I must admit that as a group, Christians are often unpleasant to be around. I don’t mean always, or all Christians, but far too much. Many of us are wrapped in our own superior self-righteousness. We are frequently emotionally unbalanced, and our external behavior can easily be a socially-acceptable cover for selfishness.
Notice also, that many people of ambiguous faith, or those without any strong conviction about their own beliefs (let alone the good people of other faiths), can often be not only kind, but also genuinely loving and unselfish.
What of this?
Although for some reason, this does not seem to challenge my own belief about what is true, or who is God, I am gradually persuaded that a truly “effective” life (in the most significant sense) is not necessarily bound to a particular creed. That’s a hard opinion to maintain for someone like myself who not only holds a creed, but my particular selection is rather elaborate and by nature exclusive. But, go figure. That’s what I think.
The paradox of insular language
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We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding
what we’re saying. Here’s an example (thanks BK) of the lengths that some
are goi...
7 months ago
36 comments:
C.S. Lewis had problems with this issue. In "The Last Battle", the last book in Narnia, a young man who'd believed he'd been following a false and evil god had been in fact following Aslan. All good acts in anyone's name are actually good acts in "His" name. And vice versa.
I say that if Christ actually exists, then he takes actual contact with people. They do not need a name to recognize him. It would be too horrible if all the chinese (to name one example) who have never even heard of Christianity, were automatically doomed.
Christians ( or anyone) who are afraid of non-Christians (or non-whatevers) are afraid of themselves and their own lack of conviction.
In other words, I agree!
Amazingly, yesterday after church I was talking to one of my pastors who has being reading a few books that I recommended. In one of Donald Millers books (I can't remember which) he quotes Clive Staples from "The Last Battle". My pastor said he did not recall that portion of Lewis' writing and that it gave him great pause. I meant to go directly to my daughter’s room after church to retrieve my copy of the Chronicle to re-read that book but forgot, until now.
Coincidence strikes again!
this remains true only as long as you judge christians (or non-christians) by the place where they are, as opposed to the distance they've come or the direction they face.
Tali: Which statement is "only true as long as ...": that an effective life not necessarily bound to a particular creed? or that Christians can be unpleasant? ... or that my opinion is hard to maintain??
I think that the plight of many religious people is mighty similar. We stumble upon this relationship with God, we become concerned about right behavior, we enlist the help of some system to moderate our behavior, we begin to trust in the system and drop the relationship, perhaps because we take the relationship for granted. As an example consider the following: My two sons (8 & 11) have both decided that they would like to be baptized. I spoke with our pastor about it and he gave me some booklets for the boys to read and forms to be filled out. At the top of one of the forms it said, “Registration for Participation in Baptism”. I was considering how at Horizon church if you want to be baptized you are baptized by the person who has most effected your spiritual life…no forms, no registration, they probably aren’t even licensed. Wait till I turn them in for baptizing with out a permit. My point is that we have installed a system and it kind of removes some of the effectiveness of the relationship. Compare this experience to how Philip baptized the Ethiopian in Acts 8. It says that they came upon some water and the Ethiopian said, “Why shouldn’t I be baptized right now?” The actions of both Philip and the Ethiopian were spontaneous and were a direct function of their relationship. That’s what our religion should be like.
Just started checking out your posts, at the recommendation of La Fille Du Fromage. Your reasonableness and balance are encouraging. I don't mean to be crass, but reading your post makes me wonder...do you ever wonder if maybe you're more reasonable than god is portrayed as being in the Bible? It's wonderful to see someone who has obviously taken the loving and balanced teachings of Jesus to heart, but it can be easy to forget that ultimately, the Bible indicates that god (and by extension, his son who upholds his will [unless you believe that his son is also him, which is another matter entirely]) favors men to women, seems awfully insecure and self-obsessed, kills people as he wishes, allows all manner of horrific genetic defects (ever seen a harlequin fetus? it's a little hard to think about universal sovreignty or adam's fall when you see a life ruined from the outset) and will ultimately destroy all who don't know him, don't choose to find out more about him, or simply were born with a desire to have a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex. I really don't know what the truth is about spiritual matters, but I do know that it seems some times like we created god in our image a long time ago, and that we have a capacity for compassion and understanding now that make him seem rather savage...it seems like the open minded, kind, reasonable people who still believe in god and the bible have to stick up for him all the time. I don't know...I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just wondering what your thoughts are.
P.E. It's not my blog but allow mw to just address a couple of your comments in order to make a point.
