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If Only

August 20, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

A while back, I was at a church service and at one point the worship leader read the words of Jesus from Matthew 22:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

After quoting the passage, he went on to say that the entire Bible could be boiled down to these verses.

Several people uttered “amen” and although I agreed wholeheartedly, on the inside, I felt my heart sink a little as I thought “If only…”

If only we truly believed that.

If only we lived as though the Bible really could be boiled down to these few verses.

If only these two commands could be the barometer not only for how we express our faith, but how we define it.

If only we could consider that part of the power and supreme importance of these commands lie in the fact that they transcend doctrine and denomination and religion altogether.

If only we could consider how this teaching may have affected those who initially heard it.

Humor me while we think about that last one for a minute. Let’s say I happened to be present when Jesus spoke these words and I was captured as I considered the intensity of a teaching that claimed that all of the law and the prophets – in other words, the equivalent at the time of our Bible – could be summed up by these verses. And if I made the radical step to live the rest of my life accordingly, would that have been enough?

Even if I never heard another thing about Jesus – how or why he ultimately died, or whether he was thought to be just a rabbi, or a messiah, or somehow divine. I’m not sure how likely such a scenario would be, but it’s not out of the question to consider it and then go on to ponder, “Would that have been enough?”

According to Jesus, it would’ve been, especially if we consider that the gospel of Luke places these commandments in the context of how to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds, “Do this and you will live.”

If it was good enough for the people following Jesus then, is it not good enough for us now?

It’s hard to know what kind of widespread impact such a teaching had on those who heard it, but it must’ve had an impact on at least some the early followers of Jesus. In a previous post, I talked briefly about the Didache, a church handbook that likely dates to the first century and that gives us a compelling look at the teachings and practices of some of the earliest Jesus followers.

Interestingly enough, the Didache calls out “the way of life” and “the way of death.” The way of life begins by loving God, loving your neighbor as yourself, and not doing to others what you would not want done to you. Ironically, for these Jesus followers, the ways of life and death had nothing to do with orthodox beliefs or doctrines. Things were much simpler hundreds of years before a Bible was canonized and creeds were formulated.

But here we are 2,000 years later. And as nice it sounds to sum the Bible up with the two greatest commands as identified by Jesus, it simply doesn’t work for us. It’s as though we have to define what it means to love God properly, and, in doing so, we create the very structures and doctrines and systems of belief that love is supposed to transcend; indeed, that love has the power to completely obliterate… if we’d allow it to. But instead, we effectively create a whole new version of “the law and prophets,” perhaps because we don’t believe that everything will be just fine if only we’d love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is all particularly relevant in my life right now. For whatever reason, God has brought me beyond the boundaries of the Christian box where I’ve spent most of my life. Of course I didn’t realize I was in a box; I don’t think any of us ever do. And I didn’t set out to venture here, but I’m here, having been pressed to truly engage some hard questions and to probe the status quo of my belief system. And at times it’s been terrifying, largely because where I come from, that’s not okay. (Well, it’s okay as long as you ultimately return to the established answers and beliefs.)

No one wants to mess with the box. I certainly didn’t. And I think it’s because we don’t see it as a box; we see it as ultimate truth.

Frankly, the whole situation just sucks.

It sucks because I’ve invested so much of my life into a church family where there simply isn’t room to grow beyond the established ideas, conclusions, and doctrines (in other words, beyond the boundaries of the box that are defined as truth).

It sucks that even though I’ve invested years and years and years, there’s no possibility that there might be some merit to my evolving views. No possibility that I’ve come to new conclusions responsibly and faithfully.

And it sucks to be backed into a figurative corner and effectively told “It’s not okay to believe those things and it’s even less okay to make those beliefs public. If you want to stick around here, you have to believe X, Y, and Z. These things are non-negotiable.”

And, as if all of that’s not enough, it sucks that now I’m somehow seen as a threat by some because I have “divergent views.”

