Sam is here tonight. We've watched the first disk of OTH (if you don't know what that stands for, you are missing out on some true pleasure in television-watching.) But I can't stay up watching how life should play out; all I can do for right now is write about how life doesn't. It just doesn't.
I have a "book" I am supposed to review for Hensley, and I don't know when the due date is, but I'm sure I should start working on it. The only problem is that it is (ideally) a soon-to-be devotional for married couples, and at this time in my life, I know nothing about marriage.
There have been a lot of people working on interventions lately, for Jake and I, trying to save us, but I'm having trouble figuring out what they're trying to save. I can sort of see it, as if it's off in the distance up in front of a car in a morning fog, but it's not quite clear. How can anyone save something they don't really know? They might have the want-to, but unless you know how to save it or what's really threatening it, how can you have any chance at being it's hero?
The appeal of Jesus for some is that he "saved" us from our sins before we even existed, before he ever knew who we were because we hadn't even been born yet, but we're told often, as a deterant from believing that we're completely alone and uncared for, that God knit us together, that he knew us before we knew us, and we're taught as part of a Christian education that Jesus was with God from the beginning, that God is omnipresent, and that Jesus is God. If all that we've been taught is true, how could he not have known, from the beginning, exactly what he'd be saving? Those who are attempting, lately, to do the saving in our lives claim to be followers of Jesus, yet they know nothing about what they're so determined to save.
I wish I didn't see all of the between-the-lines bullshit, I really do. But I do. I was taught from an early early age that the between-the-lines exists, and after living so long in a life where the lines couldn't be trusted, all I know now is what reveals itself to me in between the words people say and claim, and I can't help that. Now, when people speak with tenderness, I see the hypocrisy and self-gain from their "care", and I really don't think it matters how long or how hard someone fights to form the words, I will always see the lines for what's between.
I don't even know who or what needs to be saved these days. All I know is that there is no touch of a loving savior and no intervention worth believing, not here.
Showing posts with label Christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christ. Show all posts
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Question #9
In one of his organization's polls, Barna found that only 22 percent of non-Christians have a positive view of evangelicals.
What can evangelicals/born-again Christians do to change the negative view that non-Christians have about them?
Christians seem to want to fill a quota. They don't seem to care about the people, really, and they tend to judge rather than actually know. Christians look at people like me, aka people who don't adhere to the "rules" laid out by Christianity and they judge us, which is stupid, because the whole reason they are prone to JUDGE rather than UNDERSTAND is because they DON'T...understand. The Christians people like and actually listen to are the people who understand rather than judge, empathize rather than try to control. This statistic is surprising to me only in that it is as high a number.
Christians can't and shouldn't do anything besides be the kind of people they're trying to make everyone else into. Be loving, forgiving, be good stewards..etc. Non-Christians are coming from perspectives of betrayal and abuse and disappointment,and having some higher-than-thou prep come up to them and tell them what they're doing wrong is so very obviously not the cool way to go, let's be real. Yet that's how too many Christians approach non-Christians. You don't know, you don't get it, so don't pretend to. Just go about your way, do what YOU do right, and we'll probably notice, and if we notice that it's working for you and that you're a better person than us and have a more fulfilling life than us, chances are we're going to want that too. It's something as simple as going to a party but only have 1 beer and then taking care of your drunk friend, or going out to smoke with a group of friends but not smoking..just talking..and not judging. It's those little things that Christians can do that mean a much bigger thing to non-Christians, because when we see those little things we learn something huge: you care more about being around me, care more about ME, than this or that rule or what your friends will think if they see or whatever agenda your church has put you on. And it also tells us that you're not some jerk that thinks he's got his life more together than me and therefore knows exactly what I need and has to tell me so that his amazing knowledge can save me. Gross. Seriously. Because that kind of attitude is like saying that you're somehow immune to what's happening to me..to this weakness in me that needs a drink, like you could never or would never or you know better. Disgusting. The fact is, we're all susceptible, and congratulations for not having this temptation or not having had to experience something so devestating that the only thing that makes it go away is 7 shots of rum.. but you've got something worse, in my eyes, and I'd rather die early of cancer from cigarette smoke than live a life being an arrogant prick like most of today's Christians.
What can evangelicals/born-again Christians do to change the negative view that non-Christians have about them?