Does God favor men over women? No. Infact a very good argument could be made to the opposite. As a man I am called by God to love, protect, submit to and serve my wife in the same way that Jesus Christ did these things for the church. That is a tall order and women are the object of all of that attention.
Second:
"[God] will ultimately destroy...simply were born with a desire to have a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex..."
I don't believe this and I don't think that Gar does either (correct me if I'm wrong). We all have desires to love and be loved. God gave us those and they are good. We all destroy ourselves by taking what God has intended for good and using it for our self-absorbed aggrandizement. My misuse of God's gift is no more pure than the homosexual.
My point is that you may be judging God after seeing him through the distorted lens of sinful people.
Just food for thought.
Hmmm... so many people making so many nice points. Brendar, I have no doubt that both myself and solomon(P.E.- not to be confused with that class involving situps and sweat) have to be on guard against seeing God or any creating entity through the sinful eyes of others, in large part due to the fact that we were born, raised and indoctrinated by a rather exclusive creed ourselves. And while I agree that perhaps God isn't really dead set against women(the Apostle Paul is a different story entirely), I do think it's pretty hard to explain away certain(and several, repeated) blatant condemnations of homosexuality.
you know, i was interrupted for about an hour after starting this comment and i have completely lost my train of thought. the general public is being fascinatingly obnoxious today. must be all Christians. heh.
since the apostle paul was the one who wrote the bit about loving, protecting, submitting to and serving your wives, i fail to see where that decides he's anti-woman. granted, i used to get all bent out of shape about that bit about not allowing a woman to have authority over men, until i really thought about it.
as for the part about the bible condemning homosexuality . . . well, if the All-Powerful Creator of Time Space and the Infinite Universe disagrees with tali-the-bookkeeper on matters of Ultimate Right and Wrong, i'm willing to bet he knows better. where did we get this idea that God has to justify himself to us, anyway?
Tali, we get this idea from people who genuinely love members of their same sex and who have a desire to please God. Gar, I could use some help here, I mean I have my own blog (which nobody seems to visit) to maintain.
brendar that doesn't answer the question, it seconds it.
yes, i agree, it is a difficult issue. but if God says in his omnisentient fashion that everyone who wears purple is evil . . . well, then everyone who wear's purple is evil. and if he says that a specific activity is wrong . . . well, then it's wrong.
it's really easy to accept that murder is wrong - because we can see why.
it's still easy to accept that adultery & theft are wrong - because we can see why, though we have to look a little harder.
covetousness & lying are a little tougher, but we can see them leading to other things that are obviously wrong, so okay, we'll go with that.
"but this last bit, God? i'm afraid you're just gonna have to explain it to me or i'll go with my ideas instead"
if you understand, it's not faith - it's agreement.
I still visit yer blog Brendar. The apostle Paul also said that women should keep their mouth shut, that they should look boring and that men would be better off not getting married to them.
I usually stick up for God in the whole God hates women battle. But, since it was pointed out to me...women were unclean longer when they had girls, girls are property, etc. Many women were given special opportunities and blessings though. But it is kind of like communist China in a way. I used to like to think of God as the Great Communist in the sky, but He never really resembled Mau Tse-tung.
Plus, Tali, the idea of caring for and honoring your wife is not exactly groundbreaking woman-loving talk. It's just common decency, the sort that any Christian who loved his neighbor would show.
If God is this big arbitrary rulemaker in the sky who could say don't wear purple or i'll kill you....i don't know. Sure, you can rightly say that an Almighty God has the right to say whatever He wants and expect people to do it. But he seems to pride himself on being level headed and having made us humans with free will. But if we actually USE our god given free will, He may kill us. And if our lives are so precious, why beat around the bush with creation. Why send your Son to die an agoniing death and just hope people will put faith in him. we humans are far more blatant in our dealings with one another in fairly trivial matters in life. Since some of this stuff could mean our supposed salvation, you'd think God could muster up some sort of unquestionable announcement. Just seems the straightforward thing to do.
All just thoughts. Thoughts I might think are stupid tomorrow.
Gar, still waiting for some sort of input here.
Tali, you have completely, totally and in all other ways misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that God had to explain to me why homosexuality is wrong. I wasn't saying that homosexuality is more-or-less wrong than anything. Perhaps I addressed your question, "where do we get this idea?" too directly. God does not have to justify his disapproval of homosexual activity to us. We need to come to grips with the idea that the homosexual’s choice (free will) of sin is no fowler than our own.
