Rethinking the Faith

Unconventional Perspectives in Christianity

[rethinkingthefaith]

40 Tough Questions About the Nature of Jesus

Most Christians believe that the divinity of Jesus is an absolutely closed case. At Nicaea, Arius lost the argument, the ancient church took a vote and that’s that. Therefore, anyone who questions whether Jesus is “very God of very God” or possesses two natures (human and divine) should be driven from the communion of saints as an arch-heretic, right? Well, maybe not. There are still many unanswered questions about the nature of Jesus on the pages of the New Testament itself. Here are 40 questions aimed at the cocksure dogmatist who thinks the Bible’s Christology syncs up neatly with his or her foregone conclusions. 

1. Jesus always speaks of God as a being other than himself. In fact, he even calls the Father "the only true God" (John 17:3). Don't these words sow confusion and lead people away from the orthodox view of Christ's Godhead?

2. The New Testament says that God sent Jesus (Gal. 4:4), raised Jesus (Acts 13:34), anointed Jesus (Acts 10:38), glorified Jesus (1 Pet. 1:21). The early church clearly believed that God was one who acted upon Jesus? And isn't this far different than affirming that God really was Jesus?

3. Why does the New Testament so often give Jesus names that include the words "of God"? Lamb of God, Son of God, Christ of God, Priest of God. If someone is "of God," doesn't that usually imply that one is distinct from God?

4. Wouldn't it be strange to say that the Father is "of God"? Or that He, as Jesus' Father, is the "Father of God"?

5. Why do the epistles so often refer to "God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philemon 3, e.g.)? Doesn't the word "and" denote a distinction between Jesus and God, making them two beings? Doesn't the phrase "Paul and Silas" tell us with absolute certainty that Paul is not Silas and Silas is not Paul? Why does this law of language not apply to God and Jesus?

6. If Jesus is God as much as the Father is, and if we are children of God, why does Scripture never refer to us as "children of Jesus" or "children of the Son"? Why is the Father -- and only the Father -- considered our divine Parent?

7. Don't references to Christ being at "the right hand of God" (Heb. 10:12, e.g.) confuse the issue if Jesus is himself God?

8. The New Testament everywhere speaks of Jesus as being subordinate to and dependent on God for life (John 5:26), the ability to perform miracles (Acts 10:38) and render judgment (John 5:30). How can this be if Jesus is the Almighty God?

9. Paul wrote that "the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). He clearly believed Jesus to be under the authority of God. Did Paul, then, believe that Jesus was himself the God of Israel?

10. Paul also taught that the subordination of Jesus will extend into the eternal state (1 Cor. 15:20-28). Could Paul have possibly believed Jesus to be equal with God throughout all eternity?

11. If Phil. 2:5-7 teaches the doctrine of kenosis -- that is, the Second Person of the Trinity left heaven, laying aside the exercise of his divine attributes -- why are none of these ideas stated explicitly in the text? There's nothing about a pre-existence in heaven (that's assumed) and nothing about Jesus actually being God in prehistory (that's also assumed). Shouldn't a text purported to be the grand explanation of the myriad "subordination" texts be plain and unequivocal itself?

12. If an early Christian congregation had every book in the canon except Philippians, would that congregation have been at a loss to explain Christ's subordination?

13. When Jesus said, "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), wasn't he giving his hearers a strong impression that he and the Father were not co-equals?

14. In the Lord's Prayer, why did Jesus teach his followers to pray to the Father alone (Matt. 6:9)? Why not to the Son?

15. The New Testament tells us that the Jews bitterly opposed the new faith because it allowed converts to set aside circumcision and kosher laws. But if the earliest Christians also taught that Jesus is Yahweh, wouldn't that tenet have been the primary controversy? Where are the New Testament references to Jewish outrage against the early Church for presenting the crucified Christ as God Himself?

16. If Jesus is the "one mediator between God and men," (1 Tim. 2:5) who is the "one God" spoken of in the text? Is it Jesus himself? Is it the Trinity, which includes Jesus as a divine Person?

17. Isn't a mediator, by definition, a third party? Jesus, as a sinless human being, mediates between sinful humanity and a holy God -- this makes sense. But how does Jesus mediate as a third party between God and sinful humankind if he is one of the parties himself?

18. If Jesus was God, why didn't he know the time of his coming again (Matt. 24:36)? Why was this information known only to the Father if Jesus himself was equally all-knowing?

19. If Jesus had a human nature and a divine nature, does that mean he simultaneously had perfect knowledge and limited knowledge? Isn't this a completely unintelligible idea?

20. Did the immortal God actually die when Jesus was crucified? If so, how could this be theologically possible? Isn't deathlessness an inherent property of deity? If only Christ's humanity died on the cross, doesn't this contradict the popular idea that he "had to be God" in order to die for our sins?

21. Paul wrote that "for us there is one God, the Father, ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 8:6). In other words, Jesus is our one Master and the Father is our one God. But doesn't it militate against the prevailing christology to identify the Father as our "one God"? In the same way, doesn't Paul's reference in Eph. 4:6 to "one God and Father of all" also seem to teach that the Father alone is God?

22. John 1:1-14 ("the Word became flesh") is often quoted as conclusive proof of Jesus' Godhead. But here, we read that "the Word was WITH God," which seems to as much disprove as prove the point. If this is supposed to be the clearest, most definitive text on the deity of Christ, why the ambiguity? Would we ever expect the Scripture to declare that the Father was "with God"?

23. If John's literary purpose was to present Jesus as God Almighty, why does his epilogue say, "These were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (20:31)? Why didn't the evangelist express his desire "that you may believe that Jesus is God"? Isn't that what an orthodox person would have written?

24. The book of Acts says that "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus" (Acts 3:13). Why is the Father, and the Father only, identified as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, while Jesus is called only "his servant"? Did the earliest Christians really believe that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament patriarchs?

25. How does the saying "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30) prove that Jesus is God? Later in John's gospel, he prays that we might all be one, just as he and the Father are one (17:22). Did Jesus pray that we might all be divine members of the Godhead?

26. If Christ's saying "he who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) proves that Jesus is God, doesn't it with equal force prove that he is the Father?

27. In Matt. 16:16, Peter makes his Great Confession: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Why is this hailed as so pivotal when it falls short of identifying Jesus as God? And why is the Father alone called "the Living God" in this text?

28. Paul wrote that "in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col. 2:9). Isn't it one thing to say, as Paul did, that deity lives in Jesus and quite another to say that Jesus is deity? And didn't Paul also pray that we "might be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:19)? If the Colossians texts suggests that Jesus is divine, doesn’t the Ephesians text suggest WE are divine? Why wouldn’t it?

29. The book of Hebrews says that God has made Jesus "the heir of all things" (1:2). But if Jesus is himself the Creator of all things, why would he need someone to make him the heir of all things?

30. Why is it so easy to prove from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah, but much more difficult to prove that he is "the God-Man" with two distinct natures? If the latter doctrine is necessary for salvation, why isn't it set forth more clearly and more often in the Bible? Why are we dependent on theologians to sew together detached passages of Scripture with such intricate, metaphysical reasoning? Is the truth really so inaccessible to the common man?

31. The first recorded Christian sermons to the unconverted say nothing about Jesus being God. Why not? How could the first preachers have omitted such a staggering assertion so indispensable to our redemption? Wouldn't there have been a need to present the doctrine plainly at that point? Instead, they call Jesus a man who "went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him" (Acts 10:38). How do we explain such an omission and language that could be so easily misconstrued?

32. When a rich young man called Jesus "good teacher" (Mark 10:17), Jesus said, "Why do you call me good? ... No one is good -- except God alone" (v. 18). Doesn't this sound like a disavowal of orthodoxy's claims about Jesus' deity?

33. In John 10:31-39, the Jews threatened Jesus on the grounds that he was applying divine language to himself. But instead of affirming that he really was divine, he points them to Old Testament language that "called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came" (v. 35). Then he reminded them that he was only claiming to be the Son of God (v. 36). How can this be anything but a denial of the divine status that orthodoxy has bestowed on the historic Jesus?

34. Can't the John 10:35 text ("he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came") be used to explain the rare instances in which theos (God) is applied to Jesus? What principle of interpretation forbids it? And why are these occurrences so rare when the Father is called theos HUNDREDS of times?