Christians seem to want to fill a quota. They don't seem to care about the people, really, and they tend to judge rather than actually know. Christians look at people like me, aka people who don't adhere to the "rules" laid out by Christianity and they judge us, which is stupid, because the whole reason they are prone to JUDGE rather than UNDERSTAND is because they DON'T...understand. The Christians people like and actually listen to are the people who understand rather than judge, empathize rather than try to control. This statistic is surprising to me only in that it is as high a number.
Christians can't and shouldn't do anything besides be the kind of people they're trying to make everyone else into. Be loving, forgiving, be good stewards..etc. Non-Christians are coming from perspectives of betrayal and abuse and disappointment,and having some higher-than-thou prep come up to them and tell them what they're doing wrong is so very obviously not the cool way to go, let's be real. Yet that's how too many Christians approach non-Christians. You don't know, you don't get it, so don't pretend to. Just go about your way, do what YOU do right, and we'll probably notice, and if we notice that it's working for you and that you're a better person than us and have a more fulfilling life than us, chances are we're going to want that too. It's something as simple as going to a party but only have 1 beer and then taking care of your drunk friend, or going out to smoke with a group of friends but not smoking..just talking..and not judging. It's those little things that Christians can do that mean a much bigger thing to non-Christians, because when we see those little things we learn something huge: you care more about being around me, care more about ME, than this or that rule or what your friends will think if they see or whatever agenda your church has put you on. And it also tells us that you're not some jerk that thinks he's got his life more together than me and therefore knows exactly what I need and has to tell me so that his amazing knowledge can save me. Gross. Seriously. Because that kind of attitude is like saying that you're somehow immune to what's happening to me..to this weakness in me that needs a drink, like you could never or would never or you know better. Disgusting. The fact is, we're all susceptible, and congratulations for not having this temptation or not having had to experience something so devestating that the only thing that makes it go away is 7 shots of rum.. but you've got something worse, in my eyes, and I'd rather die early of cancer from cigarette smoke than live a life being an arrogant prick like most of today's Christians.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Question #8, revisited because Saunier didn't accept my one word answer, dangit.
To review, the question was: What would the world be like if Adam and Eve had not sinned? My original answer was: "Better." Saunier (my teach) wants more, of course. Teachers always do..
So anyway, the reason I was bored with this question to the point of not answering it is because I am a discontented mess at all times, so I've thought this whole original sin concept through in my mind approx. 20 billion times and my thoughts go all over the place and it makes me want to die, the thinking, because ultimately I end up hating the answer I finally rest on (but it's the only answer my mind will let stay.)
But fine, whatever, I'll talk. Just be warned that when I talk, I really talk..aka this is going to be a long one so prepare yourself.
Alright. For starters, as I was walking around the Kesler Center aka the gym(ish) that I work at, I noticed this 40-something guy who is always in here, literally always, and I just got really sad and I want to tell him to go away, that he's obsessed, and that it's not like he looks any better than before anyway (and I can say that cuz seriously, I've seen him in here at least once if not twice a day everyday for the past 3 years that I've workd here and he looks the exact same and yeah maybe he's simply avoiding obesity, but in that case..well..just stop eating??)
Anyway the point of that is that it got my crazy mind running on and on about our human obsessions and how we're all so flawed which led me to think about the really bad stuff like rape and murder and even the hidden habits like bad thoughts or cursing God...and in Christianland these things are considered to be the worst, and even if we preach that all sin is the same, we don't practice that, be honest. But I was thinking about how sad it is that those things don't even matter because the real issue is that, even at our best, we've forgotten how good good really is, maybe because we've never seen it the way it could have/should have been, the way Adam and Eve saw it before they F-ed it all up. There's a line of one of my favorite Saosin songs that goes "We seem so far away from these things we used to know/We seem so far away from everything we are."
As for Adam and Eve..they had something to know. They knew goodness at it's most pure. They had uninhibited access to the God of the Universe. He was their lover and friend and confidant and...God. They had a world where it was safe to be stripped down to one's most bare self, a world without the need to buy products like makeup to cover up our shame or toys to push away pain..they had a oneness with animals and plants, nature, and everything was pure. I bet the air felt so good to breathe in, cool and refreshing.....you know the kind. There was no lonliness or greed or abuse or any of those things that each of us now carries around like we're carrying backpacks filled with bricks, like we're lugging around cars and mountains as mere humans. Now, well....we're so far away from that place that we don't even have anything to remember.
