Heaven - Part II

Disclaimer:
As I previously indicated, there is very little Biblical material to give us insight into the nature of Heaven, and therefore this post will be made up entirely of my musings on the nature of heaven/hell based upon information other than the Bible.  In the past I was fearful to ponder theological issues which could not be tied back (no matter how thinly or tangentially) to the Bible.  But as I have become firmly convinced that God expects us to find Truth and Beauty all around us and not just what we can find in the Bible, my thoughts are free to wander.  I fully accept the speculative nature of all that follows as I enjoy asking "what if...?"

Background:
A.    Eastern religion's view of the afterlife has at its center a reunion.  By reunion, I don't mean a simple meeting of old friends, but rather it is a rejoining of our spirits with God.  We become one with God.  The Bible speaks of becoming one with God, but evangelicals (infused with our Western individualism) will mock at any hint of having to lose one's individuality.

B.    The study of consciousness and technology fascinates me.  It is clear that computers will continue to improve and become faster, smaller, more powerful and less expensive.  These improvements will not stop.  Likewise with brain science.  We are learning more and more about how the brain works and adding to our total knowledge every year about how it is wired.  These discoveries will not stop.  In light of those two incontrovertible facts and despite how crazy it sounds, it is a near certainty that one day we will create a computer that has true "artificial intelligence" or in other words, becomes conscious.  The implications of this are truly staggering, but I want to focus on one aspect:  It will be possible to copy, store, and share consciousness - our consciousnesses.

A day is coming when that part of me that is defined by my brain (my thoughts, my feelings, my perceptions, fears, greed, desires, joys, etc.) can be put on a flash drive and shared.  This will redefine relationships and intimacies of all sorts, but again I want to focus on one implication in particular.  If someone could share their consciousness with me, then so could two, three, or a hundred people.  Indeed it seems to me that there would soon be a large consciousness that we would all want to share in together - the ultimate in crowd-sourcing!

The immediate objection is, "why would I want to combine my consciousness with the evil parts of others?"  But remember we do have control over what is added to this consciousness.  Undoubtedly there would be a large consciousness developed that was made up of only the "good" aspects of our consciousness e.g. love, generosity, beauty, compassion, etc.  In other words all the individual consciousnesses would be sanctified first.

C.     I read a book written by a recovering stroke victim.  She was a neuroscientist that had spent her early life studying the brain, and then she herself had a massive stroke on the right side of her brain.  Until she recovered, she experienced reality solely through her left (intuitive) side of her brain.   The book is amazing in how it describes her experience of reality during this time, but most importantly for me it made me realize that the right brain's experience of reality is no more "real" than the left, and who knows what "view" of reality I will have after I die and am no longer bound by my right or left brain.

What if?
It is interesting to me how much overlap exists between Eastern religion's view of the afterlife and where future technology is taking us.  If I can momentarily subdue my Western indoctrination that places the value of the individual over all else, I can see that the Bible and Jesus' teachings on the afterlife can be reconciled with a heaven that is a wonderful, perfect, and complete intimacy between God and all of His redeemed and sanctified creation.  It is satisfying to me that in this case I don't have to choose between and evangelical view, Eastern mysticism, or science.  Though they are all different, they all could contain major components of how it will actually be some day.

Heaven - perfect unity/intimacy with God.  Perfect unity/intimacy with others.  Completely and perfectly knowing God and others.  Completely and perfectly being known by God and others.  Unlimited by left or right brains.  No shame, sin, guilt, insecurity, jealousy, or competition.  Oneness.  Wholeness.  Intimacy.  Significance.  Love.

Heaven - Part I

Evangelical Christianity places such a high importance on getting into heaven by "getting saved" or saying the sinner's prayer that it becomes the backdrop for everything else.  Sometimes its very omnipresence makes it easy to forget that it is even there, but getting into heaven reigns supreme as the unspoken purpose for all we do.

Because we are so sure of this "heavenly purpose", we seem to have gained a great certainty about the very nature of heaven, but I wonder if we have really earned such clarity or have we (as with so much of our doctrine) evolved opinions which are most accessible and the most compelling to the most people?