35. Jesus is called the "exact representation" of God's being (Heb. 1:3). Isn't there a distinction between a representation and the thing that it represents? A statue of a man is not literally the man himself, is it?

36. Often, we fail to appreciate that each of the four gospels was written as an separate, evangelistic work designed to give readers all the information they needed to become followers of the Christ. So why did Matthew, Mark and Luke write works in which scarcely anything can be harvested as proof of "God becoming a man"? If all four evangelists believed in Christ's Godhead, why did only one write anything that remotely supports such a salient point? If an early congregation had only the gospels of Matthew and Luke in their possession, would they have failed to understand who Jesus was?

37. Orthodoxy insists that God alone has the power to forgive sins, and that because Jesus forgave sins, he must be God. But didn't Jesus grant this power to the apostles (John 20:23)? Doesn't this prove that the authority to forgive sins is transferable -- at least in some manner?

38. Why do orthodox Christians cite Christ's miracles as proof of his deity? The New Testament attributes this ability to the Spirit's anointing and to the fact that "God was with him" (Acts 10:38). Many others in the Bible worked miracles, but are never given divine honors. Why is this regarded as a compelling argument?

39. Apologists for the majority view often set up "a+b=c" syllogisms to prove their point. For example, a) only God is to receive worship, b) Jesus received worship, therefore, c) Jesus is God. Or a) only God is a savior, b) Jesus is a savior, therefore, c) Jesus is God. But if we grant these arguments, why are the following not equally valid?:

a) We must serve only God (Matt. 4:10), b) God decreed that Esau should serve Jacob (Rom. 9:12), therefore, c) Jacob must be divine.

a) Only God is good (Mark 10:18), b) Barnabas was good (Acts 11:22-24), therefore, c) Barnabas is God

Doesn't this demonstrate that such arguments have no place in theology and should be discarded as sophistries?

40. Jesus was "tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin" (Heb. 4:15). But how can we draw the slightest encouragement from this if we regard Jesus as God? How could any temptation have been real to a being who, as deity, was incapable of sin?

[rethinkingthefaith]

Universal Salvation: Considering the Possibility

"The Lord has compassion over all He has made." Psalm 145:9

The scenario is easy enough to imagine. Mother Teresa spies an old man dying in the streets of Calcutta. She sponges his fevered brow and has him transported to a medical facility. After giving him a cup of water, the nun prays with him and whispers to him about God's love. It makes no difference to her that the suffering man has lived an irreligious life. Her love and mercy are unconditional. He need not confess a doctrine in order to be the recipient of her compassion. As his breaths grow increasingly shallow, Mother Teresa does everything she can to comfort the man, to make him feel loved.

Now imagine that the man dies and passes into the next life according to the prevailing theology. He is without hope. The love and mercy he knew moments earlier from one of God's imperfect creatures flees away before God Himself. He is a cursed soul.

The difficulty ought to trouble every believer in popular religion. Based on our scenario, Mother Teresa turns out to be more merciful, more compassionate, more loving than Deity. While performing her acts of charity in the name of Christ, she is adopting the very opposite stance that God Himself adopts moments later. How can this be?

Consider another scene: A devout Quaker takes to heart the holy obligation to love his enemies. He has received harsh treatment from some neighbors. Still, he prays for them. When one of them falls ill, he brings over a meal. He does whatever he can to help in time of need and adopts a cheerful demeanor toward them, despite their animosity. His actions are much like Jesus'.

Suddenly, one of these neighbors dies in a car accident. He leaves this life at odds with the Divine. So how will God treat His own enemies when they stand before Him? Will it be consistent with the way His servant, the Quaker, treated the man? Not according to mainstream belief. No, the Quaker's Christlike heart toward his foes is not a reflection of God's dealings with His enemies. Again, how can this be consistent with the divine perfections? Does God tell us to love our enemies and do good for them, yet bring wrath upon His?

The question is all the more pointed when we consider that Jesus bids us to love those who do not love us, so that we may be "perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt. 5:46-48)

Considering universal salvation

This is not intended as a presumptuous judging of God and His ways. That would be the height of folly. If God really does relate to His creatures the way orthodoxy says He does, then I have misread the internal monitor that informs my sense of justice and mercy. This is certainly a possibility. A thousand prejudices influence my thinking, and I confess that this may be one of them. But it hardly seems criminal to consider alternate possibilities when popular theology fails to engage reasonable questions.

In my article Thoughts on the Afterlife, I asserted that there is no place for dogmatism in our beliefs surrounding life after death. But there is room for thought, leanings, theories, providing we understand their fallibility.

In that spirit, I approach the doctrine of universalism as a theory that makes more sense to me than the other views of personal eschatology. Universalism argues that God will eventually draw the entire human race to Himself, that every person's heart ultimately will be right with its Maker. I present it here as a possibility, one that I realize may be wishful thinking in the extreme. Admittedly, I am not fully convinced of it. But there are reasons for holding out such a hope.

On the deepest level, universalist considerations do not come to me via theology or even Bible verses. They come when I consider the people whom the traditional system places in hell. I think of a little Jewish lady bowed over with age, a young man raised in an irreligious home, droves in India eking out a destitute existence. Then I contemplate the love that flows from the throne of God and the Savior who died forgiving his murderers. When I do this, the traditional view loses its credibility.

I am aware that intuition is a poor foundation for a religious doctrine. And equally aware that such biases can contaminate our handling of Scripture and theology. But the love and mercy of God are presuppositions for which I make little apology. Other Christians taint their objectivity with lesser biases, such as a desire to follow the majority or to vindicate a cherished creed.

The attributes of God

Thankfully, though, theology does offer its supports to universalism. The greatest of these may be the perfection of the divine attributes. God, for instance, is sovereign. His will is supreme and must carry the day. All that He wills, he fulfills. Isaiah taught this (Isa. 46:11). So did Daniel (Dan. 4:35) and Paul (Eph. 1:11). Nothing, not even the stubborn will of man, can thwart God's will.

And what is this will with regard to the scope of redemption? Paul wrote that God "will have all men be be saved." (1 Tim. 2:4) God desires not the death of the wicked, but a mending of their ways (Ezek. 18:23). He is willing that no one should perish (2 Peter 3:9). Place the sovereignty of God beside His stated will to save the world and universalism becomes tenable.

Let me restate the point: 1. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign. 2. He has a will. 3. His will positively must come to pass, no matter the odds. 4. His will is that all turn from their evil ways and be saved. Where is the break in this chain? How can we absolutely rule out universal salvation in the light of such truths?

The other attributes of God support his sovereignty. God is all wise and would not create a world that might slip out of His control and ruin most of His rational creatures. God is all-powerful and will not fail in His attempts to win humanity to Himself. His arm is not shortened that He cannot save, as Isaiah prophesied.

The attributes of love, compassion and mercy are at the highest level of perfection in Deity. Even many of His creatures who have an infinitely inferior measure of such graces would gladly save everyone if they could. It only makes sense then that the God whose kindness and pity so exceed ours would do likewise. It cannot be that His creatures have a wider breadth of mercy than He.

And yet, that is what the mainstream's exclusionism gives us: Imperfect human beings whose mercy and compassion are more liberal than the Father's. It sets forth erring men and women who are called to love their adversaries, while God holds Himself to the lower standard of hating His (or at least acting as if He does). What thoughtful believer can own such a contradiction as sound doctrine?

The Christian hope as "good news"

Universalism is serious when it calls the Christian message "good news." The mainstream calls its view by the same name, while affirming that most people on the planet will die in their sins without hope. Humanity is heading toward a precipice of ruin and only the tiniest remnant (in proportion to the whole) will escape.

To this day, I wonder how anyone who believes this fervently can ever have a happy moment. Souls perishing each second of the day! Can a person be joyful knowing that such a thing is going on all around them? True, you may be relieved about not being among the lost yourself, but such a sentiment hardly resembles selfless, Christian compassion.

Suppose someone predicted that a dirty bomb would explode in your town and kill the vast majority of its inhabitants, but that you were destined to escape it. Would you rejoice at the news? Would hearing about this thrill you to the depths of your being? Such jubilation would be a dark blot on one's character.