Fortunately, we have the hope (and the common sense) that each of us knows, in the core of us, that God exists and that's He's our dad. We're told in Psalm 19 of a general revelation that has been revealed to all creation, so that all of us have "heard word" of what's right and who/what we're supposed to be and of a special revelation that has occured in each of us..He was written on our hearts. Unfortunately, we're reminded in Romans that we choose to suppress these revelations and exchange the knowledge of God for idols. (People say the Bible doesn't make sense but I urge them to not give up on it, because someday..it will. How true are these passages in describing our hurting world?)
So the fact that we all have the knowledge is great, but the problem is that we know something is missing and we know something is not right and we kill and rape and become addicted to exercise or pornography or we commit suicide because we all know that this world is off..really really off from what it is supposed to be.. but we are so lost because we don't have a clear picture of what it's supposed to be!!!!!!!! Adam and Eve had a clear picture, they held a precious, immaculate painting and were careless with this unimaginably important work of art and spilt crap all over it, as if they were dancing in all their merriment and danced right into the punch bowl and now there's a big, ugly fruit punch stain all over God's world, and yeah, fruit punch tastes good, but not on canvas, and as it sits there it starts to mold and turn icky poo brown and erode the medium, just like their stupid original sin has eroded all of us and everything around us. Not to suggest that someone, eventually, wouldn't have messed it up anyway, and it only took Adam & Eve, what, like a day?? So yeah, if they hadn't done it, someone probably would have eventually done it, so sin was probably inevitable, but didn't God give us a chance to be more careful? To keep and take care of and forever remember and experience what was once so pure and so good? We had a chance to be more careful--it only takes one slip, one trip-up to knock over a punch bowl and stain the world, but just as accidents happen, they can also be avoided, and clearly we were capable of avoiding or else he never would have given us the chance to avoid it all in the first place. He never would have given us such a beautiful work of art. This leads me to a somewhat related thought:
He knew we'd mess it up, but he gave it to us anyway?
Well...why do I buy Jo expensive clothes when I know she'll stain them and grow out of them too soon? Because it gives me joy to see them on her even if they're only clean for a second, and because I want her to have the best that I can offer. God wanted to give us the best he could offer, and it saddens him to see it go, but isn't a stained beautiful shirt still a beautiful shirt underneath? Aren't some things so beautiful that not even the biggest, moldiest thing living on top could make it unbeautiful? Don't we blame the mold, not the beautiful shirt? Maybe God still sees his painting at it's best..maybe we, this, is so beautiful that it's worth it to have risked it being stained or altered from it's original design. What a loving and caring and involved and understanding and passionate Artist!
So the world doesn't suck so bad, in God's eyes, but I think that all of us have faced a time when we wished we would have watched our step, been a bit more careful, so that none of the beauty we'd stained had to be covered up.
The world would have been better. Better. If only we'd been more careful.
So anyway, the reason I was bored with this question to the point of not answering it is because I am a discontented mess at all times, so I've thought this whole original sin concept through in my mind approx. 20 billion times and my thoughts go all over the place and it makes me want to die, the thinking, because ultimately I end up hating the answer I finally rest on (but it's the only answer my mind will let stay.)
But fine, whatever, I'll talk. Just be warned that when I talk, I really talk..aka this is going to be a long one so prepare yourself.
Alright. For starters, as I was walking around the Kesler Center aka the gym(ish) that I work at, I noticed this 40-something guy who is always in here, literally always, and I just got really sad and I want to tell him to go away, that he's obsessed, and that it's not like he looks any better than before anyway (and I can say that cuz seriously, I've seen him in here at least once if not twice a day everyday for the past 3 years that I've workd here and he looks the exact same and yeah maybe he's simply avoiding obesity, but in that case..well..just stop eating??)
