learn through their dispute and its resolution is that Christianity is adaptable; it touches people where they are with no prerequisite hoops to jump through in preparation to receive our “right” doctrine.

The infamous Inquisitions and Crusades of the Middle Ages, and even the Protestant Reformation itself, all were intended to punish heresy and infidelity and to extend “correct” doctrine.

So, maybe the greatest heritage of Christianity from the beginning is conflict over who gets it right and who gets it wrong.

More primal is the question of “ultimate reality” and my/our relationship with it: Who gets in and who gets thrown out. Calvinism, in particular, focused more on what is considered “wrong” than on what is considered “right.” The emphasis was on who gets in and who doesn’t, and Calvin made it pretty darn difficult to “get it.”

Bottom line, it all goes back to the Garden and the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Why would “the man” (adam in Hebrew) want to “know” good and evil? He was in paradise with everything provided, including a mutually gratifying mate.

But there was the tempter: “You’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Hmmmm. "If I 'know,' I’ll be in control (like God). I can do good and avoid evil and thus, by my own initiative, can control my own destiny." But what happened instead was the introduction of doubt: “What if I get it wrong?”

From that moment (one understanding of original sin?), the history of humanity has been a desperate sense of alienation from self and from ultimate reality, and a related search for assurance that I’m getting it right. Faith says, “Just trust God’s word that you are loved and accepted.” But the opposite of Faith is not doubt. It’s knowledge. And it is knowledge that produces doubt, because with knowing comes unknowing--an awareness of the limits of our knowledge; thus, “What if I get it wrong?”

So, my hypothesis is that the right/wrong dichotomy that drives the divisiveness in humanity (including the church) is a manifestation of original sin: the need to know and the rejection of trust.

And one human myth says the way to be assured that “I’m right” is to label those who disagree with me as “wrong.”

What we learn through Luke 9:49-50[1], Mark 9:38-40[2], and Philippians 1:15-18[3] is that even those who teach a different doctrine are affirmed in their witness by both Jesus and Paul[4]; therefore, can be affirmed by us.

What if we simply live as if we truly believe what we say we believe, viz., that “God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)? Did God fail in God’s purpose? Do we really believe that “through him” (Jesus) we are made at one (atoned) with God and with each other; indeed, with ourselves?

Was God only partially successful in God’s intention that “the world through him might be saved?” Could God not save some because God had set up rules that have to be followed—hoops through which we have to jump—as prerequisites to realizing success? Wouldn’t that put the burden on us, rather than on the grace of God? Or is grace selective? Does grace exclude? Is grace insufficient to cover all our faults and errors?

How would we relate to another person who disagrees with us if we experienced no need to prove him/her wrong? How would we relate if we had no need to prove ourselves right? How would we relate if we trusted that our relationship with God and our eternal destinies (and the other person’s relationship with God and eternal destiny) are functions of God’s grace and not of our being right?

At another level, when you judge whether another person’s faith is wrong, does that exercise bring you closer to God? Do you experience God’s presence in the act of assigning right/wrong absolutes on others—or yourself?

I suspect you’re somewhat like me: you’re more likely to feel a divine presence when you live and relate as if you truly believe what you say you believe, and exercise that belief, not through comparing doctrine or theology, but through an imitation of Jesus, who did not come to condemn the world…

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

 

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[1] “John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us.’ ⁵⁰But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.’” (NRSVUE)

[2] “John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.’ ³⁹But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him, for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰Whoever is not against us is for us.’” (NRSVUE)

[3]  “Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry but others from goodwill. ¹⁶These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; ¹⁷the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. ¹⁸What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice.” (NRSVUE)

[4] A particularly cogent observation, since one recent right/wrong discussion regards the influence of Paul on current understandings of Jesus. Some say current Christianity is more a reflection of Paul than of Jesus, and that Paul misleads the faith (read: “is wrong”). I’m only just discovering that argument, and am not yet informed enough to weigh in.

 

God, Give Me Patience! Right Now!