Divergent views that ironically don’t conflict at all with loving God and loving my neighbor as myself.

Divergent views that couldn’t have even been an issue when Jesus was traipsing around Palestine because they’re only in conflict with doctrines or teachings that developed much later.

But as much as it sucks, I get it.

I understand that, to some extent, there’s an institution that needs to be protected. And I get that people’s faith is in differing places and we need to be sensitive to that, not randomly wreaking havoc on the faith of others.

As one author put it, the challenge is that we end up teaching to the lowest common denominator in order to avoid ruffling the feathers of people in the congregation. It hardly seems fair. Stuff that’s been common knowledge throughout biblical scholarship for centuries doesn’t make it to the average church member (for any number of reasons). And it’s unfortunate, because it has the potential to help our faith grow in amazing ways. And if we engage it responsibly, it doesn’t have to be scary or threatening. It might make us rethink some of our certainties, but history has shown us that that’s usually not a bad thing. It’s just not easy.

In fact, one minister I was talking with fully acknowledged that there may not be anything wrong with these so-called divergent views. If people want to dive into doctrines or some of the deeper topics and they ultimately come to a differing opinion that doesn’t mesh with a traditional view, that’s okay. The problem is, in order for ministers to truly understand these things so they can bring a responsible understanding of them to the congregation, it takes work. A lot of it.

Plus, it can potentially get very messy and uncomfortable, which creates even more work as feathers get ruffled within the congregation. And who wants extra work? As a result, many topics get avoided altogether as staff members opt to keep the message from the pulpit as simple as possible.

Unfortunately, it puts people with said divergent views in a tricky spot, because when differing views haven’t been engaged from the pulpit, they’re seen as threatening. And if word gets out, it can get messy, which means more work for the minister.

And so, the easiest and cleanest way to deal with a situation like this is to say, “It’s not okay to believe these things and it’s even less okay to make these beliefs public. Either toe the party line or leave so as to not disturb anyone else.”

Sigh. Really? Those are the only options, lest I end up being marked as “divisive”?

So here I am on the heels of such a mess, trying to process the conflicting and at times overwhelming emotions that come raging in like a tidal wave.

Anger. Rage. Sorrow. Pain. Confusion.

In some ways, it feels what I imagine a divorce might feel like. An unnecessary divorce, at that.

Plenty of people have pointed out that it’s best this way. It’s best to be in an environment where my path is not only welcomed, but encouraged, perhaps even celebrated. An environment where questions aren’t seen as a threat and where faith is greater than doctrine and tradition.

And many have posed the question of why I’d want to even try to be somewhere that doesn’t allow that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah – I get it. And I agree wholeheartedly. But it still sucks, because the pain isn’t any less real.

And as I try to process it all, I circle back to the words of Jesus.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’…and… ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

And I think “If only…”

If only.

Objects of Wrath

August 6, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

I was recently reading a blog post and the author said that if you blog long enough, eventually you’ll be called a heretic. I hadn’t even been blogging for two months before that happened to me. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Honestly, that’s part of the reason I initially resisted starting a blog or writing a book to begin with. I didn’t want to invite controversy into my life or the life of my family. But when you feel strongly called to do something, there comes a point when you have to let go of fear and simply surrender to the path you’re called to be on.

The furor that arose over some of the things I’d written was far more than I expected. Not only that, some of it was directed at things that I found surprising. I knew that expressing my evolving views on an issue as controversial as homosexuality was akin to kicking a hornet’s nest. I fully expected some hides to be chapped over that, so I was seriously taken aback to hear instead that I was subverting and attacking the heart of the gospel message. Wait. What?

In one of my first articles, I talked about how certain elements of the Christian story can be internalized such that they shape us in unhealthy ways. And I mentioned that I’d lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that we’re enemies of God without the blood of Jesus.

This swiftly became a massive problem because, as I was informed, “enemies of God” and “objects of wrath” are crucial themes that lie at the heart of the gospel message. And thus I was subverting the gospel.