Supports from Scripture

Universalism has the support of many passages in Holy Scripture. It is consistent with the Old Testament prophetic vision of a world at peace with Yahweh:

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him." (Psalm 22: 27)

"All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord ... You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. The Lord is just in all his ways and kind in all his doings. ... My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever." (Psalm 145: 10, 16-17, 21)

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines ... And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth." (Isa. 25:6-8)

"From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord." (Isa. 66:23)

"For from the rising of the sun to the setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations." (Mal. 1:11)

Critics may see in these texts nothing but hyperbole, a recognition that someday Jews and Gentiles alike would see the salvation of God. They may be right. But don't such passages challenge on some level the common idea that most of humanity will be lost? In the face of texts that speak of "all flesh" eventually coming to God, it is striking that traditional Christians so easily sustain their belief that most flesh will not come to God.

Suppose we held contrarian views in the face of other universal "all" passages. Would this make good sense? Can we read, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," while holding a belief that the majority has not sinned? And when we read about the crucifixion, where "all forsook him and fled," can we argue rationally that most stayed by his side? If not, then how can we read texts about all nations, all families and all flesh coming to the Lord without at least considering that the human story will have a happy ending?

Universal salvation is consistent with the New Testament assertion that God loves the world (John 3:16), and that Christ has brought salvation to all (Titus 2:11), that he has reconciled every person to the Father (2 Cor. 5:18) and has come to save the world, not condemn it (John 3:17). Three times, the Bible tells us that every knee will bow and every tongue pay homage to the Lord (Isa. 45:23, Rom. 14:11, Phil. 2:9-10).

The book of Revelation looks forward to a day when all rational beings without exception give glory to God and Christ:

"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.' " (Rev. 5:13)

Biblical objections

True, there are many texts that militate against universalism. I doubt that the biblical authors can rightly be called universalists. But the logical consequence of what they taught about redemption and the love of God certainly cracks open the door. Peter said that the prophets of old did not understand the full implications of their own utterances (1 Pet. 1:10-12). Could it be that even the New Testament writers on some level shared this imperfection with their Old Testament counterparts?

I do believe that many of those texts that appear to contradict universal salvation speak of judgments in this world. Even statements about "unquenchable fire" probably refer to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., not a judgment in an immortal world. Isaiah used a similar statement to convey a temporal judgment in his prophecy (1:31).

The judgment of God spoken of in the New Testament -- including the terms "destruction," "eternal punishment," (literally, "punishment of the age," NOT "endless punishment"), "condemnation" -- were all at hand, set to fall upon that generation. The coming of the Son of Man in fiery judgment was not an event reserved for the distant future or beyond the grave -- it was imminent, ready to sweep the land (Matt. 10:23; 16:27-28; 24:30-34). It makes sense then to locate the fulfillment of these words in the first century.

Grace after death?

Another consideration relating to the universalist theory is this: Nowhere are we ever told that death ends our opportunities for redemption. In fact, there is evidence that the New Testament supports after-death grace (1 Pet. 3:19-20; 4:6). Could it be that the multitudes who leave this life without a right heart may gain one hereafter?

Those who find God on this side of the grave are called "the elect" in the New Testament. Universalism holds out hope that an even larger body is elected to find Him after this life so that He can literally "have mercy on all." (Rom. 11:32) How else can such "larger hope" texts come to pass unless the ages of eternity are fitted to bring much of our race into a right relationship with the Sacred?

The immediate reaction of most Christians today is against such a concept. But on what basis, other than its initial strangeness to us? It was not strange to the ancient church. Many in the early centuries of the faith prayed for the dead to find ultimate redemption. Some, as Paul tells us without disapproval, were even baptizing on behalf of the dead (1 Cor. 15:29). Other Christians of antiquity commonly held that Christ entered hades and emptied it after the crucifixion.

And so the ancients did not see death as the end of all opportunities for all human beings. And why should they have? There is no necessity laid on God to cut off hope with one's last breath. Why should something as arbitrary and capricious as death be the deciding factor?

Universalism has an ancient tradition behind it. It is not a novel idea invented by a few modernists. The early church had plenty of adherents to universal redemption. Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church -- those fluent in the New Testament tongue -- were especially apt to be universalists.

A destiny of purpose

Universalism gives purpose to the creation in a way that the other views of personal eschatology do not. In the mainstream view, multitudes are born, live and die -- only to find that their entrance into this world was an absurd misfortune. Time sweeps away entire villages, cities, cultures whose existence must be deemed pointless.

Here there is no comfort for the parent of a suicide victim. No rest from the nagging concern that one's family may at the last be sent to perdition. Every natural disaster in a nonchristian land severs multitudes from God for eternity. Victims of the Holocaust pass through their excruciating ordeal only to be cast away when they arrive in the Divine presence. Life becomes futile and existence devoid of purpose.

Universalism makes the suffering of this life purposeful, part of the soul-making process. To the universalist, punishment -- even punishment in the next life -- is corrective and helpful to the one chastened by it. To the traditionalist, punishment simply is an end in itself. Suffering becomes the last word for most of humanity.

True, the unpleasantness of an idea is no proof of its falsity. But which view is more consistent with a loving God whose "mercy endures forever"? Which sounds more like "glad tidings of great joy"? Which makes Jesus "the savior of all men, especially those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10)?

Some may complain that such a view fails to do justice to the many biblical texts that speak of evildoers perishing in their sins. Universalism does not easily address the predestination of some to eternal life and the passing by of others, an idea common in Paul's epistles. I am sensitive to those objections, despite not being a biblical inerrantist. Many times, I consider modifying the position to exclude the wickedest of the human family. It may well be that those who pursue evil for its own sake, voluntarily removing themselves from God and all goodness, will forfeit the gift of existence. But consistency makes me hesitate. If Christ "tasted death for every man," (Heb. 2:9) that would seem to include the worst.

This, as I said before, is not the stuff of dogma. Universal salvation remains an inconclusive theory (albeit a sensible one). It is not something that I am prepared to shout from the rooftops as one of those "things most surely to be believed." But it remains a possibility in the minds of many. It is a hope that the psalmist was right when he declared that "all flesh will bless His holy name, forever and ever." (Psalm 145:21).

[rethinkingthefaith]

So, You Can't Wait for the World to Burn?

It happens every time there's a natural disaster or military action in the Arab world. The buzzing begins: This just might be a harbinger of the war to end all wars -- Armageddon. Their excitement makes it clear that some people can't wait for the curtain to fall on this present age.

Many express the most ardent desire to see Jesus return soon in the sky and rapture them off the earth. They eagerly snatch up books from the "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye. They pack "prophetic seminars" that outline, via panoramic charts and graphs, the end of the world.

But such people also believe that this same Jesus is then going to pour vials of divine wrath upon the world -- an event that will culminate in global destruction by fire. Why would anyone look forward to such a terrifying scenario?

A truthful answer might be this: "Because I, as a raptured saint, will be safe from it all. The worries and troubles of this life will be over and I'll be happy in heaven (while everyone else is getting their just deserts back on terra firma)."

Underneath such a sentiment is selfishness of the highest magnitude. True, billions may die a horrible death (and then be damned to perdition), but I'll be unscathed ... so bring it on.

I ask this as a serious Christian myself: Is such a sentiment consistent with the sweet, selfless character that the teaching of Jesus kindles in the hearts of his followers?

Suppose a soothsayer told a man that in 30 days an atomic bomb would explode in his city, killing nearly everyone but him and a few others. And afterward, the survivors would be taken to a safe place and treated like royalty for the rest of their lives.

What kind of a person would count down the days in giddy anticipation? "I can't wait to be treated like royalty. Let the bomb fall!" Such an attitude would offend anyone with a moral pulse, and properly so.

But already, I can hear the objection. Didn't the New Testament authors long for the return of their Lord? What, then, could possibly be wrong with such a wish

First of all, many scholars believe that the New Testament anticipates an immediate return of Christ within the lifetime of his ancient hearers. Everywhere in the early church was the expectation that the Coming of Christ would surely happen before the first century passed away.

Some scholars also believe that this much-anticipated event primarily addresses the fall of first-century Jerusalem and its temple under the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70, not the end of our entire planet today.

So, was Jesus thrilled over the impending ruin of the city and temple? No, we read that he wept bitterly over Jerusalem. On the way to the cross, he told a gathering of women that they should weep for themselves and their children. According to the gospel accounts, his heart was weighed down with anguish for them. No end-times effervescence there.