How much do we really "know" from the Bible about life after death?  For evangelicals such words in the O.T. as "salvation" are read with our common concept of heaven in mind, but the fact is that the Old Testament is decidedly silent on matters of afterlife.  Though its existence isn't quite denied in the Old Testament, the text is at best agnostic to the nature of heaven, hell or any afterlife at all (see Job and Ecclesiastes).  Evangelicals are sometimes confused/shocked to realize that something so central to our religion and understanding of God could be so completely absent from the discussion our God had with his followers for thousands and thousands of years.

Jesus was born into a Jewish religion that was just recently accepting the idea of life after death, and this acceptance was by no means universal within Judaism at the time (or even today).  Many evangelicals are familiar with the Sadducees and their rejection of the afterlife (we learn that this is why they were "sad you see").  But we are misled when we think of them as some small radical splinter group.  Indeed the Sadducees were religious conservatives protecting the traditional Jewish view of life after death against the onslaught of these new and radical ideas.   It was the Hellenization of Judaism that was prompting this important shift in doctrine.  The influence of the Greeks on the Jews with their rich mythology of life after death replete with punishment and rewards can not be underestimated.  It was into this culture that Jesus was born.

The New Testament (written primarily in Greek) does contain a number of references to the afterlife, but the references are few, filled with symbolism, heavily influenced by Greek mythology, and are never meant to be definitive as to the nature of life after death.  Certainly the ideas of judgment, punishment, and reward are present in the Biblical texts, but how much of this is simply the product of a Hellenistic literary device is anyone's guess.  The most complete Biblical description of the judgment comes from Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats, but I am not aware of any evangelical Christian who takes anything in this depiction literally.  The most complete Biblical description of heaven is found in Revelation, but again this text is so filled with symbolism that it would be foolish to speculate with any specificity to the nature of heaven.  Perhaps the verse most apropos to heaven would be 1 Cor 2:9, "what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him."

And yet with these few meager inklings as to the nature of life after death, most Christians have an assurance that their fairly rigid, complete, and detailed view of the afterlife is firmly grounded in Scripture.  We use these views whenever convenient to prompt church members to reach out to non-believers, to participate in evangelical activities, support missions work, or to increase financial support of the church in general.  Sometimes more manipulative pastors will use these views to instill fear within their congregations separating them from God rather than bringing them together.

I have learned much about evangelical Christianity from teaching evangelical high school students.  Students have internalized the core messages and ethos of our evangelical subculture, but without the sophistication to hide the more unseemly or contradictory ramifications.  When probed, most students will state without hesitation that the reason they are Christian is to get into heaven.  They are shocked at having to explain such an obvious point and they are incredulous that anyone would be a Christian for any other reason.  Many students with mouth agape ask "Why in the world would I live like this if I could live another way and still get into heaven?!?"   At the base of these student's belief is fear.  They are Christians to avoid hell and get into heaven.  The have to pay their dues in this life in order to avoid (what they have been told again and again) a fate worse than anything we can imagine.  It is becoming clear to me that the Christian religion has evolved its detailed view of the afterlife to maximize congregation retention rather than seek and find Truth.

Long ago I studied the topic of hell in the Bible and ended up rejecting the idea of eternal conscious torment view of hell.  During those years I discovered that my view had a name, "annihilationism", and that unbeknownst to me many prominent theologians had come to a similar conclusion.  Now however I am willing to reexamine my view of not only hell, but heaven as well.  And perhaps in doing so I will have to revisit my dismay that God would let the Israelites be ignorant about something so important as heaven and instead reevaluate the premiere evangelical priority on getting people "saved".

Outsider

It's a strange/scary experience being surrounded by evangelicals when one is not an evangelical.  I had the opportunity to attend a small reunion of my college buddies a few weeks ago.  We were all evangelicals in college and though most of us earned degrees in the sciences, we have since gone on to full time ministry as missionaries, pastors, working for various para-church non-profits, or even teachers at Christian schools (like myself).  All of us now in our late forties, but I am the only one who is moving beyond evangelicalism.

It did not go over well when I announced my recent theological movements.  A lot of the difficulty came from my halting hesitancy in voicing my evolving beliefs, but as soon as I tried to articulate any particular point of change, immediate pejorative labeling, accusations, and challenges were thrown at me from all directions.  I experienced an "outsider" perspective I have never had before.

As I tried to communicate where my spiritual journey is taking me, I realized just how difficult it is to not be perceived as judgmental or arrogant.  How in the world can one say, "I was an evangelical.  I was where you are.  Now I see something beyond.  Now I see more than I saw before." without sounding arrogant/condescending/judgmental?