Girl of cheese, my initial motivation in replying to Solomon’s post was to challenge both of you to look at scripture in a new light. Were girls looked at as property in ancient civilizations? Yes. Was there anything more highly prized than ones personal property? No! The same Hebrew text that you find offensive I find as a badge of honor for my wife and my daughter. Sometimes we look at what was written thousands of years ago as if it were written yesterday and that cheapens the fact that the text is ancient. You don't look at the Mona Lisa and say, "If only De Vinci had a good ink jet printer". Men were supposed to stay away from their wives if they had bore a female child. Why is that not an honor? Men were also ordered by God to refrain from touching or entering the arch of the covenant and the holy of holies.
This, "common decency, the sort that any Christian who loved his neighbor would show" seems mighty uncommon these days. I am not saying that we should revert to traditional teachings of Christianity but rather that we should reexamine both what Jesus said and what Jesus did.
"...you'd think God could muster up some sort of unquestionable announcement. Just seems the straightforward thing to do."
You mean like coming here himself and showing us how he wants us to live? What a great idea. Why didn't God think of that first?
cheese lady
(like the name, btw)
he said they should stop gossiping in church - or more specifically, that those women at that church needed to cut the chatter during service - not that women in generall should button it.
he said that no one was better off married because it takes up a lot of time you could devote to other things - not that men are better off without women.
and he said that good character was a better thing than pretty clothes (gee - what's on the inside counts? shocking!) not that they should dress frumpy.
finally, the "ceremonial cleanliness" issue. still practised in some islamic cultures, btw. so, during that time (do the math, i'm trying to avoid being crude) when you feel like crap, your stomach is hurting and your body's pretty much thrown in the towel, you're "ceremonially unclean."
that means you can't cook. it means you can't clean. in fact, it means you can't really do any of the household labor - which included fairly light tasks like toting multiple clay 5-gallon jars filled with water for upwards of a mile. somebody else can worry about it.
next time you struggle out of bed with your lower stomach in a knot, or the day after you give birth, send out a special thought to those heartless, fundamentalist animals who won't let women in that condition do heavy labor.
gar
not to put to fine a point on it, i have never said any one sin is worse that any other. he who violates any part of the law violates the whole law.
I didn’t mean to start a “conflict”, just wanted throw out a thought or two, but this looks like a great discussion! Apologies, I’ve been unable to reply to this stuff until now – so here you go. I’m responding to most of the comments in order of appearance …
Jeanne – For some reason I’m also not surprised that Lewis wrestled over this. Interesting. You wrote that non-Christians “do not need a name to recognize him.” I agree in spades. This sounds like 1 John to me. That’s my favorite book of the bible.
Brendar –great comments about relationship vs. behavior, and dependence on a system replacing the relationship. I suppose that also frequently happens in human relationships too. I do think we can misstep if we disregard systems. They are bad if they replace the relationship, good if they assist it. Your habit of making coffee for your wife reminds me of this.
Solomon – You write “...do you ever wonder if maybe you're more reasonable than god is portrayed as being in the Bible?”
Yes, at least, more reasonable than people think of the God of the Bible. No the big guy himself. There’s the rub.
You also write, “the Bible indicates that god favors men to women, seems awfully insecure and self-obsessed, kills people as he wishes, allows all manner of horrific genetic defects…”
If God directed these things, or passively allowed them without concern for people, I would agree. Most of this type of thing is easy to gasp at, but hard to really understand in context. There’s just generally more to the picture than that. You should hang out here (www.soulhorizon.com/board/viewforum.php?f=3 ) and mix it up a bit. I’m certain that you (and Ms. Chez) would really enjoy it.
You write, “[God] will ultimately destroy all who don't know him, don't choose to find out more about him, or simply were born with a desire to have a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex.”
I’m right with Brendar on this one. I don’t know if I’ve ever me a mature Christian who believes those things.
Fille – “I do think it's pretty hard to explain away certain(and several, repeated) blatant condemnations of homosexuality”
I suppose I need to clear up where I am coming from on this. I regard someone who has sexual-relationship inclinations for the same gender as “homosexual”. I don’t see the bible condemn that anywhere, nor do I. Sexuality is amazingly powerful, one of the ways we can most closely image God (in unifying people, and creating life), and like fire, has a significant purpose used rightly. The bible does seem to condemn homosexual behavior. And I have to capitulate to that. My problem is I just don’t think that should be on the top of everyone’s hit list. War, poverty, greed, and selfishness – these are of higher concern for me.