Yes, St. Paul and others expressed a longing for the Apocalypse. But I think we can cut him some slack. The man was shipwrecked, beaten, whipped, stoned and chased all over the Mediterranean world by his own countrymen, who were trying to murder him. Paul knew that an event was coming that would break their persecuting power. Under the circumstances, it's easy to see how he and the oppressed church might cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus."

But it's not quite so easy to see how an American fundamentalist enjoying the comforts of his benign environment might justly do the same.

Anyone who is eager to see the world burn -- so that his good life here can be even better hereafter -- has the daunting task explaining how such an attitude is Christian.

[rethinkingthefaith]

The Multiple Pastor Model

Everywhere, the belief persists that the local church is to be presided over by one leader who has been "called to the ministry." He is to be the principle teacher and preacher. The care of the church is primarily his concern. He counsels, presides over board meetings, visits the sick, marries the young, buries the dead.

His name is often in the bulletin and on the sign in front of the church building, as if it is somehow his church. When the spiritual vitality of a church wanes, he is often blamed and summarily fired.

Unlike the deacons or elders, the pastor is almost always imported from outside the church. Churches, in fact, "shop" for a pastor when they are without one. These clergymen are usually formally educated in theology. Often they are "licensed" or "ordained" by a denomination.

Many modern authors on church growth tout the need for a strong one-man pastorate. Such sentiments as those expressed by C. Peter Wagner are fairly common within churches today:

"The local church is like a company with one company commander, the pastor, who gets his orders from the Commander-in-Chief [Jesus]. The company commander has lieutenants and sergeants under him for consultation and implementation, but the final responsibility of his decisions is that of the company commander, and he must answer to the Commander-in-Chief....the pastor has the power in a growing church."1

But where is any of this reflected in the New Testament? If "the pastor has the power in a growing church," why don't Paul or John or Peter ever say so? Does this common perception of the pastor exist on the pages of Scripture?

Leaders in the Church

Amazing as it may sound, the New Testament does not authorize a single leader to be responsible for oversight of the church. On the contrary, the notion is flatly contradicted several times by the New Testament authors.

From earliest times, the church was governed by a body of men, not a single leader. Paul made this clear when he wrote to the Philippians: "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons" (Phil. 1:1, NIV).

Note that there was a plurality of bishops in the Philippian church, not one man. In his writing to that congregation, Paul never once addresses "the pastor," nor does he in any of his epistles.

Elders, Bishops, Pastors

The bishops are entrusted with the spiritual oversight of the flock. The Greek word episkopos literally means "overseer," and is translated that way in some versions of Scripture.

These leaders, whose qualifications are spelled out in the pastoral epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus), are to be mature. For this reason, they are also called "elders." The words "bishop" and "elder" are interchangeable in the New Testament. This is obvious in Paul's letter to Titus: "This is why I left you in Crete, that you might...appoint elders in every town as I directed you, if any man is blameless...for a bishop, as God's steward, must be blameless (Tit. 1:5-7, KVJ).

An elder, then, is a bishop and a bishop is an elder. There is no distinction between the two. The words give only different emphases. "Elder" (presbuteros) denotes maturity and "bishop," oversight. However, they refer to the same leaders, which are plural in number (see Acts 14:23; 20:17; Tit. 1:5; Jas. 5:14).

What about the pastor? Where is he in all of this? After all, didn't God give "some pastors and teachers" (Eph. 4:11, KVJ)? Yes, He did. But this refers to the same body of leaders elsewhere called "bishops" and "elders," not a single leader.

The word "pastor" (singular) is absent from most translations of the New Testament. The plural form "pastors" occurs only once, in Ephesians 4:11. It is a translation of the Greek word poimen. Poimen is translated "shepherd" or "shepherds" 16 times in the King James Version. The verb form poimaino also occurs in the New Testament. It means to "shepherd" or "pastor" a flock.

But poimen (pastor), presbuteros (elder) and episkopos (bishop/overseer) all refer to the same function. It is unbiblical to speak of the pastor, on one hand, and the elders, on the other, as if they were somehow different. The Scripture makes no distinction whatsoever between the two.

This is fairly easy to demonstrate in the New Testament. In 1 Peter 5, for example, all three words - in either noun or verb form - are applied to the same group of leaders. The apostle writes to the church leadership: "The elders (presbuterous) which are among you I exhort...feed (poimanate, "shepherd," "pastor") the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight (episkopountes)" (1 Pet. 5:1,2).

Peter expected the body of elders to pastor the flock and oversee it. Can there be any doubt, then, that the modern idea of distinguishing between elders, bishops, and pastors is wrong? Paul conveyed the same idea while giving his farewell address to the elders (plural) of the Ephesian church in Acts 20: Paul "sent to Ephesus and called to the elders (presbuterous) of the church. And when they were come to him, he said...take heed...unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers (episkopous), to feed (poimainein, "shepherd," "pastor") the church of God" (Acts 20:17,28).

Again, Paul makes no distinction between elders, bishops, and pastors. These are different terms for the same function. And so, the idea of each church having one man who is "the pastor" who is separate from the body of elders is a tradition without Scriptural support.

Having said this, there is actually one example of a single leader ruling the church as "company commander." His name was Diotrephes. John wrote of this man in 3 John 9,10. Here is a leader with far too much power in the church. He personally put people out of the congregation and refused to welcome the brethren. He did so without God's authority.

So the lone example of a "one-man pastor" in the Scripture is held up as a bad example. He is exposed as one "who likes to put himself first" (v. 9). That is not to say that all pastors are like Diotrephes. Far from it. Many are humble, virtuous men. T he point is that the New Testament never mentions one man as the church's overseer, except for one negative instance. Despite this, it has become the dominant pattern of leadership in churches - even those which ostensibly profess themsleves "Bible-believing."

The Lone Leader

There is a great deal of harm in the doctrine of the "one-man pastor." To begin with, it gives too much power to one person. Authority in the church was meant to be shared among several leaders. This provides a kind of check and balance against a powerful leader "lording over God's heritage" (1 Pet. 5:3, KJV). Most Christians have heard horror stories about one minister ruling a church with an iron rod. Even if the members oppose what he's doing, they are impotent because of their subordinate "layman" status.

When authority in the church is shared, there is less of a chance of a dictatorial rule. The other elders can step in and prevent one leader from overstepping his authority.

On the other hand, the "one-man pastorate" gives a single leader too much responsibility. God has granted a diversity of spiritual gifts to the church, but no individual has all of them. It is unreasonable to expect one man to excel in preaching, teaching, counseling, exhortation, helps, mercy, administration, wisdom, and knowledge. That is what the "one-man pastorate" calls for - an unrealistic, superhuman Christian.

True, many pastors have done good work in the churches. But the mutual ministry of "one another" mentioned often in the New Testament fails to flourish when traditional pastoral leadership is at the helm. Ministry is suddenly "his responsibility." That's why he's paid. It's his vocation. The "layman," accordingly, is not given much responsibility for ministry in most churches. Few "laymen" preach from the pulpit or officiate at funerals or visit the members - that is the particular province of the professional clergyman in many churches.

I believe that many churches, if they took seriously the ministry of the elders and the "one another" responsibility of the saints, could function very well without a paid minister. Many smaller churches might be relieved of an oppressive financial burden if they followed a New Testament pattern of leadership. People would also discover and use their gifts of ministry.

The tendency of the one-man pastor, however, is to stifle such activity, even when the pastor himself encourages it. It is nearly impossible to get the saints to assume responsibility for the church when one man is "the minister" and everyone else, "lay persons." The system creates a hard-and-fast distinction, sometimes unspoken, between "the minister" and "the ministered unto." Most church members, I believe, would place themselves in the latter group - truly a spiritual tragedy.

The Bible presents church leaders as those who equip the saints for ministry (Eph. 4:12), not as those who do it all themselves. An author from the 19th century notes:

"The apostle plainly tells us, that 'if they were all one member there would be no body,' and who is there that does not see in these words a condemnation of the clerical system, which presents the body in the form of one member only - the minister, the ordained, official, and salaried minister, who, whether he be appointed to his office by a prelate or a popular election, supersedes all spiritual gifts in the church? In such a system as that, the saints are reduced to silence, the body is dead, all the members are inanimate, the 'honorable' or 'feeble are alike useless, and one individual is eye, mouth, ear, hand and foot." 2

The tendency of one pastor undertaking the bulk of church ministry cannot help but contribute to, or even cause, the "burnout" so common among the clergy. God never intended one person to shoulder so large a burden. When a pastor attempts it, the result is often exhaustion, depression, emotional distress, divorce - sometimes even a lapse into immorality.