I had spent a lot of time thinking about this dilemma before the reunion so I was careful not to actually say anything along those lines, and yet their defensive responses to what I did say made it clear that they felt somewhat attacked nonetheless.  I am glad that I felt absolutely no obligation to get them to see things "my way".  Their "salvation", their joy, or how much God approves of them doesn't depend upon them accepting anything I've discovered.  I had no need to win the argument - no need to point out their fallacies.  I was free to withhold or share whatever I felt they were ready to hear (which turned out to be very little).

I didn't point out the obvious.  We have spent our entire lives as evangelicals in this position.  Evangelism as a matter of design involves sharing a testimony that says "Once I was lost and thought like you.  Now I know something you don't know.  If you would believe like I do, you could know what I know too!"  This is just as demeaning and condescending and yet evangelicals say it all the time.  Some are more careful and tactful than others, but there is no getting around the core dynamics of the matter.

As I pondered the situation, it surprised me to think that evangelism ever works at all.  It is such a turn-off to be talked down to.  But then I realized that "evangelism" doesn't generally work unless the target person is either going through some personal crisis or they are young.  Young people are used to being talked down to and learning from others all the time.  A person in crisis is also much more willing to listen to others in their attempt to figure a way out of their crisis.  I don't know the statistics, but my guess is that most people respond to the gospel message in their youth or during a crisis.  Contrast that with the typical reception one can expect from a middle aged professional with a healthy family life.  They simply dismiss or are offended at our attempts to convince them that we know something that they don't.  It is the same dismissing and offense that my evangelical friends started to exhibit towards me as I hinted that I was moving beyond evangelicalism.

I am dismayed by evangelical subculture's insularity and its us/them duality.  Two examples in the last two days.

1.  An application to become a volunteer worker at a Christian camp serving disabled children (Christian or not), included the following item to be filled in:  "Please list the evangelical church you are attending_____________________."

2.  A pastor thinking about planting a church quoted statistics that indicated that in his target area only 6% of the population attends an evangelical church.

The message being sent to clear enough:  Only evangelical churches count.  Only evangelical churches provide for people's spiritual needs.   Only evangelical churches are right.

I agree that evangelical churches are great and provide spirituality for many people, but it is demonstrably false and a glaringly arrogant error to state or even imply that only evangelical churches can satisfy spiritual needs or please God.

The pink elephant in the room

In my professional career (outside of the Christian schools I've been associated with) I've had numerous coworkers who were practicing homosexuals.  In general these experiences have been positive and I have never had any "problems" with my homosexual friends/coworkers, and I hope that they would say the same about me even though they knew I was a Christian.

And though these interactions started when I was in high school, for a number of years my view on homosexuality was nothing more than dismissive disgust.  I moved one notch more nuanced in my later college years as I embraced the "hate the sin - love the sinner" ethos (yet another manifestation of my over-simplification of human sexuality).  A few years after that, I moved to adopt the idea that homosexuality itself was not necessarily sinful, though homosexual acts certainly were, and therefore the idea of a homosexual Christian was no more problematic than the idea of a single heterosexual Christian.  In both cases, the individuals simply needed to control their actions to stay within God's will.  Then, in the last few years as gay marriage became the battle du jour, my libertarian side gave me an easy out.  I simply blamed the government's involvement in marriage and I took the stance that only churches should administer the rites of marriage.  This would leave churches free to marry whoever they wanted (or did not want).  This last stance generally provided a way out of facing the larger and messier questions, while placating the extremists on either side.

I recently listened to a podcast of a local pastor's sermon on homosexuality.  He certainly seemed sincere and genuine as he actually cried over the way that homosexuals have been mistreated by Christians, and he asked for forgiveness from them.  I'm sure that in certain circles, such a show of deference toward homosexuals would be scandalous in of itself, but that was at the beginning of the sermon.  By the end he was stating that the Bible clearly teaches homosexual acts are wrong and he had no choice but to agree.  He seemed to actually apologize for having to believe what the Bible was teaching him.  It was sadly intriguing to listen to this man vainly trying to reconcile the dissonance between what he knew to be right in his heart and his traditional interpretation of Scripture.