Tali – while I agree that God set the agenda, not us (“if the All-Powerful Creator of Time Space and the Infinite Universe disagrees with tali-the-bookkeeper …”), we all do have the responsibility to try to understand as much as possible. I do agree however that there sometimes comes a point where we say: If God is God, and not me, he knows what is best better than I do.
Brendar – on this subject, you point our rightly that earnest homosexuals struggle, and this creates a difficult situation (subjectively or objectively). I think we keep looking for the answer, and trust God at the same time. That’s just very, very difficult to do.
Dave – What a frustrating place we find ourselves in. I personally think on of the best ways to figure things out is to look directly at the history of the Church. Those closest to Jesus on the timeline probably reflected the ideas most faithfully, even if their understanding on many things was limited.
Tali – You write, “if you understand, it's not faith - it's agreement.”
I have to disagree. Reason is not contrary to faith, it is complementary. I think that means we don’t limit what we believe only to what can be understood, but we do seek to understand what we can.
Fille – I agree with you about God – if he is arbitrary, then I wouldn’t think he could be God. I do think Tali was aiming for something else though. Assuming that God is omnipotent, all-loving, etc, whatever rule he would propose would by nature be the best thing. Tali – am I close?
You write, “Why send your Son to die an agonizing death and just hope people will put faith in him.”
Why indeed. That’s insane. Unless motivated by a love beyond what we can understand. I think the whole idea of having faith in God is not so that God can feel properly acknowledged, as if he’s lonely or needy. He wants us to have the fullest life, and being the author of life, there is only one way to get that.
Brendar – Brother, you set yourself up to be misunderstood. Don’t be so surprised! Your comments about biblical background are quite helpful. Thanks. Some of them shock me – but I am guessing you get some from your study of Jewish thought, no?
Tali – Ditto. Thanks for the explanations.
Also, you write that you “… never said any one sin is worse that any other. he who violates any part of the law violates the whole law.” There are some sins that are worse than others, which is a biblical idea. Your second statement (of course) must be accepted by someone who accepts the authority of the bible. Somehow both are true. I’m not sure I can pry that apart.
wow - so thorought.
i hesitate to respond because i'm sure your typing fingers must be worn out already. i'll keep it short, i promise.
regarding the "one sin worse than another" issue - i think (not "i know" - "i think") that it depends on what you mean by "worse".
worse in it's implications to others? things like murder definately top that list.
worse in the degree to which it seperates you from God? another question entirely. not sure if there is a question of degree there.
I think you've probably desribed it well, tali. All and any "sin" by definition is short of doing the right thing, and separates us from the Creator, but some sin obviously has a more substantial and immediate impact that we can observe. That's why I get so agitated about people who put "lower impact" issues at the top of the list.
usually "lower impact" issues are fairly easy to define - they're the ones that don't impact me.
"...the ones that don't impact me."
Keep going ...
Tali:
When you say seperated from God, do you mean you know this from your experience, that is, that you feel the seperation (assuming that you've sinned some time), or do you mean you know this through what you've read, that is, that you assume the seperation?
" . . . assuming you've sinned . . . "
lol - yeah, once or twice. and it did cause me to feel seperated from God. the scary part is that sometimes the seperation is felt immediately, sometimes not until much later.
my turn. i got from your question that you were basically asking me if i had any personal experience or was just repeating some one else's opions.
why do you ask?
I'm comparing to my own experience. Sometimes I don't even know what it is I've done that's wrong, only that something is.
So...
Do you feel the seperation after you "know" you've sinned, even if it's a delayed reaction, or do you know you've sinned after you feel the seperation?
I'm not necessarily expecting you to answer, just to think about it. I don't have time right now to explain, but I will. Although you maybe know what I'm talking about anyway.
jeanne, I like your question because as a Christian I was brought up being taught that sin separates you from God. So that idea has influenced how I feel about my own actions. It makes sense to me that when I put myself at the center of the universe I am attempting to subvert God and that removes me from Him. You are asking if I have found this to be true or just been told and believed. In relpy I would say that I don't know that the Earth is spherical from my own experience. There have been times that it has seemed pretty flat. Once, I was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a boat and the Earth seemed spherical. It seems like I might be a fool for thinking that the Earth is flat so I go with the other idea.
Brendar,
I should have put a Tali in front of that last comment, but it did work as a general question too.