The idea of importing pastors from outside the church is also without biblical precedent. The qualifications of an elder (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Tit. 1:5-9) suggests that candidates have been observed for some time by a local church. How can a church know if a potential bishop is above reproach or has obedient children (Tit. 1:6) unless he has been in the church for awhile? This seems to suggest that overseers were "home-grown" leaders.

May the church of Jesus Christ put leadership back where it belongs, in the hands of those mature Christians (plural) who are "temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach" (1 Tim. 3:2, NIV). It is time for us to move forward, with our elders out in front.

Notes

1 C. Peter Wagner, Your Church Can Grow (Ventura, CA: Royal), 1984, p. 65.

2 Campaginator, Priesthood and Clergy Unknown to Christianity; or, the Church a Community of Co-Equal Brethren (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co.), 1857, p. 47.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Hellish Dogmas Full of Foolishness

Christians who defend the doctrine of endless torture routinely fail in their attempts to show how the whole span of Scripture supports it conclusively. But even if we can find a stray verse here and there that appears to teach the doctrine, does that seal up the traditional argument? I say it most certainly does not.

There are larger issues to consider than just "this verse teaches this" and "this verse teaches that." Such principles as the benevolence of the Creator, His desire to redeem His erring creatures, His perfections (which must rule out cruelty and excessive punishment).

"But a punishment of infinite duration is not excessive," says the traditionalist, "because we are sinning against an infinite Being." Yes, but we are finite. Our sin occupies the span of no more than a century (usually much less). How much sin can a person pack into a single human life to justify trillions and trillions of years -- rolling on in endless succession -- filled with nothing but ghastly punishment? Is this reasonable? An eternity of punishment for sins committed within a fleeting block of time?

Imagine that Congress were to pass a federal law mandating dismemberment and death over a slow fire as the punishment for speeding on all interstate highways. Of course, such a penalty would be incredibly out of proportion to the wrong committed and would draw universal revulsion. But this doesn't begin to compare with traditionalism's infinite sentence for sins committed in a finite span on earth. Burning for such a duration that even the life span of all the stars in the universe would be a trifling blip, all this is supposed to come from the hand of a God whose "mercy endures forever."

Add to this the fact that humans all enter this world with a bent toward doing what is wrong, a bent allegedly handed down from an ancient ancestor, and the difficulties assume astronomical proportions. Not one of us is capable of living a life free of sin -- we just flat-out can't do it. And so humans receive this horrific punishment for failing to avoid the inevitable. Does that accord with any rational person's sense of justice?

Suppose a country made it a law that every resident walk 20 miles once a year, and that failure to do so would merit a swift execution. We would assume that, no matter how backward and depraved such a culture might be, it must make exceptions for people incapable of walking: the sick, the lame, the infirm. But no, even they must make the trek -- inability exempts no one. Can you fathom the worldwide condemnation of such standards of justice? And yet, this outrage is the very standard millions of Christians impute to the perfect, benevolent Father. His creatures can't live a life free of sin, even if they honestly desire it; and yet, an eternity of torture is considered just deserts for such poor creatures.

Rational Christians know that this idea clashes with our inner sense of rectitude. They deal with the discomfort in a number of ways. Some steel their hearts with cruel dogmas so that all sympathy ebbs away, freeing them from the struggle. They speak with icy exactitude about original sin, total depravity, judicial hardening, reprobation, even infant damnation. Accordingly, any erstwhile tenderness toward their fellow men has all but crusted over. The sentiment from such people is plain as it is ugly: "If God has predestined them to hell, then that's where I want them. And if you have a problem with that, you just don't love the truth."

Others deal with the inner conundrum in the opposite manner. They paper over the doctrine, despite their claims of accepting it. The traditional hell never comes up in conversation, in sermons, in any of their literature. People all around them are going down to perdition every day, but they don't seem to notice: the church potlucks go on as usual. These tenderer Christians employ the popular euphemism "eternal separation from God" -- rhetoric that doesn't grate on the moral sensibilities the way Jonathan Edwards' language does. They also say silly things like, "God doesn't send anyone to hell, people send themselves there." But that impotent effort to get God off the hook still leaves us with billion of humans convulsing in agony, world without end (just as Dr. Edwards would affirm).

"Yes, it's horrible, but this glorifies God's justice," I hear some people say. An omnipotent Being shutting up weak creatures in hell forever because they couldn't do what they by nature were incapable of doing: You call that a glorification of justice?? If I were to torture mice to demonstrate my vast superiority over them and their wretchedness in my sight, would anyone be impressed? Would anyone NOT condemn me for it?

If this really is at the heart of Christian teaching, then it's no wonder that people shun Christianity. And I don't blame them. But, happily, an increasing number of Christian believers are dissenting from the hellfire of "old-time religion." May their tribe increase.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Rethinking the Absolute Authority of Scripture

"God says it, I believe it and that settles it."

Most of us have seen the bumper sticker. But the saying is far from an idle cliché. Beneath it is a theological root-system that sustains the faith of multitudes.

For the most conservative Protestants, the Bible is nothing less than the divine manual. God gave us the book for detailed, infallible direction. It is all-sufficient, addressing every problem we face in life. Every doctrine God wants us to believe is settled forever, laid out plainly for the faithful to receive. Such is the sentiment of countless thousands who style themselves "Bible-believing Christians."

For conservative Protestants, the all-sufficiency and absolute authority of all Scripture pose few, if any, problems. The propositions are perfectly self-evident in the thought world of fundamentalism. Ipso facto, they constitute good theology. To swerve from the "all sufficiency" of Scripture, to cease viewing it as "the final court of appeal," is to imperil one's walk with God. So we are told. But if Christians are to "test all things," shouldn't our notions of scriptural authority be among the "things"? After all, scrutiny never wears down truth. Why not subject to the rigors of inspection the common understanding of Scripture as "all-sufficient court of appeal"?

Many are hesitant at this point. Sola scriptura is one of the Reformation's foundation stones. Its acceptance seems one of the "ground rules" of being Christian. You acknowledge its final authority, no questions asked. But is this a thinking faith that we can offer to a post-modern society that has learned to ask "why" questions?

The common view of Scriptural authority is based on several statements, each of which is held as axiomatic by conservative Protestant Christians. They are as follows:

1. The Bible was written through supernatural means. God used men to pen these writings, but they are as much God's own words as men's.

2. The canonical writings make up one divine book, a "manual" of Christian faith.

3. The Bible is, accordingly, free of error.

4. All questions of belief are to be brought to its pages. That which can be upheld by chapter and verse must be believed by all Christians. That which is contradicted there must be rejected.

5. Its precepts are relevant and binding through all ages. The Bible addresses us in this century as much as it did the primitive church.

It is my position that none of the above five statements is entirely true. Each is flawed — far from self-evident. I say this as a serious Christian who believes in God, Christ and holiness. And I have no fear that holding such a view puts me in danger of embracing damnable error. On the contrary, I would argue that people have embraced the most outrageous of errors while holding fast the idea of absolute biblical authority. And it can scarcely be affirmed that the old view of the Bible has produced unity of belief. Churches all claiming to believe "nothing but the Bible" hold views so far apart that outsiders might wonder if they confess the same religion.

Still, the church must give a high place to these writings that so inform our faith and practice. But before I attempt to set forth an alternative view of scriptural authority, I would like to outline why I can't embrace the six "biblicist" statements mentioned above:

1. Nowhere do the authors of Scripture ever indicate that they are writing supernaturally. The prophets, of course, made this claim about their speech (2 Pet. 1:21). But no author ever describes the assumed plenary inspiration of the writings. Peter tells us that men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, but not that anyone ever wrote in such a manner.

It is not enough to highlight Paul's declaration to Timothy that the Scriptures are "God-breathed" or "inspired" (2 Tim. 3:16). Paul never defines that term for us. He says nothing of the supernatural process assumed by so many. Besides, the context indicates he was talking about the Old Testament, not the New (see verse 15 — "the Scriptures you have known from infancy…"). The famous proof-text proves nothing about the four Gospels or even Paul's own writings.