For me, two points have come to stand tall and immovable and they have helped settle the issue for me.

The first issue is whether or not one's sexual orientation is a choice or is it (like one's race) something one is simply born into.  Christians have fiercely defended the idea that homosexuality is a a choice (like sin is a choice).  But it is clear to me that sexual orientation is not a choice for the majority of individuals.  Very few people would freely choose to pursue a sexual identity which alienates themselves from their families, churches, friends, and coworkers.  Few (some, but very few) people would choose such a socially destructive path simply because they wanted to.  To claim otherwise shows an incredible lack of understanding for the difficulties facing any "out" homosexual.  Christians like to bemoan how easy it is to be a homosexual today, but that claim only has merit in very select subcultures within the U.S. today.  Try being a homosexual in the Bible belt.  Try it in most high schools today.  Try it in Africa or any Muslim country where it is a capital offense.

Sexual orientation is therefore something that we are either born into or something that is brought upon us through a combination of nature and nurture.  Though currently there is no known "gay gene", undoubtedly there will be a series of genetic markers associated with homosexual orientation identified in the coming years.  Sexual orientation (generally) is not merely a choice.  If I look back upon my life, there was never a time or phase when I decided to like girls.  I did not choose to be heterosexual, I just am.  If someone told me that today God wanted me to choose to be attracted to men  instead of women, I'm afraid there isn't much I could do.  I'm pretty sure that I would forever "disappoint" God by my attraction to women.

The second issue is whether or not homosexual behavior is damaging.  It is almost impossible to answer this question because it is exceedingly difficult to separate any damage that may be caused directly by homosexuality from the damage that society inflicts upon homosexuals as punishment for their nonconforming behavior.  So a question remains unanswered.  If society did not condemn homosexuality, but rather accepted it as normative would homosexuals be as happy, healthy, and as well adjusted as heterosexuals?  As I said it is difficult to tell, but the studies I am familiar with lead me to believe that responsible/loving homosexual behavior is not in of itself any more destructive than responsible/loving heterosexual behavior.  I suspect that this conclusion will be reinforced as homosexuality becomes increasingly accepted in society.

Evangelical Christians have vehemently denied the mounting evidence and the cultural momentum on both of these issues for many years, but the connected nature of today's youth makes it difficult to maintain the veil of ignorance.  This is leaving evangelicals with just one remaining fig leaf.  It is this trump card to which the tearful pastor appealed.  The Bible is against it.  The problem is that the more we hold onto this claim, the more we are damaging people's (especially our youth's) opinion of the Bible.

Evangelicals are now left in the position of claiming that there are desires that are inherently evil even though individuals themselves have no control over whether they have the desires or not, and even though the associated actions have no negative consequences.  To my knowledge there are no other impulses/actions which Christians claim are evil that are neither the choice of the individual nor results in any harm.  In this regard, homosexuality seems to stand alone in the church's view of right and wrong and it seems to stand alone in the way in which we read and apply the Bible today.

When we read the gospels we rejoice with the idea that God's love is available to all.  It makes no sense to us that God would condemn an individual simply because of an accident of birth (this is why racism is so abhorrent to us).  We affirm the goodness of the Scriptural truth of Galatians 3 that says, "  28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

And even if some Christians insist that there is something "broken" about homosexuality, we are left with the idea that most homosexuals are born into this state by no action or fault of their own.  We have no choice how we are born - tall, short, blonde, brunette, (or if you think something is biologically awry with homosexual behavior) down's syndrome, defective heart, brittle bone disease, etc.  Are evangelicals claiming that these conditions are curses from God?  Are we claiming that God looks upon these conditions as sin?  I will not nor can I accept that God is a less merciful and loving being than I am.  I am firmly convinced that to sin one must choose something.  Sin is something you do, not something that is done to you.

As we read the Bible's prohibitions and admonitions today we habitually read them through the lens of what results in good and what results in evil.  When we read Paul's prohibition against women speaking in church in 1 Corinthians 14:  "34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says." we all read these words with a moral sense that asks us "what is the good and harm of the issue?"  Women in churches today speak all the time.  I have never been in a church (except for an Jewish Orthodox service) where no women spoke at all.  And if there is a discussion about the issue, the discussion always surrounds what is the good and harm of the action.  If there is no harm in the action, we allow it.  Women speak in church.  They also wear braided hair.  We eat lobster and bacon.  We don't greet each other with holy kisses.  Are we claiming that God wants us to blindly follow the Bible's strictures without thought of good and harm - without a thought of love?  I will not nor can I accept that God is a more arbitrary, petty or vindictive being than I am.  I am firmly convinced that a sin must involve harm.