Anyway the point of that is that it got my crazy mind running on and on about our human obsessions and how we're all so flawed which led me to think about the really bad stuff like rape and murder and even the hidden habits like bad thoughts or cursing God...and in Christianland these things are considered to be the worst, and even if we preach that all sin is the same, we don't practice that, be honest. But I was thinking about how sad it is that those things don't even matter because the real issue is that, even at our best, we've forgotten how good good really is, maybe because we've never seen it the way it could have/should have been, the way Adam and Eve saw it before they F-ed it all up. There's a line of one of my favorite Saosin songs that goes "We seem so far away from these things we used to know/We seem so far away from everything we are."
As for Adam and Eve..they had something to know. They knew goodness at it's most pure. They had uninhibited access to the God of the Universe. He was their lover and friend and confidant and...God. They had a world where it was safe to be stripped down to one's most bare self, a world without the need to buy products like makeup to cover up our shame or toys to push away pain..they had a oneness with animals and plants, nature, and everything was pure. I bet the air felt so good to breathe in, cool and refreshing.....you know the kind. There was no lonliness or greed or abuse or any of those things that each of us now carries around like we're carrying backpacks filled with bricks, like we're lugging around cars and mountains as mere humans. Now, well....we're so far away from that place that we don't even have anything to remember.
Fortunately, we have the hope (and the common sense) that each of us knows, in the core of us, that God exists and that's He's our dad. We're told in Psalm 19 of a general revelation that has been revealed to all creation, so that all of us have "heard word" of what's right and who/what we're supposed to be and of a special revelation that has occured in each of us..He was written on our hearts. Unfortunately, we're reminded in Romans that we choose to suppress these revelations and exchange the knowledge of God for idols. (People say the Bible doesn't make sense but I urge them to not give up on it, because someday..it will. How true are these passages in describing our hurting world?)
So the fact that we all have the knowledge is great, but the problem is that we know something is missing and we know something is not right and we kill and rape and become addicted to exercise or pornography or we commit suicide because we all know that this world is off..really really off from what it is supposed to be.. but we are so lost because we don't have a clear picture of what it's supposed to be!!!!!!!! Adam and Eve had a clear picture, they held a precious, immaculate painting and were careless with this unimaginably important work of art and spilt crap all over it, as if they were dancing in all their merriment and danced right into the punch bowl and now there's a big, ugly fruit punch stain all over God's world, and yeah, fruit punch tastes good, but not on canvas, and as it sits there it starts to mold and turn icky poo brown and erode the medium, just like their stupid original sin has eroded all of us and everything around us. Not to suggest that someone, eventually, wouldn't have messed it up anyway, and it only took Adam & Eve, what, like a day?? So yeah, if they hadn't done it, someone probably would have eventually done it, so sin was probably inevitable, but didn't God give us a chance to be more careful? To keep and take care of and forever remember and experience what was once so pure and so good? We had a chance to be more careful--it only takes one slip, one trip-up to knock over a punch bowl and stain the world, but just as accidents happen, they can also be avoided, and clearly we were capable of avoiding or else he never would have given us the chance to avoid it all in the first place. He never would have given us such a beautiful work of art. This leads me to a somewhat related thought:
He knew we'd mess it up, but he gave it to us anyway?
Well...why do I buy Jo expensive clothes when I know she'll stain them and grow out of them too soon? Because it gives me joy to see them on her even if they're only clean for a second, and because I want her to have the best that I can offer. God wanted to give us the best he could offer, and it saddens him to see it go, but isn't a stained beautiful shirt still a beautiful shirt underneath? Aren't some things so beautiful that not even the biggest, moldiest thing living on top could make it unbeautiful? Don't we blame the mold, not the beautiful shirt? Maybe God still sees his painting at it's best..maybe we, this, is so beautiful that it's worth it to have risked it being stained or altered from it's original design. What a loving and caring and involved and understanding and passionate Artist!
So the world doesn't suck so bad, in God's eyes, but I think that all of us have faced a time when we wished we would have watched our step, been a bit more careful, so that none of the beauty we'd stained had to be covered up.
The world would have been better. Better. If only we'd been more careful.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Question #8
What would life be like if Adam and Eve had not sinned?
Better.
(I'm sorry, Saunier, but there's just no other necessary way to say it, and part of being a writer is being effectively concise, right?)
Better.
(I'm sorry, Saunier, but there's just no other necessary way to say it, and part of being a writer is being effectively concise, right?)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Question #6
Do you think people can "earn" their way into heaven? Why or why not?
We just studied Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Christian Belief.