I can't personally think about the bible and its set of rules without intense anxiety. What if I follow its rules, and by doing so miss my only chance of becoming real and reaching "salvation"? What if I don't follow its rules, and miss my chance for salvation? What about all of those people who never got or are getting a chance to be christians? Pure, unadaulterated terror, a feeling that all who've had too close a brush with fundamentalism recognize. My conclusion: If I can't trust my own feeling of rightness or wrongness, I can't trust anything at all. I have no reason to believe what the bible says. None of us do. It's just a book among many books. It would be an act of trusting my own judgement to pick the bible from among all of the philosophies of life that abound. If I am willing to trust my own judgement for that, I might as well go all the way. Whatever is teaching will have to teach me directly.
Not to be crude...but I've never really been involved in the 'blogging' thing, and I just kind of assumed the community was largely made up of self-indulgent bores. You guys have defeated my prejudice! Nice to see this kind of discussion going on, and in a thoughtful, courteous manner to boot. Kudos to everybody.
jeanne:
i can certainly understand what you mean about not trusting you're own feelings in that regard. i wouldn't advise anyone setting them up as a rule of law - they're entirely changeable and easily manipulated.
likewise, i understand what you mean about trusting your own judgement to trust the bible. but the logical conclusion of that reasoning is to trust nothing and believe nothing, which leaves you sitting in your house wondering if the microwave will work this time - after all, just because it worked all those other times . . .
if you're really curious, i'd suggest either reading CS Lewis (mere christianity is a classic) or listening to Ravi Zacharias (who's seminars can be downloaded from rzim.org)
coming face to face with our own ignorance is an absolute necessity. staying there is a choice.
PS
the message of the bible isn't about "following all those rules" i'm not sure who told you it was, but bring them to me and i will slap them mightily.
"Whatever is teaching will have to teach me directly."
I understand that sentiment, Jeanne. Confusion and lies make me want the same thing.
Is "direct" teaching the same as experience? If so, I'm inclined to think that's the most effective way to learn truth: interacting with the world. Only philosophical skepticism says otherwise, eh? It just takes so long ...
Tali,
It's so funny how things come full circle. On my blog Jeanne was just saying how Lewis' "The Great Divorce" is one of her favorites. I'll bet she's read "Mere Christianity" but maybe not.
Jeanne,
When you talk of the Bible's rules are you refering to, "Love the Lord God with all you heart and love your neighbor as yourself"? Because I've found that when I go with my feelings and my conscience that is where I end up. I think that God gave us instincts and maybe they're not always right but we have them for a reason. If your instincts are at odds with your understanding of the Bible than the problem very well may be with your understanding of the Bible.
Tali,
You've misunderstood me. My feelings aren't changeable on that level at all. I was born with a light ahead of me, that I've always assumed I would eventually reach. I can only assume that this is the case for others as well. I trust all that I trust by way of my own judgement, as I tried to point out that all people do. I was Christian for a while, after an intense experience of understanding which corresponded to a good deal of the new testament. I have read Mere Christianity many times. I don't say I'm not Christian now, I say I know who or what I know and that's good enough for me. What I see or know has taught me very directly at times, at times more indirectly, at times not at all. My assumption at this point is that the more I do what I know or feel (not frivolous feeling, but deeper, moral feeling) that I should, the more I move closer to rightness.
Gar:
Sometimes it goes faster than I would have believed possible.
Brendar:
My instincts are not at odds with what Jesus said, to the best of my knowledge. But my experience has been that I've thought I understood things, only to find out in a roundabout way that they mean something "else", or more, once I've realized them on my own. I firmly believe that on a desert island, without ever having seen the bible, those truths which are in the bible, and perhaps many more as well, would be offered to me at the speed in which I could and was willing to realize them. Which brings me back full circle, as you said.
When I said I get closer to rightness, I don't mean I do less wrong than I did. There seem to always be new issues. I just mean I put certain wrongs behind me.
Or rather, incorporate more rightness.
It's interesting ... in Catholic thinking you find an acknowledgement of "natural law" -- the idea that people can discern truth from the world around them and their conscience without access to "revealed truth". Alongside that, they also acknowledge that man’s judgment is impaired to such a degree that without the creator’s intervention (grace), we would never seek the truth to its proper end.
That does ring true, but it can also seem a bit contradictory.
I do think "truth" is available universally, but it is elusive without genuine self-honesty and consistent living.
Revealed truth (assuming you believe it to be so) is in another category altogether. I'm convinced that we are like children, and we need it like parental supervision. I suppose I just don't think much of our own ability to discern.
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