We are doing a grave injustice to the name of God by tying our own tastes and distastes to God's will.  We are also embittering a generation against the church and the Bible.  A person's sexual orientation is not a sin, and homosexual acts are no more inherently sinful than heterosexual ones.  Our progress on this moral issue towards God's Kingdom is simply another step along the lines of our changing attitudes on slavery, racism, sexism, nationalism, violence, and the value and dignity of human life.  Unfortunately on this issue, the church will be dragged toward truth and love by culture, and not the other way around.  In the end we will be thankful that God continued to work in the world to increase His love, mercy, and justice even when His own church opposed it.

Purity - Part II

A traveling evangelical ministry came to our school the other day.  They did a great job of presenting some thought-provoking material in a modern and challenging manner.  They covered a wide variety of topics, but the one most relevant to the students was their presentation on sexuality.  They contrasted the worldview of the entertainment industry to the worldview of evangelical Christianity.  To illustrate their point, they played snippets of popular secular songs with the lyrics displayed.  The lyrics presented sex as a good and fun thing, but completely disconnected from any sense of commitment, consequences, or as a part of an intimate experience between two human beings.

After a few such examples (each time the crowd singing along with gusto), the presenter said that we should instead consider what Jesus had to say about sexuality. 

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’^[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

With this passage from Matthew 5 displayed behind him, he said “The Bible teaches us that sex is a good thing within the right context and the Bible has given us clear guidelines to allow us freedom to fully enjoy our sexuality.”  It would have been funny if he hadn’t been serious, for the verse he displayed says nothing of the sort.  The verse he displayed, if it says anything at all about sexuality, says that sexuality is evil, so evil in fact, that if men cannot rid themselves of it, they should castrate themselves.  Nowhere in the passage does it say anything about sexuality being a good thing.

It reminded me of my own struggles as a single Christian.  Sex and sexuality was never discussed in my home, so I learned about “God’s view” from my youth and college groups.  The messages were similarly reductionist to the one this ministry presented:  Sex and sexuality is off limits until marriage.  If you think of such things before marriage, you are engaging in premarital sex and you must repent and ask God for forgiveness.  Every mens Bible study I’ve attended discusses this issue, and every “guys accountability group” I’ve joined had this as its major theme.  Thinking back on them now, I see that though they didn’t help us rid ourselves of our sexuality, they did help us see that our inability to do so was universal so that we didn’t feel quite so guilty about it.  In all of the groups I’ve attended through the years, the dogma of the evil of sexuality went unquestioned.

But now I see that this dogma is wrong.  In Matthew 5, Jesus wasn’t talking about our sexuality.  When Jesus uses the word “lust”, he was speaking of the type of carnal demand for immediate gratification that reduces a woman to a mere object.  In Jesus’ time, wives were considered the objective property of their husbands.  The lust that Jesus prohibits is the same faceless, relation-less sex that the song lyrics were promoting.  But this can in no way be interpreted as Jesus repudiating the essential goodness of our sexuality. 

Sexuality is an important part of what it is to be human, and not just a married human.  Just as we are emotional, spiritual, and intellectual beings, so we are also sexual beings.  We can try to “deny” our emotions or intellect all we want, but we will still end up feeling and thinking.  Our sexuality is more than our ability to have sex, our “orientation”, or our libido.  It is the mystical interplay between a man’s masculinity and a woman’s femininity.  Men naturally aspire to masculinity and all that it may represent to them (e.g. strength, courage, stability, justice, reason, determination), and yet they yearn for intimacy with nothing less than femininity. 

The sexuality of a woman awakens a man and makes his senses come alive.  She causes him to recognize his own manhood.  She reminds him that he does not exist alone in his own universe, but that others are here and that he exists within community.  God has given him purpose.  He can be a physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual being and be completely alone, but because he is also a sexual being he is driven to be in relationship.  Our sexuality acts as an unrelenting herdsman, rounding up all the other aspects of our humanity and plunging us headlong into intimacy.