 

Sunday I preached from II Timothy 4:1-6, a part of which reads, “I solemnly urge you: ²proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching. ³For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires ⁴and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.[1] 

Patience. On the contrary, I grow impatient with a subculture that is increasingly proud of its inhumanity—a subculture that dresses up rudeness and cruelty as sacred and treats kindness and compassion as weak and unchristian—a subculture that insults  and characterizes kindness as “Snowflake” and “Bleeding Heart.”

Last week, I was horrified watching some manifestations of that subculture of inhumanity shipping exhausted migrants to other areas of the country in brazen acts, not only of political posturing and vengeance, but also of outright cruelty. And one of their number appeared on television boasting, “That’s just the beginning.”

Beyond the acts themselves, I’ve grown impatient with, as John Pavlovitz puts it, “…the theological and mental gymnastics so many professing Christians have engaged while trying to justify traumatizing already traumatized people.”[2]

 And the shameless disregard for humanity is increasing, both in frequency and in severity, and so is my impatience. (Sorry, Paul.)

The saddest part is that up front, leading the pack, are people who are confessing Christians! How did they miss the more than 500 times the words, “kind,” and “kindness,” are used in the Bible to describe God’s relationship to humanity and, therefore, God’s expectation of the creatures created in God’s own image? How did they miss the crystal clear message in Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”

“Yeah, but…” They rationalize and justify their inhumane behavior not on the basis of faith or Holy Writ, but on assumed-but-undocumented threats  and/or some mythical and unbiblical standard of worthiness. They whine about “illegal aliens,” and then take away the legal means by which immigrants can enter our country.

How can they justify their selective inhumanity as professing Christians while ignoring Jesus’ injunction to “love your enemies?”[3]

Of course, if I am totally honest, I must ask, “What if I’m the one who’s wrong?” Maybe I read something wrong when Moses says, twice (Exodus 22 & 23): “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Maybe I miss something when I read twice in the same chapter of Leviticus (19:33, 34): “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

Fourteen times in Genesis Abraham is described as “an alien in Canaan—an alien in the land of the Philistines.” And as Moses is preparing the Israelites to enter the Promised Land after their Exodus from Egyptian bondage, he instructs them to use as a part of their liturgical life the confession, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien…” (Deuteronomy 26:5 NRSVUE)

Am I missing something? Am I wrong when I apply that same principle to White, Anglo-Saxons in America? Were we not aliens in 1620?

Whether I’m right or wrong, I have not seen or heard a word from the culture of inhumanity regarding any of the Scriptural teachings about the treatment of aliens and strangers. Moreover, I don’t expect anyone from that subculture to read this blog; therefore, I’m guessing I’m “preaching to the choir.” But I will not be consenting in my silence.

Paraphrasing and adapting Pavlovitz from his blog referenced above, I wonder where professing Christians in that subculture see Jesus in deceiving and shipping frightened migrants to Blue areas of this country; I wonder how they can “celebrate with joyous middle finger defiance” using human beings as some sort of prop in political posturing and vengeance.

Rather than a basis in ethics, morals, or Judeo/Christian Scriptures, the rationalization from the culture of inhumanity appeals to the fears and underlying hatred (not our “better angels”) of anyone who is “different.”

In contrast, I saw Jesus in the response of the people in Martha’s Vineyard, as they recognized and responded to the common humanity of those lost and confused migrants and received them with open arms and open hearts. People in Martha’s Vineyard (some claiming faith and some not) understood that empathy is the only redemptive path when people are hurting and abused and treated like pieces in some revolting political game.[4] It no longer is about “faith” or politics. It’s about common humanity.

And the people in Martha’s Vineyard challenged me in my growing impatience. And through their example I heard the voice of Paul saying, “Teach this. Just teach this and be patient. Teach this and turn it loose. Teach this and have patience and faith to believe that the Word will not return to you void. Just teach this:

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...” (Matthew 25:35)

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

[1] All Scriptural quotes are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition (Chester Heights, PA: Friendship Press, 2021)

[2] How The Religious Right Made Cruelty Sacred and Compassion Unchristian (johnpavlovitz.com)

[3] Twice in the Gospel of Matthew and Twice in the Gospel of Luke!