One of the issues we were presented with in this study was that many people choose Pluralism over Christianity because they cannot come to terms with the concept of someone such as Gandhi going to Hell when he did so many good deeds.
Our answer to this conundrum was that, as sinful humans, even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags when presented to a holy and perfect God. In the Bible, Isaiah felt unclean in front of the Holy. Peter fled from God, stating that he was "a sinful man." In the Bible, we are told that it is not a question of good or bad but of the direction of our lives. Are we turned toward God or away? God tells us that he does not want good deeds, he wants our hearts, however soiled, and he wants them wholly. He wants us to repent.
If God were to make his final decision of us based on how much good or bad we did on earth, there would surely be some cases in which a person was only 51% good, while still 49% bad. Or what of those who were just 1% away, one good deed away, from being good enough? God doesn't want a tally or a rank, he wants a relationship.
In John 14v6 (NIV), Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
If Jesus existed and if his resurrection is true (and according to evidence and solid research, it is) then, to be safe, we should heed what a once-dead-now-risen manGod has to say, and he has answered this question by saying that nothing but a relationship with him will save us. Through him, not through our kind actions, will we be gifted an eternal afterlife of joy and peace.
We just studied Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Christian Belief.
One of the issues we were presented with in this study was that many people choose Pluralism over Christianity because they cannot come to terms with the concept of someone such as Gandhi going to Hell when he did so many good deeds.
Our answer to this conundrum was that, as sinful humans, even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags when presented to a holy and perfect God. In the Bible, Isaiah felt unclean in front of the Holy. Peter fled from God, stating that he was "a sinful man." In the Bible, we are told that it is not a question of good or bad but of the direction of our lives. Are we turned toward God or away? God tells us that he does not want good deeds, he wants our hearts, however soiled, and he wants them wholly. He wants us to repent.
If God were to make his final decision of us based on how much good or bad we did on earth, there would surely be some cases in which a person was only 51% good, while still 49% bad. Or what of those who were just 1% away, one good deed away, from being good enough? God doesn't want a tally or a rank, he wants a relationship.
In John 14v6 (NIV), Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
If Jesus existed and if his resurrection is true (and according to evidence and solid research, it is) then, to be safe, we should heed what a once-dead-now-risen manGod has to say, and he has answered this question by saying that nothing but a relationship with him will save us. Through him, not through our kind actions, will we be gifted an eternal afterlife of joy and peace.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Question #3
Do you believe in a literal heaven and hell? What happens to people who die without a saving knowledge of Christ?
This idea has always been difficult for me to grasp.
My instinct is to say that, no, there is no way Hell exists.
And it really aggravates me when people emotionlessly quote the scripture verses that point to the existence of Hell.
And it really worries me that maybe we're taking all of this a little too literally.
I'm not trying to lead into a crazy anti-Christ spiel or anything spectacularly hippie but I'm really not into the whole fire & brimstone stuff of today's churches either.
If you take even a blurry look at it, you can see that it is so very inconsistent.
Is it not hard for anyone else to comprehend a God who can one minute be the taught definition of love, a God who supposedly "created my inmost being; knit me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139v13 NIV), and the next minute He is this almighty damner who allows the very creation which he "knit together" to be viciously likened to "snakes" and a "brood of vipers" whose only fate must be to be "condemned to hell" (Matthew 23v33 NIV)??
Well that's where I fear we got it wrong. I think the God-breathed words of our God-called brothers of the written Word let a little of their emotional side slip in when they cursed their flesh to hot fate, and I understand the anger--I do. I understand the anxiety about getting it wrong and about messing something up forever, because that's what we, as humans, do, and it gets to be a little frustrating and we tend to get a little frantic...but to turn on each other and to insist that the same God who created us in His image and for His purpose is as finicky as our species in changing His mind, that He is as capable as we are to forget His promises and ignore His own teaching and turn His back on us, throwing us into a fiery pit forever?? That's taking it a little far, and it's a little sad that we have taken it that far for as long as we have.