Story tellers and movie makers will tell us that anticipation is a good thing in and of itself.  We anticipate a perfect union with God after death and this anticipation is expressed through worship.  Our sexuality drives us to anticipate physical intimacy.  This sexual tension is part of the gift of sexuality.  Sensuality is not confined to the act of intercourse.  We anticipate the look in her eyes, the softness of her touch, the sound of her voice, her smell, her taste.  Our sexuality encompasses this joy of anticipation. I do not write these words as mere hyperbole.  I have experienced this ecstasy of life.  While remaining chaste, I have held a woman close while every aspect of my being desperately yearns to become one.  This too is part of sexuality, and it is exceedingly good.

 

Something so utterly good must have been Satan’s first target.  Outside the church he uses our selfishness to separate sexuality from intimacy.  Within the church he uses our legalism and pride to get us to label this great gift “evil”, and to spend all of our young lives reading books, attending rallies, and joining accountability groups to deny this essential part of us. 

And what are the results of all of our programs?  The single man earnestly tries denying his sexuality but he cannot rid himself of this any more than he can rid himself of his intellect or his emotions.  Dejectedly he seeks and prays for God to take these feelings away, but in God’s goodness and mercy He refuses.  God will not take away the very gift He has designed to allow man to experience life most keenly.  So man’s ineffectual flailing at this unholy dissonance continues and a severe frustration builds. 

Many men will look for somewhere to place the blame for their miserable condition and the woman becomes an easy scapegoat.  They will blame her for these unstoppable “evil” feelings.  She must be dressing wrong.  She must be a flirt, or “leading them on”.  She is “causing her brothers to stumble” or some other cobbled together mishmash of Bible-speak.   Dress codes dictating hem line, shoulder strap width, and inseam length are sure to follow.  Even in today’s modern world we see the robes and burqas that result from this sort of religious misogyny.  It leads to a perversion of reasoning that claims that since man cannot stop being a sexual being, he likewise cannot stop his actions, and it is the woman’s own fault when she experiences leers, catcalls, whistles, pinches, gropes and rapes.

Many other men will recognize (consciously or not) that what they have been taught must be wrong.  If they believe that the only other alternative is the world’s view of casual sex, they may adopt that view.  Others will simply sink under the suffocating guilt, quietly suffering and every day learning to hate their sexuality.

The evangelical community must reclaim the goodness of sexuality from the world’s crass objectification of women and from our own bleak tradition of sexual Gnosticism.  The church should represent the beauty of God and the abundant life to needy world.  The contrast between what God intends and the what the world offers for our sexuality could not be more stark.  Christianity can offer a complete, fulfilling, enriching and beautiful view of sexuality.  Our failure to do so is not just a lost opportunity to make Christianity “attractive”, but ultimately it is the denial of a very good gift of God’s creation.

Where now is your authority (Part II)

Someday perhaps Jesus will be immediately available to answer all the questions we have, but until that time Christians must turn to other sources to answer our questions regarding basic beliefs on theology and doctrine (orthodoxy) and on practices and morality (orthopraxy).  Currently, evangelicals turn to the Bible for authoritative answers to these types of questions.  This is not to say that this is the only source we use to determine our beliefs and morality, but it plays the same role that the Supreme Court does in American law.  Where conflicting opinions exist, we appeal to this authority to settle the matter with finality.  Today a small but growing number of evangelicals (for varied reasons) are no longer satisfied with the authority of the Bible and so a question looms large, “Where now is your authority?”

My answer:  Love

I assume that any evangelical will acknowledge the importance of love.  God is Love.  It is the greatest commandment (and the second greatest too).  It is what inspired God to send Jesus to Earth.  It is the overarching principle which gives the other gifts of their meaning.  1 Corinthians 13: 1-4 tells us that without love we are nothing.  Jesus mocked the Pharisees for following the religious rules without love. 

But appealing to the Bible to justify love as the ultimate authority is a self-defeating argument.  Instead I will compare the outcomes of using Love to using the Bible as one’s final authority.  Let me first compare the Bible and Love regarding issues of morality.

Love as an authority for morality

I ask myself which of two choices better provides a sound foundation for morality,

            1) Determine what the Bible says by looking to Love (Love above the Bible).

                                                or

            2) Determine what Love is by looking to what the Bible says (Bible above Love). 