[4] Again, adapting thoughts from John Pavlovitz’ blog cited above.

Weighing in on Student Loan Forgiveness

 

OK, I’ll weigh in on the loan forgiveness debate, knowingly subjecting myself to the abuse of those who disagree (just as I’ve witnessed those who agree with me abusing those who disagree. Why can’t we have civil discourse anymore? Why can we no longer discuss issues, and instead attack each other? Why must any disagreement deteriorate into a bout of juvenile sibling name-calling?)

I think I understand a lot of the resistance to President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Basically, there’s a juvenile sense of unfairness. I get that; and a part of me empathizes. I paid off my student loans; why does this generation get a free ride? Right? One counter argument is the inequity in the tax system, favoring the rich and the corporations. That also is unfair. Where's the outrage?

A significant number of legislators who oppose $20K student loan forgiveness have had $6-figure PPP loans forgiven. That’s unfair. I couldn’t have been forgiven my $28K automobile loan! There’s far too much unfairness going around, and it’s a valid complaint, and it impacts the entire left/right liberal/conservative spectrum, and I don’t have a better idea.

Some are severely burdened by huge high-interest student loans, while others (like me) have no serious problem paying them off. That also carries a level of unfairness—or at least inequity; nevertheless, the inequity is acknowledged and reflected in the indexing of the loan forgiveness to the income of the debtor.

Another inequity relates to race. Loans to students of color carry a higher interest rate than loans to white students, while black college graduates earn significantly less income than white graduates in the same vocation. That’s unfair.

But here’s the thing: my confusion relates to the tremendous amount of SELECTIVITY regarding which unfair practices are criticized and which are acceptable. Case in point: Vouchers for charter schools are our tax dollars paying for private school education and used to pay private investors in those schools. But tax dollars to cover higher education is a plot by commies and socialists. [Side bar: the matter of selectivity—hypocrisy?—makes up a major difference between the left and right on virtually every issue, and selectivity may be the only bi-partisan element within our political system!]

A major oversight in the student loan forgiveness debate (I’ve not seen anyone from either side of the debate make this point) is that education is not solely the benefit of those who are being educated. There is ample documentation that a culture/nation benefits in direct proportion to an increased level of education within the population. Across the board, the fact is that individual financial benefit to a college graduate is much less today than it was a generation ago, while the cost of education has increased significantly. Documentable statistical trends show that American culture in general has diminished as the educational level had diminished.

I favor free public education through a four-year undergraduate degree or any trade or vocational certification. I favor it for the reason above: the whole nation benefits from a higher level of education and/or vocational training within its population. And since the public—the whole nation—is the major beneficiary, it’s not unfair to expect the beneficiary—the public—to pay.

The issue for me is the transition. How do we get from our broken and declining education system to a free, high-level system like we see in so many other nations who have surpassed the United States in so many ways in the past generation? By “broken and declining” I mean the trend toward sectarian, partisan indoctrination instead of presenting all sides of every issue and teaching the discipline of critical thinking so educated people can make intelligent choices. What I suspect won’t be admitted by those who disagree is that when all sides are presented and critical thinking is applied, the documentable trend always moves toward a more liberal outcome. THAT, I suspect, is the tap root of the debate.

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

Shortcut to Easter

 

People want to move directly from Palm Sunday to Easter. Even before the pandemic, Maundy Thursday services were poorly attended in most churches; and Good Friday services are virtually unheard of, except, maybe, in the Roman Catholic and some Episcopal Churches.

            The music of Good Friday is dark; heavy with minor harmonies. It's not happy praise music. It's not Easter music; it's about the crucifixion of our Lord; so, people want to take a shortcut from Palm Sunday to Easter—stay in the sunlight and avoid the shadows of Holy Week: the confrontation with the merchants who had commercialized the Temple, the controversies with the religious leaders of the city, the open criticism and plotting against Jesus, the betrayal of Judas...