To say that something is God-breathed is not to say that is wrought by supernatural means. The book of Job tells us that frost comes by the breath of God (Job 37:10), yet we all know that this phenomenon occurs naturally. We have no right to bring so much theological baggage to the 2 Timothy text. It is utterly unwarranted to make one term, "inspired" or "God-breathed," prove so much.

Experience teaches us how something can be God-breathed — that is, produced by God through his providence, enlightenment, wisdom — without being wrought in a directly supernatural way. A teacher gets up the deliver a message on Sunday. It comes with force, relevance. Afterward, members of the congregation comment on how the teaching was "from the Lord," because of its effect on them. But no one views it as a matter of special metaphysics. Nor does anyone considers the utterance infallible. It was simply a blessed message, one that uplifts and empowers the hearers, moving them closer to the Sacred. Why must we regard the Scriptures as an entirely different kind of inspiration than this?

Whatever Paul meant by "God-breathed," the context tells us it is a property that makes the Scriptures "profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness." At this point, we stop our inquiry. To delve into metaphysics, based on one expression, is surely a questionable course.

The burden of proof is on those who disagree. Show us one text where Paul or anyone else says anything like, "The Spirit came upon me and I began to write the very words of God." Surely no such assertion ever occurs in the Bible. It is devoid of such extravagant claims as inerrancy or all-sufficiency.

Milton Spenser Terry makes the point powerfully:

Let us begin with a brief study of the preface to the Gospel of Luke. "It seemed good to me," he writes, "having traced the course of all things from the first, to write unto thee in orderly sequence." Here we find no claim of supernatural assistance. Like any other historian who aims to put on record a trustworthy narrative of facts, he also made diligent search to obtain the best accredited testimony of eyewitnesses. Why should we or anyone make a claim of infallibility or of supernatural help for a writer who seems not only to make a pretension to such assistance, but rather implies that he has prepared his narrative in the ordinary human way? 1

Among other things, this means the Bible is not the Word of God in the strictest sense. "Word of God" is used variously in Scripture. In the Old Testament, the law is called the Word of God (see Psalm 119: 113,144, e.g.). Of course, the Scriptures contain this law and, therefore, contain the Word of God. And so, it is really more accurate to say that the God's Word is in the Bible, than to say that it is the Bible.

The prophets of Judah and Israel also recognized the Word of God as a revelatory principle that came upon them. It moved their inner being, prompting them to speak the divine message to the redeemed community: "The Word of the Lord came to me, saying…"

In the New Testament, Jesus is called the Word of God (Rev. 19:13), for he is the embodiment of the divine will. Most often, the gospel message is called the Word of God. The reference in 1 Peter is typical: "…the word of the Lord endures forever. That word is the good news that was preached to you" (1:25)."

The earliest Christians equated the Word of God with the "glad tidings of Jesus," not with a collection of "inerrant" writings.

Orville Dewey writes:

The Scriptures, then, it might seem needless to say, are not the actual communication made to the minds that were inspired from Above; but they are a "declaration of those things which were most surely to be believed among them." They are not the actual word of God, but they are a "record of the word of God." They are the nature of a testimony. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." 2

2. The Bible should never be viewed as a single book. It is an anthology, a collection of sacred writings. Far too many Christians speak as if the 66 books descended from heaven attended by angels, smoke and lightning. Of course, this is far from the case. The early church compiled the books. There was no absolute consensus on which books ought to be elevated above others. Some rejected Revelation, Hebrews, 2 Peter. Others wanted the inclusion of epistles by Barnabas and Clement. The apocalyptic book of Enoch (quoted in the book of Jude) appears in some early canons, though it is absent from our Bible.

The obvious question is, who gave the church the authority to produce an objective, absolute standard of belief? Certainly Jesus never said anything about a coming addition to the Scriptures, nor did any other apostolic writer. Here evangelical inerrantists find themselves in a conundrum. They reject the notion of "church authority," dismissing it as a Roman Catholic invention that threatens sola scriptura. But they are stuck when it comes to the canon's formulation. Here they must say that God perfectly guided the Church Universal to make a decision binding on all generations — and never worked that way with her again.

There is no doubt that the canon is a valuable thing. It is important for us to know that the books we have today were generally accepted by the majority of early Christians. Thanks to the canon, we know that the Gnostic writings, for example, were not regarded as consonant with the earliest Christian faith. However, a reading of the New Testament reveals no trace that the authors considered their writings part of a larger work. You might even say the idea of a 66-book Bible is unbiblical.

3. The Bible bears the imperfections of its human authors. Few dogmas of Christianity have caused so much embarrassment as the infallibility of the Bible. The doctrine has become a belief of necessity, running something like this: a) Christians need an external, objective standard of belief in order to be secure in the faith, b) the Bible contains words of Jesus and his early followers, c) therefore, it is a perfect standard of faith, free of all error.

The doctrine is entirely deductive, not inductive. No one seems to look at the Scriptures first to see if they really are manifestly inerrant before forming this belief. It is not based on a careful examination of the text, but on an assumption: We need a perfect standard, therefore, God must have given us one. Is this at all logical? Who are we to decide what God should give us?

Biblical inerrancy falls under its own weight when examined critically. The Bible contains obvious contradictions in its parallel accounts (such as the four resurrection accounts, which are irreconcilable). Within the pages of Scripture are scientific inaccuracies based upon ancient understanding. Yet, no matter how long a list of these we produce, the inerrantist will never accept a single one. Why? Because he knows that, even though it looks like an error, it cannot be. The inerrantist has a foregone conclusion that God must secure a perfect standard.

It is really not necessary to list biblical contradictions and problems here. Most reflective Bible students are painfully aware of them. The difficulties fill volumes of apologetic works, such as Haley's Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. Champions of inerrancy have wasted countless hours reconciling difficulties of the most trivial order.

The most damaging feature of inerrancy, however, is the tying of the Christian gospel's veracity to the perfection of the Bible. If we find one real error in its pages, we hear from preachers, then the entire Christian faith crumbles into ruins. This makes faith acutely precarious. No wonder apologists spend so much ink trying reconcile minutiae — they think the truth of the gospel hinges on whether a hare chews cud or whether the mustard seed is really the smallest of seeds.

4. There is a diversity of theological thought in the Bible. Individual Scripture verses cannot really be the touchstone, the "final court of appeal" for Christian doctrines and practices, because not all authors of Scripture agreed on all details. True, there are grand unifying elements in the Bible's pages: the divine mission of Jesus, the imperative of love, the fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the need for holiness, the promise of a future life, the death and resurrection of Christ. But there are also some differences. They are comparatively minor, but they are still differences. Paul and James, for example, appear to differ on the mode of justification. (Many will say they did not, but we would be hard-pressed to come up with more diametrically opposed language if we tried.)

Another point that conservative biblicists seldom take into account is the marked development of ideas throughout the Bible. As we move through the history of redemption, doctrines of God, ethics and immortality grow from comparatively primitive ideas to the highly sophisticated. In Genesis, God appears to have a body. He creates humans in His image (1:27) and walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day (3:8). He allows Moses to see His back parts but not His face (Ex. 33:23). But as we progress into the book of Psalms, we read about God’s omnipresence — He is in heaven, Sheol and everywhere in between (Ps. 139). By the New Testament, God is conceptualized as a spirit (John 4:24). So, in the fully formed theology of Scripture, God is without a body and without spatial limitations, ideas that took centuries to emerge.

In Genesis, God does not know the whereabouts of Adam and Eve (3:9), repents of having made humanity (6:6) and travels to Sodom to learn whether reports of its corruption are true (18:20-21). But as we get to the Psalms, God knows all things, even the thoughts of men (94:11). Later authors of Scripture tell us that God does not repent (Mal. 3:6) or alter his plans (James 1:17).

These theological ideas grew from the nomadic Semites’ less-developed grasp of the Divine. In the sweep of Holy Scripture from beginning to end, we observe an advance in religious understanding as the Spirit of God leads the redeemed community deeper into the truth.