History is replete with examples of Christians reading the Bible without love.  The Crusades, The Inquisition, excommunications, shunnings, conquistadors, burning of witches, the genocide of native Americans, slavery, oppression of women, and homophobia have all been motivated and justified on Biblical grounds without Love.  The reputation of Christ and Christianity have been sullied and the totality of the suffering, injustice, and depravity caused by this way of reading Scripture is overwhelming to me. 

Yet history is also filled with examples of Christians reading the Bible though a lens of  love; Prison ministries, homeless shelters, famine relief, education, abolition, the suffrage movement, orphanages, caring for those with AID’s , charitable hospitals, Mother Teresa’s comfort to lepers etc.  The people engaged in these activities read the same Bible as those who committed the atrocities, but they read and interpreted the Bible out of love.  It appears they weren’t asking themselves “What does the text require?” they acted as if they were asking themselves “What does love require?”

The list of ills stemming from Christians (or others) loving without the Bible is fairly insignificant by comparison.  Though the Bible contains the definitive sacrificial love story, the majority of people in the world know love when they see it without ever having opened a Bible.  Many of them love their children/families/spouses more consistently and sacrificially than I love mine own.  I am not arguing against the fact that Jesus’ life and His teaching on Love were transformational to the world, but ultimately it is Love itself, not the teaching on Love wherein the power of God resides.  Many people suffer not from ignorance about what the Bible says Love is, but from a lack of truly being loved at all.   

So it becomes obvious to me that between Love and the Bible, Love is the higher moral authority.  The Bible must be read through the lens of love and not the other way around.  Love must be the final arbiter of morality.  I will seek the Bible’s counsel on all moral issues, but when I sense there are conflicting answers and I need an authoritative answer, I will ask “What is loving?” over “What is Biblical?”

Love as an authority for orthodoxy

How does appealing to Love help us know what to believe about God, life and the afterlife?  What does Love have to say about all the systematic theologies that have been carefully crafted based on the Bible?  It is here where the stark differences between the nature of the Bible and the nature of Love will be felt most deeply (much like the early Protestants must have felt the profound differences between the nature of the Church and the Bible).  The difficulty arises in that Love does not offer the religious scholar the particularity and specificity that Biblical texts do, and therefore Love will not be able to decide the winners and losers of certain theological debates. 

But is this really a reason to reject Love’s role as authority?  If I am feeling wronged by God because Love doesn’t speak to my “important” theological issues let me remember some history. Though today’s evangelicalism centers on “getting people saved” from hell, the truth is God’s people have only known about heaven and hell for about 2,000 years.  From the time of Adam until the writing of the New Testament, Yahweh did not tell His followers about life after death, and the Israelites generally did not believe in it or concern themselves with it.  The Old Testament makes no definitive statements regarding what happens after we die.  It vacillates from a denial of life after death to agnosticism at most.  The afterlife and conceptions of heaven and hell are thoroughly New Testament notions.  Did God owe it to all those people in Old Testament times to let them know about the nature of the afterlife?  Apparently He didn’t owe them anything. 

Therefore maybe I am misguided if I think that Love is a poor authority on issues of theology because it isn’t very detailed or specific.  Maybe specificity and details aren’t part of what God wants to provide to us.  Maybe if he wanted us to know the details of issues like His second coming or the exact nature of the Trinity He would have given us golden tablets engraved with detailed explanations.  Maybe God doesn’t want me to spend a lot of time trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, trying to systematize the unfathomable, and trying to reduce and categorize the infinite.  Maybe the most important thing I need to know about God is that God is Love, and the most important thing I need to know about myself is that God loves me.

So now when I consider the vast ocean of doctrines on man, creation, God, heaven, hell, salvation, justice, mercy etc., I will keep in mind first and foremost that God is a loving God.  All of God’s other attributes are brought under the subjection of God’s Holy and perfect Love.  From this foundation I will ponder the deep questions of God and through this lens I will read the Bible for further glimpses of who God is and who I am. 

Where now is my authority?  How do I know what to believe and how to behave?  There are many sources (including the Bible), but ultimately I believe in Love.

Where now is your authority? (part I)

Where now is your authority?