            The loud "Hosannas" of the Triumphal Entry and the excited "He is risen!" of Easter are separated by the cries of the rabble in the streets: "Crucify him!" Between the Palm Branches and the lilies are the thorns. The praises and cheers of the crowd give way to the mockery of concocted charges, and the cloaks thrown in his pathway are replaced by the sting of the whip, the burden of the cross, nails and a spear.

            We'd rather avoid the darkness. In fact, North American culture in general has become, not so much an Ayn Rand seeking of pleasure as a Pollyanna avoidance of unpleasantness—not so much moving toward Easter as going around Good Friday—looking for a shortcut.

            Through Christ God offers "LIFE"—abundant and abiding. Humans respond, "Bless the life I've already chosen, and make my chosen path easy and fruitful and full of lasting happiness and pleasure."

            God says, "I give you life." Humans say, "God, here's what I want from you."

            God says, "I give you my Son." Humans say, "God, give me financial security and lots of time for recreation and travel and kids who are good athletes and good students and popular in school."

            God says, "What I offer is infinitely better." Humans respond, "Yeah, but I don't have time; I've got to go here and do that and take the kids there and just look at my calendar, God.  I’m stressed out and I just don't have time."

            Today’s culture wants Easter—oh, and Christmas—but fears the cost. But without Good Friday, Easter is just a "fairy tale"—a shallow celebration of bunnies and fuzzy chicks and colored eggs.

Resurrection means nothing unless someone dies.

And therein lies the "Good News". Someone already has died. But you know that. And I keep coming back to a verse I remember from Paul: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (I Corinthians 15:19 NRSV)

I don’t think that’s our problem. One of the contradictions in Christianity today is the avoidance of “this life.” I have a good friend who’s a pastor in another denomination who won’t have anything to do with the democratic process in our nation. “I won’t vote,” he says. “There’s no point. None of the social problems we have are going to be worked out until Christ returns.”

Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “But Jesus wasn’t crucified because he preached about going to heaven when we die. He was crucified because he called upon the wealthy to feed the hungry. He was crucified by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff’s office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar.”[1]

Will Willimon wrote in his blogsite, “Peculiar Prophet,” “I remember being at a retreat once where the leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. As we shared, one woman stood up and said, “I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, ‘Who is it that told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?’”

According to John’s gospel, Jesus died because he told the truth to everyone he met. He was the truth, a perfect mirror in which people saw themselves through God’s own eyes. And we humans don’t want to see ourselves as we are. We want to see ourselves as we fantasize: superhero/super model/super mom, and “right” about everything. We don’t want truth; we want confirmation.

What happened then is happening now. In the presence of Christ’s integrity, human pretense is exposed. In the presence of his faithfulness, human self-deceit is brought to light.

And so, he must die. The world wants him dead: Caesar wants him dead, and Caiaphas wants him dead, because he refuses to confirm the way of life they have chosen, and they refuse to look into the mirror of truth with which he confronts them.

Resurrection means nothing unless someone dies. New life is costly. Its price is the rejection of all that contradicts the abundant life Jesus preached, lived to the fullest, and offers to all humanity. But we are limited by the clay of which we are made, and so Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” (I Corinthians 13:12 NRSV) In view of these limitations, the poet writes, “The world is too much with us.”[2]

Resurrection means nothing unless someone dies. But Sunday’s coming!

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Truth to Tell,” from “The Perfect Mirror,” copyright 1998 Christian Century Foundation., 89-92.

[2] William Wordsworth, a sonnet.

Reclothing the Emperor

 I suspect you are familiar with Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A pair of swindlers posing as tailors offer to supply the emperor with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. Several officials, and then the emperor himself, occasionally check their progress. Obviously, the looms are empty, but everyone pretends otherwise to avoid being thought a fool. Finally, the tailers are finished. They mime dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever.

When the newly converted Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the religion of the realm and marched his army into the sea as an act of baptism, the church began, slowly at first and then headlong, a process of adopting the model of empire as the way to get things done. Brief exceptions notwithstanding, since that time (early 4^th century), whenever the church has advanced, it has been on the basis of expansion by conquest (including military conquest) and rule of law, enforcing its presence through political power and inquisition and outright fear. Beginning with Augustine and reinforced by Calvin, the primary instrument of control and intimidation has been the fear of hell.