Why did God send Jesus? To die, right? Could it not also have been to speak to us in a way we would better understand? To enter into our world as one of us and to speak our language so that we would better know what he had been trying to say all along? He dumbed himself down for us, and we got it! We understood it so well that we killed Him because it made too much sense, and it scared us because to believe it would have meant caring about it and caring about it would have meant following it and following it would have meant failing (because that's what we always do) at the very one thing that meant the very most of all. So we killed Him. And God knew it would happen, but He did it anyway, because he wanted to save us. He wanted to die for us. He knew it because he knows us.
Because, remember, He created our inmost being. And if we're not all good, that must mean He created the bad, too. Now, I'm not about to say that this is a big game to God and that He set us up for failure or any of that--I believe God loves us and that He has a purpose for us--but if I looked at the Bible the way some of my peers do..if I made myself believe some inconsistent bullcrap they feed themselves, I would fall. Hard. I know that because I did. I'd either fall or I'd be fake. And so I tried faking it. I "believed" everything the Church taught me about God through their interpretation of the Bible and I saw it's riddles and I couldn't make them out so I chose not to solve the puzzle, because that's what they told me to do. "Just believe! That's where faith comes in."
Uh huh... okay. Or how about this: How about we let God speak for Himself for a change?
How about instead of interpreting the Bible and molding it and shaping it and giving it excuses so that it all fits together and looks a little less inconsistent and instead of just shoving some faith & belief in where there are gaps, we stop shaping it and we take God's word (which can be found in other places besides the Bible, believe it or not) through the people He places in our lives, through our experiences, through our world, through nature, and through our communion with Him, through all the things that speak Him (whatever is good, whatever is pure...sound familiar?) and let Him say what He wants to say, let Him make himself known to us instead of us trying to make Him up. How about we do that?
Because the God that I know has shown Himself to me to be real, and in those moments when we were closest to each other, I could feel His heart, and it isn't one of hatred and anger and damning. He loves us. Every single one of us. Just like I love my daughter (only better). (She came from my womb, so you could say I had a hand in knitting her together.) I could never send her to Hell. I'll send her to time-out, sure! I'll even spank her now and then and goodness knows I yell. But to send her to die and burn and be saddened and tortured for all of eternity?? Heaven's no! I would die for her first! And.....huh..... isn't that what God already did for us?
So, no, of course God does not send people to Hell. There are hells on earth. There are moments that are hellish. There are times when we feel trapped in an emotional or physical or relationtional torment, but to live there forever? No. We are promised otherwise. We are promised that, as long as we believe, we will be forgiven and loved and will live with our Father in Heaven. And we all believe. Even if we don't know it, we do. Each of us was built with eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3v11 NIV).
Maybe there's a little tiny temporary Hell down there somewhere and it's really just Satan's shack or something and God sends some of us there when we're too thick and hard-hearted to change, but do you really think any of us are going to continue to blaspheme God while we're down there with our flesh melting away? Do you really think it's in the nature of our fallible race to stick anything out that long, even when it's clear what we've been denying is actually so very very true? Blah. The idea of it is laughable. And do you really think that, if God were to send one of his kids to Hell (or timeout, if you will) and they were to, while they were there alone with their sadness and their hopelessness and their scalding body, turn toward God with tears in their eyes and a genuinity in their heart and apologize, plead to Him, cry out to Him for love........is your God the kind of God to turn away??
Mine isn't. And if He was, to me, He wouldn't be the kind of God worth loving..worth following. The resurrection would be moot, just like Paul taught us. He would have saved us without really saving us and.... what the heck kind of Faith Story is that?!
This idea has always been difficult for me to grasp.
My instinct is to say that, no, there is no way Hell exists.
And it really aggravates me when people emotionlessly quote the scripture verses that point to the existence of Hell.
And it really worries me that maybe we're taking all of this a little too literally.
I'm not trying to lead into a crazy anti-Christ spiel or anything spectacularly hippie but I'm really not into the whole fire & brimstone stuff of today's churches either.
If you take even a blurry look at it, you can see that it is so very inconsistent.
Is it not hard for anyone else to comprehend a God who can one minute be the taught definition of love, a God who supposedly "created my inmost being; knit me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139v13 NIV), and the next minute He is this almighty damner who allows the very creation which he "knit together" to be viciously likened to "snakes" and a "brood of vipers" whose only fate must be to be "condemned to hell" (Matthew 23v33 NIV)??