I attended a Christian conference in 2008 that inspired and challenged me.  One speaker ended their talk with the question above.  It has haunted me ever since.  The speaker had summarized the historical roots of evangelicalism* by analyzing each of the major Church “splits” and describing how each of them had fundamentally changed Christianity.  Specifically each transition involved a fundamental shift in what we believed to be the central authority in the Christian religion. 

For example, shortly before The Reformation, Roman Catholics viewed the Church itself as the ultimate representation of God’s authority on Earth.  Christians were expected to turn to the Church to find expressions of God’s power, His love, and His Truth.  Hierarchical structures were clearly delineated (all the way to the Pope) to settle disputes on church matters and doctrinal orthodoxy.  The Protestants however, became fed up with the corruption and inadequacies of the Roman Church and consequently rejected the Church’s authority and replaced it with the Bible.  Sola Scriptura is now the pillar of Protestantism which affirms that the Bible is the ultimate and only source of Truth.

The speaker made a number of observations about the various movements and trends currently at work within Christendom which are consistent with the idea that we are once again undergoing a transformational shift in where we place our authority.  The reasons for this change are many, but the speaker mentioned one that struck me as particularly insightful.  As evangelicals have earnestly reached for deeper Biblical insights by examining ancient cultures and the nuances of the Greek and Hebrew language, we have accidentally discovered that there is no such thing as THE Bible.  There is only the Bible “as interpreted by” or “as seen through the eyes of”, and therefore the distinctive claim of the Bible as a truly objective arbiter of Truth has been lost.  Additionally, for many evangelicals, the Bible’s other shortcomings are being increasingly highlighted in this connected and well-informed world.  The speaker did not make any suggestions as to where Christianity will turn next for its authority, but rather left us with the question maddeningly unanswered and hanging in the air, “Where now is your authority?”

I find myself in a position spiritually that I would never find myself in financially or professionally.  I am a proactive and methodical planner.  Though I have changed jobs/employers a number of times in my career, I have never left a job before having been hired for my next job.  I have never purchased a car or a home until I knew that the previous one was sold.  In other words, in these areas of my life, I step out only when I know that there is something to step onto.  But now spiritually I see that as I relinquish my death-grip on the Bible, I don’t really know for sure what will take its place. 

Many early Protestants must also have been more than a bit apprehensive.  For centuries the Roman Catholic Church was the representation of God, His blessing, His Truth, and His refuge.  Christians could go to Cathedrals to see the Beauty of God.  They went to the Priests to confess to God and be assured of their forgiveness and acceptance.  In times of need the Church provided for their physical needs and even provided a place of safety in times of war.  If anyone had a theological question, no one was more learned or knowledgeable than the monks.  The Church in all this and more was the manifestation and revelation of God.

And yet the Protestants replaced the Church with a cold hard book (during a time of wide-spread illiteracy no less!).  The very nature of “the Church” and “the Bible” are so different from each other that to replace one with the other was incomprehensible and blasphemy to many.  How could a material object replace the Church with its spirit-filled flesh and blood members and clergy?

But Protestants of course did not completely eliminate church.  We Protestants still meet regularly.  We still worship together, take communion, hear teaching and use the church community as a means of support in times of need.  But the Protestants did “repurpose” church.  We stripped it of its position.  No longer was it the complete revelation of God, no longer was it the ultimate repository of Truth, no longer would it be venerated.

Likewise as I consider replacing the Bible with some other authority, I am deeply struck by just how different this other authority must be.  And just as the Protestants undoubtedly missed certain aspects of having the Church as their authority, I also will miss certain aspects of the literally black and white Bible as my ultimate and unquestioned source of Truth.  But just as the Protestants never eliminated church, likewise I do not intend to void my life of Scripture.  I still will read and learn from the Bible.  I will learn about God, about man, and about life from the Bible.  I still believe in the centrality of the Bible (and of the Church) to the life of the believer. Nonetheless I have given the Bible a different role in my spiritual journey, and I must answer the question, “where now is my authority?”

 

*Evangelicalism is rooted in Protestantism which split from the Roman Catholic Church about 500 years ago during The Reformation.  The Roman Catholic Church had split from the Greek Orthodox church some 500 years before that (known as The Great Schism), and the Greek Orthodox church had split from the Coptic Church about 500 years before that.  Going back yet another 500 years brings us to Christ himself walking the planet and founding Christianity in the first place.  The speaker noted that from a historically perspective Christianity is due for a significant upheaval.