And the masses went along with the sham, fearing the fires of hell if they didn’t. And then along came Martin Luther, who exposed the emperor’s nakedness with his 95 reasons the church more closely resembled the empire than the kingdom of God.

The Protestant Reformation exposed corruption in church leadership and restored a sense of integrity. The church’s political and police power was challenged, and except in isolated areas diminished over the next several generations. But John Calvin kept the fires of hell stoked, and the empire model remains the primary mode of operations for the church even today.

What changed during the Reformation was a shift of the church’s source of power and control. With the political and police power of the state diminishing,[1] the church’s grasp of power evolved ideologically; nevertheless, the basic instrument of control has remained intact, viz., the fear of hell.

But now a new generation is coming into maturity[2] and is shouting, “The emperor has no clothes!” And a new movement is rediscovering a way to reclothe the emperor. Briefly, I say “rediscover” because the clothes in which the emperor will be dressed are not new. They are found in some of the earliest writings of the church (prior to Constantine and Augustine), and in some writings in my own lifetime. So, why have these clothes not been worn—why have these writings not been at the forefront of the church’s life and teaching and ministry? Maybe because the emperor doesn’t want to admit to being naked?

In 500 words or less, essentially in the original languages of the Scriptures, the concept of God’s punishment, including the idea of hell, are redemptive rather than punitive. Insofar as human suffering is to be understood as divinely inflicted, it is less like a courtroom and more like a hospital operating room. What pain and suffering are experienced are necessary elements of a process of healing and restoration.

Another biblical metaphor is the smelter whose fire melts the metal so the impurities float to the top where they can be skimmed off, and pure metal remains.

A bit more complicated is the idea that God’s punishment, and particularly hell, are forever. The primary New Testament word translated forever did not originally imply eternity. The word is αιών (ai–ón), which is the root of the English word, eon. It means “a very large division of geologic time usually longer than an era” (Mirriam-Webster). It was not translated “forever” until the time of Augustine in the early 4^th century. In some cases, it remains translated “age,” which implies a beginning and an ending, and there is the clear idea that one eon follows another: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32 NRSV).[3]

Thus, the call to faithfulness is more biblically accurate when instead of inflicting the fear of eternal hell, it offers the hope of healing and restoration, even though the process may be painful. In this perspective, the spiritual disciplines are practiced, not to earn God’s love and peace, but to experience life lived abundantly in that already gifted condition.

While I always admit to limitations in my understanding and practice of Christianity (“I see as if through a pane of flawed glass” ~ my paraphrase of I Corinthians 13:12), from where I sit, the reclothed emperor looks resplendent! What remains is to reimage the church in some model other than “empire.”

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

If I've piqued your curiosity, here are a few bibliographical suggestions for further reading:

Artman, David, Grace Saves All: The Necessity of Christian Universalism. (Wipf and Stock, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020).

Karris, Mark Gregory. Religious Refugees (Quoir. 2020)

Zahnd, Brian. A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace (David C Cook. 2020).

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[1] The separation of church and state reached its peak of influence during the early generations of the United States; however, it remains a relative thing, and that unholy marriage has never completely been dissolved.

[2] Actually at least two generations as Strauss and Howe, et al identify them, beginning with “Generation X”.

[3] The foregoing comment regarding “eon” is encapsulated from David Artman, Grace Saves All: The Necessity of Christian Universalism. Wipf and Stock, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

The First Mutation

 “The Church is a place of great beauty and healing. It can also be a place that traumatizes, excludes, and abuses.”[1]

From the very beginning—the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament—the church has been divided. In chapter 15 Peter and Paul, the leading voices of the nascent church, locked horns over whether Gentiles should become Jews (read: be circumcised) before being accepted into the church.

The church in Corinth was divided over almost everything: which spiritual gifts were more important, whose baptism counted, which preacher they should follow… Even the Lord’s Supper was a point of contention.