Wow. I’m still perplexed by that. I thought love was at the heart of the gospel message.

To equate growing weary of hearing that I’m an enemy of God without the blood of Jesus with subverting and attacking the gospel message doesn’t compute with me. Especially considering that, in the gospel accounts, Jesus didn’t go around telling people that they were enemies of God. Or objects of wrath, for that matter.

In fact, didn’t Jesus look upon those who were discarded by society and show them that they had value?

Didn’t he say something about how the second most important thing is to love others?

Didn’t he look on people with compassion and talk about them being harassed and helpless, not objects of wrath?

In the parable of the prodigal son, do we get the sense that the dad had to hold back his wrath against the son?

The intense imagery associated with a term like “objects of wrath” simply doesn’t seem to have been crucial to what Jesus was trying to convey. This leads me to think that plenty of his first followers lived their lives without ever entertaining the notion that they were objects of wrath, let alone embracing it as crucial to their understanding of the Jesus message.

Speaking of the Jesus message, I was recently hanging out with some friends and we were reading and discussing some prayers from the Didache, an early church handbook, of sorts. Likely dating from the late first century, it contains various teachings on ethics and provides details on practices such as baptism and communion. Some people have dated the Didache as early as the mid first century, which would make it earlier than at least some of the gospel accounts. But even if it dates to the late first century, that still puts it within the same time frame that the later gospels were written. So it gives us a peek into practices and beliefs of some of the earliest Jesus communities.

I’ve often heard that the first-century church is the model for what God always intended. Well, minus the part about sleeping with in-laws, getting drunk at communion, suing each other, and the like. But seriously, what better way to get a glimpse into the first-century church than looking at a first-century church manual that specifically outlines the church’s practices? One that likely pre-dates the book of Acts, by the way.

In the Didache’s section on the Eucharist (more commonly known as the Lord’s Supper or communion in evangelical America), the prayers that are recited in conjunction with the bread and the cup are quite surprising.

“We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David thy Son, which you have made known to us through Jesus thy Son… We thank thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus thy Son… We thank thee, holy Father, for thy holy name, which thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus thy Son…”

As soon as we were done reading these prayers, everyone was quick to make some very interesting points.

“There’s no talk of sin or forgiveness.”

“It says that Jesus revealed life and knowledge.”

“The focus is on what his life stood for, not what his death stood for.”

“There’s no talk of his death at all.”

It was perplexing. How can this have anything to do with a tradition as sacred and central as the Eucharist?

It almost didn’t compute. After all, we exist within a Christian tradition that tends to highlight very different things when it comes to the bread and the cup. Things like Jesus taking our punishment upon himself, Jesus dying in place of us, our responsibility for his death, and God’s inability to be in the presence of sin. Things ingrained so deeply that labeling ourselves as “objects of wrath” has become a key component to what we’re calling good news.

So what do we do with a crystal-clear indicator that “do this in remembrance of me” meant something very different to some of the earliest communities of Jesus followers? Followers whose focus was on the life that Jesus lived and the knowledge he made known. Followers who didn’t equate the bread and cup with suffering, death, and sin.

Talk about a paradigm shift. And potentially a very, very uncomfortable one, because it challenges our traditional understanding of Jesus.

Suddenly we’re faced with the question of whether our faith is big enough to handle something like this, as well as the possibility that an understanding so crucial to our faith tradition isn’t quite what we’ve always thought.

Can we even sit with and consider these possibilities, rather than responding defensively and with staunch certainty and rigidity?

It may be uncomfortable, for sure. And in order to deflect the discomfort, it can be very easy to point to a given scripture with certainty in order to reinforce an established belief or point of view. But even though we’re often quick to do that, we should consider that the early followers of Jesus simply didn’t have that ability.

Atonement theology is a massive topic, one that I never even knew existed. Theology? What’s to theologize about? Jesus died because of me, plain and simple.