5. The Bible, in many ways, reflects the culture and time in which its individual books were written. There is no doubt that the Bible contains lessons and precepts that apply to humanity in all ages. But was the Bible written for us in modern America as much as for the first century church? The idea, upon examination, turns out to be unconvincing. For example, how can Paul's personal instructions — bring a cloak and parchments, or to greet certain individuals — be instructions for us? Paul addresses specific problems in specific churches. Those problems, though they may have some parallels in today's congregations, really don't address us per se. The specifics simply do not apply. Problems over Jewish exclusiveness, for example, have long passed out of the church at large.

An Alternate Approach

The letter of Scripture cannot be the absolute and final authority. Christians who say it is are not consistent with that belief. Most Christians object, for example, to slavery. They do so because they know that it violates the spirit of the gospel. But does the Bible itself come out and condemn slavery? It most certainly does not. In the Old Testament, slavery was a part of the law of Moses. Even beating one's slave was not forbidden under the law. And in the New Testament, Paul tells slaves to obey their masters. He does tell masters to treat their slaves kindly (a great advance), but nowhere do we read that having slaves was unchristian.

Why do we believe slavery is wrong, then? It is because we know that it does not follow the course set by the gospel. The gospel is about freedom, "the opening of the prison to those who are bound," treating others as we ourselves wish to be treated, relieving the oppressed. We rightly sense, then, that slavery does not fit in with the gospel paradigm.

The New Testament did not give us a full-blown, perfect application of the gospel. It has taken time to flesh out the teaching of Jesus, to apply it to contemporary circumstances in a consistent way. Liberation of the slaves was latent within the seed of the gospel when it was planted in the first century. But it took a long time to germinate and spring forth. That Paul did not see past the culture of his day on this point is understandable.

Truth Test #1: The Spirit of the Gospel

This brings us to the first test of Christian truth: Any doctrine of the faith must be consistent with the spirit of the gospel. It must be harmonious with peace, love, justice, equity, benevolence, goodness. A given teaching may actually pass muster with the chapter-and-verse test of biblicism. But if it contradicts the tenor and trajectory of Jesus' gospel — as set forth by his life and words — it should be laid aside whether biblical or not.

Truth Test #2: The Consistent Themes

A second test of Christian truth concerns the Bible, but not as a collection of "verses" whose citations "settle the matter." A safer course is to treat the sacred volume thematically. The test is simple: Any doctrine of the faith must be consistent with the broad, overall ideas of Scripture. As stated earlier, the Bible contains some diversity of opinion. But it does have grand streams of truth that are consistent from cover to cover. Any doctrine under consideration must have the sanction of these major currents. The doctrine of God's faithfulness, for example, is upheld throughout the entire Bible and therefore must be considered integral to our religion. The same is true of the power of faith, the virtue of goodness, the forgiveness of sin: all truths that track throughout the sacred volume.

Truth Test #3: Good Fruit

Third, we have this test: Any doctrine of the faith must show that it has or will bring forth "good fruit" when put into practice. This is crucial. Truth in the abstract is of little worth. Show, however, that a given teaching bears a harvest of righteousness and you have Christian doctrine that cannot be reproached.

We have a certain advantage over the early church in this regard. We have been able to observe what 2,000 years of church history has produced, how teachings have shaped that history for evil or good. Take militarism, for example. Someone might produce a Scripture argument for Christians fighting in a war to establish a "greater good." But look at the fruits Christian militarism has produced over the centuries and there is no doubt of its evil . Any so-called biblical argument can be swept aside by the testimony of history, if that testimony shows that a given doctrine has led men away from righteousness.

Take another example: futuristic schemes of prophecy. A Christian may argue all day long from the Bible about the propriety of speculative "end-times" ideas. But point him to the witness of history. Show him how such ideas have brought discredit upon the church. Let the fruits of such doctrine speak for themselves: an obsessive study of futuristic schemes has historically lead to fanaticism, date-setting, bizarre doctrines, distractions from the gospel.

Conclusion

The Bible is undoubtedly stamped with the influences of heaven. This is undeniable. Still, some may object that I have left no "absolute authority" to replace the Bible's. That is precisely the point. We see in a glass, darkly. We have no absolutely perfect standard of doctrine anywhere. The quest for such a standard is a quest for security. Faith does not always guarantee this; it is often fraught with tension. Besides, if we are living out the example of Christ — the love, sacrifice, self-denial, humility, faith recorded (albeit imperfectly) in the gospels — why do we need anything else?

Christians concern themselves excessively with having right opinions. They go to the Bible as their perfect guide. They study the Greek, pore over concordances, read commentaries. Having done this, they announce they have "God's truth" on a particular subject. Unfortunately, another astute believer may go through the same studying ritual and arrive at an opposite conclusion. His detractors will say his view is unbiblical; he will say the same of theirs (possibly even adding that they are deceived by Satan). All of this work is done for the grand virtue of "sound doctrine," which is a profoundly overrated virtue after all. Having accurate opinions on theological matters is not an emphasis in Jesus' teachings. The preoccupation with "orthodoxy" has done little, if any good, throughout religious history. And the fighting, the schisms it produces violate the pure spirit of the gospel. It is time for us to begin majoring in the majors, not in abstractions.

If we end up making some doctrinal mistakes along the way, we expect God to graciously pardon us. After all, it is the pure in heart, not the accurate in dogma, who will see God. ________________________________________ 1 Terry, Milton Spenser, sermon "The Apostolic Interpretation of Christ," from Treasury of the World’s Great Sermons, compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe, Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982, page 595. 2 Dewey, Orville, Dewey’s Works, Vol. III: Discourses and Reviews Upon Questions in Controversial Theology and Practical Religion, New York: Charles S. Francis Co., 1873, page 260.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Albert Schweitzer, Universalist

Albert Schweitzer was one of the great Christian scholars and humanitarians of all time. Here's what he had to say about the extent of redemption:

"There is still a question: What will happen to those souls who were wicked in the world? Will God judge these souls and say, 'I do not want to see you' and put them into hell? Oh, we know that if God wanted to judge souls and to put them into hell, ours souls would go to hell. But we know that God is love and that God forgives, and this is why we believe that God will ultimately forgive all those souls, and that if he punishes those who did not obey him in life, this will be only for a time, and in eternity all souls will come back to him. But we who know God, we know his Word and we want to keep our soul pure, so that we may bring a soul to him that has obeyed him in life, so that when we die our soul may return joyfully to God's house. (From "The Africa Sermons," Nov. 5, 1933)

Who among us doesn’t hope Schweitzer is right?

[rethinkingthefaith]

The Second Coming: an Event in Ancient History

Multitudes were bracing for the end as the clock ticked toward 2000. In the forecast were computer crashes threatening to send the planet back to the law of the jungle.

The Middle East was continuing its instability, amplifying the drumming hoof-beats of the Four Horsemen. Biblical chronologists, accordingly, set to work "proving" the imminent coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds. The gleams of his return were on the horizon, ready to break into the full light of day once we left the 20th century.

The same thing happened 1000 years ago. As the calendar was getting set to shift into quadruple digits, people’s lives went into upheaval. For many, the impending millennium brought about opposite extremes. Some became devout, preparing for what they believed was the Second Coming. Others turned to last-ditch debauchery, fearing the world would end before they had their full measure of fun.

But the world passed the year 1000 and sped into the 1300s, when end-of-the-age fervor seized people afresh. The black death swept through Europe, wiping out a third of the population. War raged, including the demoralizing Hundred Years’ War. Christians were bewildered as three men rose up, all claiming to be the pope. The end appeared to be at hand for sure this time.

Since then, the end has been predicted again and again. Most notably, the Millerite movement drew people to sell their goods and ascend a mountaintop, waiting for Jesus to return in 1844. The event became known as the Great Disappointment. The Watchtower organization has set dates with embarrassing regularity. In 1988, a Texas author wrote a book listing "88 Reasons Jesus Will Come in 1988." Bible teacher Jack Van Impe also got involved in date-setting. The date, of course, passed without the Parousia.

Initial Considerations

Likewise, the year 2000 came and went uneventfully. This should surprise no one, because there was nothing special about the year 2000. For all practical purposes, the new millennium commenced in the mid-1990s. If Jesus was born around 4 or 6 B.C., as scholars believe, we passed into the new millennium during the 1990s. It is purely arbitrary, an invention of our own calendar system.

The numbers we attach to our years are relatively meaningless, especially from the standpoint of the ancient Scriptures. But Bible students still unearth the "clear evidence"— cross-referencing this, that, and the other Bible verses. The same kind of digging gave us dates of 1844, 1979 and 1988 — each of which was most certainly the right one.