Heresies abounded in that first generation of the church: Gnosticism, Docetism, Arianism, etc. The overarching question was “Who’s right?” How can we make sure we get it right, so we won’t go to hell when we die? (More about hell in the next blog!)

That issue of who’s right and who’s wrong never has been resolved within the historic church. I saw a headline today (I didn’t read the article. The headline was upsetting enough.); it read, “All Baptisms Performed by Phoenix Priest Invalid Because He Changed One Word.” Good grief!

Some of the apostles seemed to catch momentary glimpses of what was right; but they were inconsistent in their proclamation of it. Some of the early church fathers—I’m thinking specifically of Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253)—seemed to get it right, at least part of the time. Of course, even this paragraph represents my own conviction that I’m right. (One difference is that I accept the human limitations described by the title of my blogsite: “Flawed Glass,” based on I Corinthians 13:12. I accept the possibility that I may be wrong.)

The purpose and objective of spiritual discipline—both individually and in community—is not to attain that divine love, but to experience what already is and always has been.[2]

But there’s that first mutation thing. From primordial wondering about things unseen, we humans have wanted to get it right. We have a need to be loved and accepted. We have a need to make sure we’re loved and accepted. We don’t want that faith and trust stuff, we want a solid guarantee! So we develop a binary “right/wrong” system by which we can be sure. Oral Roberts often said, “I know that I know that I know.”

So that first mutation is the move from trust to certitude. It’s not a new thing; it’s a throwback to a prehistoric human need to control the unknown. It is a rejection of faith and trust.

The truth is: nobody ever gets it right! That’s why we need grace. It’s not about being right. It never was. It’s about being loved and accepted by the source of all love. John got it right (I John 4:8): God is love!

Red, brown, yellow, black, white: you are loved! LGBTQ/Straight: you are loved! Republican/Democrat/Libertarian/Socialist/Communist: you are loved!

And here’s the thing: when we are experiencing love and acceptance, we are free from all that worry and anxiety about whether we’re “right.” The reason we wanted to be “right” in the first place was just to be loved and accepted. When we experience love we are free to love, without concern for ourselves and without concern about whether the recipient of our love is worthy, or whether our love will be returned. We already are loved!

The natural response to experienced love is to love in return. We worship the God who is Love with praise, adoration and thanksgiving, and we serve the God who is Love by loving the people God loves, which excludes nobody! Thanks be to God!

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Bruce Epperly, endorsing Mark Gregory Karris, Religious Refugees (Orange, California: Quoir, Kindle Edition, 2020) p. 4.

[2] I’m grateful for this insight discovered in David Artman, Grace Saves All: The Necessity of Christian Universalism (Wipf and Stock, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition 2020) p. 105.

Spiritual Archeology

The longer I live and study the Scriptural and other witnesses of my faith, the more I discover how little my faith, and the faith of almost all Christians I know, is based on the life—the teachings, the examples, and the ultimate rejection of the world’s values—of Jesus of Nazareth. We quote selective—selective—sound bites from the Bible to defend a faith and spirituality that scarcely models the Carpenter of Galilee, opting instead to choose one of the many mutations that have emerged, beginning in the fourth and fifth centuries (Current Era).

An honest and more nearly accurate approach to Christianity would resemble spiritual archeology, digging through the many layers of spiritual mutations, noting how Christianity in each historic period reflected its culture, rather than molding its culture according to the Gospels, until finally reaching—as nearly as possible—the original meaning and intent of Jesus.

The choice of which gospels and epistles would form the definitive Christian witness (New Testament) was not decided until the end of the fourth century (Council of Carthage in AD 397). By then, the mutations already had begun.

[Quick aside to address the elephant in the room: the question of divine inspiration. With more than 450 English translations today dating back to the early 16^th century[1] (and countless translations into other languages), none of which are identical, and with literally thousands of more ancient documents, scrolls, and codices in the original languages dating back to the fifth century[2], again, none of which are identical, which one is the divinely inspired version? None of the original documents survive.]