Well, it doesn’t take an extensive commentary on the Didache to realize that it’s actually not plain and simple. The conversation on atonement extends far beyond the prayers found in this early church handbook, but maybe meditating on or otherwise reflecting on these prayers will allow us to consider that the Christian story hasn’t gone uninfluenced from the time of its origins.

Maybe we can open our minds and hearts to the possibility that there has been far more development over the course of the last 2000 years than we’d ever imagine.

And maybe we can consider that not everything is as black and white as we’ve thought.

What the Hell, People?!

July 7, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

His eyes lingered on her as she passed. A first look was to be expected, but something kept him rapt. Perhaps it was the subtleness of the sultry confidence that she walked with. Regardless, the temptation was too great to look away, so he kept his eyes on her, unaware of the gravity of his decision.

Unaware that one day he’d be at the pearly gates, watching in horror as this scenario played out on a big screen, leaving him desperate to explain his questionable actions to St. Peter.

But alas, there was no escaping the lake of fire that awaited him.

It’s been more than 30 years since I was a kid staring at the aforementioned black-and-white cartoon imagery on an evangelism tract that Christians left at my home. But it’s still as clear in my mind today as it was back then.

Hell.

Lakes of fire. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Eternal, conscious torment for those whose names aren’t written in the Book of Life.

And perhaps the ultimate motivator.

Although we often talk about how we’re compelled by Christ’s love and not by fear of burning in hell for eternity, the fact is that the fear of hell can be quite compelling.

Many people in the Christian community aren’t aware that the doctrine of hell has come under careful scrutiny as scholars, theologians, and “average” Christians have all started to realize that the typical understanding and teaching of hell is actually quite problematic.

The word itself didn’t exist when Jesus was walking around Palestine. When Jesus spoke of hell, the Greek word used by the gospel writers was Gehenna and it referred to a garbage dump outside of town. It was an actual, physical dump with a history that included children being sacrificed in the fire to pagan gods.

This certainly adds some perspective and context around the words of Jesus when he spoke of being in danger of the fire of hell.

I’m not going to get into a lengthy discourse about the various aspects of this debate or how the concept of hell has evolved over the course of the last two thousand years. Those who are interested can certainly do their own study on the matter.

But I’ve found it odd that in the midst of this conversation, some people get very defensive – even protective – about hell.

When Rob Bell’s book Love Wins started climbing the bestseller lists, it created quite a furor in the evangelical community, revealing something peculiar.

It seems that many people can’t imagine Christianity without hell.

One concern that I’ve seen rise to the surface frequently is that if there’s no hell, what motivation would there be for people to be Christians? Or for Christians to “reach out” to others?

Wow.

Okay, I understand fully how alarming and even unsettling this topic can be. But let’s back up for a minute and try to objectively consider what these questions imply.

Does this mean that loving for the sake of loving has no value? Serving for the sake of serving has no value? Meeting needs simply because there are needs to be met has no value?

Does this mean that the incredible teachings of the Sermon on the Mount – those that are often entirely counterintuitive in nature and yet simply offer a better way of living – have no value in our lives if there’s no fear of hell?

Does this mean that the hell we create for ourselves and others due to living in ways that are counter to what Jesus often taught isn’t pain enough? Does eternal torment have to be in the equation?

And perhaps most importantly, must Hitler enter the conversation as a clear example of why a literal hell simply has to exist?

Now obviously, if there’s a possibility that we’ve had the whole hell thing wrong, it raises a lot of very valid questions, some of which clearly raise more questions which, in turn, can raise even more questions.

Perhaps the most pressing question becomes what happens to people when they die if there’s no hell? Well, throughout church history, there have been three views. There’s the traditional understanding of hell, which involves eternal, conscious torment. There’s the annihilationist view, which puts forth that the souls of people who aren’t “saved” will simply cease to exist. And there’s the view of universal reconciliation, which says that God will ultimately restore everything and everyone.

I had no idea that these different views even existed, let alone that something like universalism is well supported by scripture.