Well that's where I fear we got it wrong. I think the God-breathed words of our God-called brothers of the written Word let a little of their emotional side slip in when they cursed their flesh to hot fate, and I understand the anger--I do. I understand the anxiety about getting it wrong and about messing something up forever, because that's what we, as humans, do, and it gets to be a little frustrating and we tend to get a little frantic...but to turn on each other and to insist that the same God who created us in His image and for His purpose is as finicky as our species in changing His mind, that He is as capable as we are to forget His promises and ignore His own teaching and turn His back on us, throwing us into a fiery pit forever?? That's taking it a little far, and it's a little sad that we have taken it that far for as long as we have.
Why did God send Jesus? To die, right? Could it not also have been to speak to us in a way we would better understand? To enter into our world as one of us and to speak our language so that we would better know what he had been trying to say all along? He dumbed himself down for us, and we got it! We understood it so well that we killed Him because it made too much sense, and it scared us because to believe it would have meant caring about it and caring about it would have meant following it and following it would have meant failing (because that's what we always do) at the very one thing that meant the very most of all. So we killed Him. And God knew it would happen, but He did it anyway, because he wanted to save us. He wanted to die for us. He knew it because he knows us.
Because, remember, He created our inmost being. And if we're not all good, that must mean He created the bad, too. Now, I'm not about to say that this is a big game to God and that He set us up for failure or any of that--I believe God loves us and that He has a purpose for us--but if I looked at the Bible the way some of my peers do..if I made myself believe some inconsistent bullcrap they feed themselves, I would fall. Hard. I know that because I did. I'd either fall or I'd be fake. And so I tried faking it. I "believed" everything the Church taught me about God through their interpretation of the Bible and I saw it's riddles and I couldn't make them out so I chose not to solve the puzzle, because that's what they told me to do. "Just believe! That's where faith comes in."
Uh huh... okay. Or how about this: How about we let God speak for Himself for a change?
How about instead of interpreting the Bible and molding it and shaping it and giving it excuses so that it all fits together and looks a little less inconsistent and instead of just shoving some faith & belief in where there are gaps, we stop shaping it and we take God's word (which can be found in other places besides the Bible, believe it or not) through the people He places in our lives, through our experiences, through our world, through nature, and through our communion with Him, through all the things that speak Him (whatever is good, whatever is pure...sound familiar?) and let Him say what He wants to say, let Him make himself known to us instead of us trying to make Him up. How about we do that?
Because the God that I know has shown Himself to me to be real, and in those moments when we were closest to each other, I could feel His heart, and it isn't one of hatred and anger and damning. He loves us. Every single one of us. Just like I love my daughter (only better). (She came from my womb, so you could say I had a hand in knitting her together.) I could never send her to Hell. I'll send her to time-out, sure! I'll even spank her now and then and goodness knows I yell. But to send her to die and burn and be saddened and tortured for all of eternity?? Heaven's no! I would die for her first! And.....huh..... isn't that what God already did for us?
So, no, of course God does not send people to Hell. There are hells on earth. There are moments that are hellish. There are times when we feel trapped in an emotional or physical or relationtional torment, but to live there forever? No. We are promised otherwise. We are promised that, as long as we believe, we will be forgiven and loved and will live with our Father in Heaven. And we all believe. Even if we don't know it, we do. Each of us was built with eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3v11 NIV).
Maybe there's a little tiny temporary Hell down there somewhere and it's really just Satan's shack or something and God sends some of us there when we're too thick and hard-hearted to change, but do you really think any of us are going to continue to blaspheme God while we're down there with our flesh melting away? Do you really think it's in the nature of our fallible race to stick anything out that long, even when it's clear what we've been denying is actually so very very true? Blah. The idea of it is laughable. And do you really think that, if God were to send one of his kids to Hell (or timeout, if you will) and they were to, while they were there alone with their sadness and their hopelessness and their scalding body, turn toward God with tears in their eyes and a genuinity in their heart and apologize, plead to Him, cry out to Him for love........is your God the kind of God to turn away??
Mine isn't. And if He was, to me, He wouldn't be the kind of God worth loving..worth following. The resurrection would be moot, just like Paul taught us. He would have saved us without really saving us and.... what the heck kind of Faith Story is that?!
[Disclaimer: I do not claim to know it all...I only share what I think I know at this moment in time. This is, after all, only a blog.]
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