In the early fourth century when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and declared Christianity to be the religion of the realm, two mutations resulted. The first was that Christianity became the vassal of the empire, with a primary role of chaplain of state, defending and confirming the affairs of state (including military imperialism). This mutation reflects the direct opposite of any New Testament concept and resulted (as one example) in the anti-Christ Crusades of the middle ages. It also is emerging today into a frightening level in American Christian Nationalism.

Second, when Constantine convened the First Council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity mutated from a kerygmatic[3] faith to a credal religion. What had been for 300 years a dynamic behavioral and relational moral response within a community to a preached message of God’s presence and love as demonstrated through Jesus of Nazareth, at Nicaea mutated into a static mental assent to the Creed of Nicaea, with morality defined by the laws of the Empire.

A hundred years later Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine) engineered another mutation. Until then, in the Christian understanding of Scripture, divine punishment was restorative. Like a medical procedure that inflicts pain in the process of healing, or like the smelting process of melting metal ore to extract the sluff and refine the metal to a state of purity, God’s punishment was seen as a part of divine healing and purification. Even the biblical teaching related to hell was understood as a part of that divine healing process.[4]

Under Augustine’s influence, divine punishment mutated into a punitive thing. Moreover, until Augustine, the New Testament word αιών (ai - ón) was understood to mean essentially what it means in today’s English, namely, “eon” or “age.” The biblical understanding of eternity is an unending series of eons or ages. From the time of Augustine, when the word appears in Scripture it usually is translated, “eternity.” It is not thus translated in other religious or secular contexts.

Thus, what originally was described God’s punishment, including hell, as relating to an eon or an age and accomplishing its intended purpose of restoration, under Augustine mutated into a concept of eternal, punitive damnation and punishment with no hope of restoration.

That mutation, with some variations, continues at the center and core of most Christianity. The fear of eternal damnation became a primary tool of control, even of monarchy, and was wielded like a weapon to keep the rabble in line during the middle age corruptions and Inquisitions of the church. It reached its peak and its harshest application under John Calvin and Puritanism. It continues today in the offshoot denominations and sects of Calvinism.

There have been other mutations, like the emergence of American Christian Nationalism; but probably none have had greater or longer lasting influence than the Constantine/Augustine/Calvin combo. But the fundamental result is the emergence of a religion based upon fear: fear of getting it wrong and thus inheriting eternal damnation. Each successive sectarian division of Christ’s Body assumes an exclusive and infallible grasp of the truth, with growing animosity toward any person or group who perceives reality differently.

The fallacy or heresy of each successive mutation is that it places the burden and responsibility of the divine/human relationship squarely upon the shoulders of humanity (if we get it right we go to heaven when we die; if we don’t get it right, we go to hell—forever!)—it’s all up to us—which is a direct contradiction of the New Testament’s undeniable witness that it is God’s grace alone, and not any human effort or action or credal affirmation or sinner’s prayer that determines either the immediate or the eternal destinies of humanity.

In that context, our relationship with God takes on the character of a child’s relationship with a loving parent, fully trusting and gratefully responding with thanksgiving and praise, and humbly seeking to please that parent[5] in all we do and say. “God is love” (I John 4:8), and “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love” (I John 4:18 NRSV).

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] John Wycliffe is the first known translator of the Bible into English in the 14^th century; however, William Tyndale’s translation (ca. 1525) was the first printed English version.

[2] Actually, some fragments date to the turn of the first century, e.g., the John Rylands fragment of the Gospel of John.

[3] Kerygma comes from the Greek word meaning “to proclaim” or, as applied in Christianity, “to preach.” Early 20^th century theologians like C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann suggested that the gospels were a literary type that was unique in the ancient world. They called it kerygma and described it as a later development of preaching which morphed into a literary form. The Kerygma has come to denote the irreducible essence of Christian apostolic preaching, especially in its references to Jesus.

[4] See the writings of Origen of Alexandria in the early third century, as well as many other early Church Fathers.

[5] In contrast to responding out of fear of eternal punishment.