There are plenty of other questions worthy of discussion. I won’t try to get into those now, but I want to mention a couple things that I find interesting.

First, throughout most of the history of the Jewish people as shown in the Old Testament, the belief was that everyone who died – Jew or non-Jew, righteous or wicked – went to a place called Sheol, also known as the grave or the place of the dead. The exceptions were a few notably righteous people who were said to have gone to be with God (such as Elijah, who was whisked up into the heavens in a flaming chariot).

If eternal torment was a potential consequence for one’s way of life, it seems odd that God wouldn’t reveal this. Not to mention it might’ve also been an effective method for trying to break the chosen people of some of their polytheistic tendencies.

Another consideration is something I started noticing many years ago and that’s the fact that Christians often seem far more concerned about teaching people they’re at risk of going to hell than Jesus ever was. As one of those Christians myself, that was an awkward realization. But it’s true.

Jesus simply didn’t spend a lot of time talking about going to heaven or avoiding hell.

Now, in the gospels, there are a number of references to being saved, for sure. But I started realizing that I was reading the gospels through our modern evangelical lenses, so I was reading into the texts an understanding that assumes “Oh, Jesus is talking about going to heaven.” When I stepped back and looked objectively, though, those ideas usually weren’t clear within the texts at all.

Sometimes it’s easy to assume an understanding of going to heaven, such as when Jesus says “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” But other passages are more obscure, like in Luke 7 when Jesus tells the sinful woman who poured perfume on his feet that her faith has saved her.

One thing that gave me pause to broadly interpreting “being saved” as going to heaven when we die was realizing that the word that’s translated as saved is the same word that’s sometimes translated elsewhere in the gospels as being healed or made whole. Examples include the bleeding woman who thought “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed” (Mark 5:28) and the blind man to whom Jesus says “Your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52).

This makes me consider the many people I’ve known over the years who have posed questions like “Do you ever wonder if we’ve got it all wrong? If we’re missing the point and focusing on the wrong things?”

Along these lines, many people have pointed out the challenges with what has been dubbed “evacuation theology.”

In other words, theology that not only places an extremely high emphasis on going to heaven when we die, but that also embraces the notion that “this world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through” to such an extreme that we’re not really concerned at all with the things that are happening in this world. Or at the very least, this world is given far, far less priority than helping to “save” people in the traditional evangelical sense.

I’ve always dismissed such concerns over the years because on the surface the Bible seemed to be clear, but it looks like they may be worth considering.

The discussions around these concerns often result in labels and categories. It seems to become conservative vs. liberal. Traditional vs. postmodern. And in extreme cases, orthodox believer vs. heretic.

But I think labels are problematic. They create barriers and can keep the issues from ever getting engaged.

And frankly, people in all camps are realizing these potential challenges in our theology.

It may be easy to label Rob Bell as a liberal or postmodernist who’s merely trying to appeal to a young generation. But then we’ve got N.T. Wright, a highly respected New Testament scholar who I don’t see getting labeled as liberal or postmodern. Wright has written and spoken extensively on some of these very fundamental issues that deeply shape our understanding of God and Christianity.

A couple years ago, I was having a conversation with several other Christians. I mentioned that I’d been reading one of Wright’s books and I floated the possibility that the point of Jesus’ life was about far more than going to heaven when we die.

They looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. I may as well have had 666 tattooed on my forehead.

But I get it. It’s hard and often scary to entertain possibilities that don’t easily mesh with our traditional beliefs. It doesn’t mean these things shouldn’t be engaged and considered, though.

Maybe instead of being so protective about hell, we could consider that if we’ve gotten it wrong and hell doesn’t exist, it might actually provide more motivation for people. Because, as countless people are pointing out, what does the idea of eternal conscious torment say about who we believe God is?

And if there’s such concern that without hell there wouldn’t be any motivation, perhaps we need to take the time to seriously consider what’s at the heart of our own motivation.