Another thing we should consider when approaching this topic is that the term "end of the world" is not really a biblical statement. A lexicon or concordance will reveal that the Greek word "aeon" is better translated "age." References in the King James Bible to the "end of the world" convey a false impression.

Unfortunately, the Bible reader cannot help but see the rotating Earth perishing in a cosmic inferno. But the authors of Scripture wrote about the end of an age, not of the globe. They rarely, if ever, spoke globally.

Also, the word "earth," which appears so often in the New Testament, literally means "land." The authors of Scripture had a small portion of the Middle East — not the planet itself — under consideration. When we read about calamity coming "upon the earth," it’s coming "upon the land." It need not be falling upon Southeast Asia or the Americas for the statement to fulfill its meaning.

The Imminent Return

What may be the most daunting evidence against the view of Jesus coming anytime in the future is this: The event was supposed to happen within the lifetime of Jesus’ hearers, at least some of them. They would live to see the Parousia. Within a short span, Christ was to come in the clouds for judgment. Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, James all taught this. If anything in the New Testament is near undeniable, it is that the early disciples believed they were close to the end. It was "at hand" and "at the doors."

Some Christians scoff at this. They may see it as an impious belief. But there is nothing impious about following the evidence wherever it leads. Let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Here are no fewer than 20 texts that support the idea that the New Testament authors believed they were in the "last days" before the imminent coming of the Lord (emphases mine): 

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 3:2)

"But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you [a group of early missionaries], you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes." (Matt. 10:23)

"For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matt. 16:27)

"Truly I say to you, not one stone here [of the temple then standing] shall be left on another … But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall …" (Matt. 24:2, 29)

"Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." (Matt. 24:34, concerning Christ’s coming in the clouds)

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near …" (Mark 1:15)

"But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36)

"… they [Old Testament stories of judgment] were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (1 Cor. 10:11)

"… the Lord is at hand." (Phil. 4:5)

"God … in these last days has spoken to us through His son …" (Heb. 1:1, 2)

"For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay." (Heb. 10:37)

"You, too, be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:8)

"The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." (1 Pet. 4:7)

"For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God …" (1 Pet. 4:17)

"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour." (1 John 2:18)

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants the things that must shortly take place …" (Rev. 1:1)

"Because you [the church of Philadelphia] have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming quickly …" (Rev. 3:10, 11)

"… the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants things which must shortly take place, and behold, I am coming quickly." (Rev. 22:6, 7)

"And he said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.’" (Rev. 22:10 — Compare with Dan. 12:4, when the time was not near.)

"He who testifies these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’" (Rev. 22:20)

These texts leave scant doubt the early Christians believed Christ was coming soon, probably in their lifetime. Not that Jesus could come soon, but that he was coming soon. This, I maintain, is an honest assessment of the evidence.

Opponents of this view often attempt to soften the time indicators by telling us such terms are "elastic," that a thing remote to us is near to God. This is supposedly the meaning of 2 Pet. 3:8: ".. with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day." But such reasoning destroys the meaning of words. If something "at hand" can be thousands of years off, language ceases to be meaningful.

Besides, such words retain their meanings elsewhere in the Bible. In Matt. 5:25, Jesus says, "Come to terms quickly with your accuser." The word "quickly" is the same one used in Rev. 22:20: "Surely I come quickly." In John 7:2, we read that "the Festival of Booths was near." The words "near" and "quickly" mean exactly what we would expect them to.

The prophets used time statements according to their normal sense. In Jer. 29:28, we read this about the prophesied captivity in Babylon: "It will be a long time; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat what they produce." The 70-year captivity of God’s people would be long. Even, in prophetic time, 70 years is a long time.

The Figurative Coming of Christ

So what does this all mean? Were the early Christians mistaken about the coming of Jesus? The answer is, only if they were expecting a rapture, literal resurrection and supernatural fire from heaven. Many certainly did. Paul himself seemed to be looking for a rapture of believers into the air (1 Thes. 4:16, 17). The book of 1 Peter speaks of a burning up of heaven and earth. This was a view fairly common in first century Judaism.

Jesus, of course, did not come in the clouds at that time. He did not have to do so to fulfill the meaning of his end-of-the-age discourses. We can view the pictures of Christ descending in glory in a way similar to Jehovah in the Old Testament "riding on a swift cloud into Egypt." (Isa. 19:1) It is a figure of judgment, swift and certain. Figures appear in Old Testament prophecy that are similar to the language surrounding the Second Coming. In Isa. 34, we see cataclysmic events accompanying the fall of Idumea: the heavens being dissolved and rolling together as a scroll (v. 4), the Lord’s sword falling in judgment (v. 5), streams turning into pitch (v. 9). [1]

None of these things happened literally. They are representations of nature convulsing at the fall of a nation. The fall of Idumea is described in end-of-the-world metaphors, not unlike the language of Revelation or of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. Such was the apocalyptic, extreme speech of the Hebrew prophets. Did such a swift calamity occur within the lifetimes of Jesus’ hearers? It certainly did. In A.D. 70, Titus of Rome obliterated Jerusalem and the Temple. It was a time of great tribulation, the passing of an age. Second Temple Judaism (not to be confused with today’s Judaism) had come to an abrupt end. For Christians, it could only mean that the Old Covenant had passed away completely. [2]

This was an epoch-making event, one of staggering religious import. It was appropriate that Jesus should describe it in such terms. If the fall of petty Idumea could be described cosmically, how much more Jerusalem, the geographic center of the Old Covenant faith? [3]

That event having transpired, there remains no reason to expect a physical descent of Christ from the heavens any time in the future. Besides, the literal idea of Messiah coming in the clouds is based on an old cosmology. The ancient Hebrews believed in a flat earth with four corners. Above it was the vault of heaven. Under such an arrangement, we might understand a descent of Christ from heaven that would be visible to all people. But with our modern understanding of the universe and a round Earth, it makes no sense.

Objections

Some may deem it the height of impiety to deny a future, bodily, literal coming of Christ as a conquering king. I understand this, and respect the fact that most Christians hold a view contrary to this “full-preterist” position. However, there are some considerations that many never make when formulating their understanding of “last things.” Among them are:

By believing that Jesus will literally come and conquer the world with iron-rod might, we inadvertently side with a view that led to his crucifixion. It is generally agreed that the Jews who called for our Lord’s death had a view of Messiah as a conquering king, one who would shatter the Roman oppressors and compel all to bow the knee to Yahweh. When Jesus introduced instead a kingdom of love, nonviolence and sacrifice, they rejected him. Many of today’s Christian futurists hold the same error — they await a conquering hero. The only difference is this: They believe that, while he came the first time in meekness, he will be the forceful ruling Messiah at some future date.

By demanding that prophetic statements of falling stars, the moon turning to blood and other celestial events be realized literally, we deny the reality of symbolically fulfilled prophecy. Much Old Testament prophecy about the coming of Christ into the world came to pass in non-literal ways. Was Jesus’ name literally called Emmanuel? Did Rachel really weep for her children when Herod slaughtered the children? Was Jesus’ heel bruised by a serpent? Did he literally bruise a serpent’s head? True, some prophecies were realized literally, such as Messiah riding on a donkey’s colt. But even here the original prophecy has many elements that were not. Besides this, Jesus told us, “The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.” Isn’t spiritual language often clothed with figures and symbolism, rather than stark literalism?

By maintaining that Jesus may come back tomorrow, burn everything up and start over again with a reign of righteousness, we unwittingly stifle initiative to improve the lives of our fellow men. The social gospel’s greatest enemy in the church is the highly apocalyptic interpretation of the Second Coming. Some advocates of that view have even said such things as, “You don’t polish brass on a sinking ship.” They have a point. If Jesus is ready to come back and fix everything, why should we try to fix things now? If “it’s all going to burn,” what is the use of spending ourselves to uplift humanity, relieve the oppressed, challenge injustice?

By presenting the Second Coming as a literal, future event, we diminish our credibility in the midst of an increasingly skeptical society. I realize that some might say I am accommodating the unbelieving tendencies of sinful men. But I maintain that we do no service to the gospel message when we tack onto it a scenario that, to the average American, must resemble science fiction. I mean no disrespect here. But I don’t know that we can really bring multitudes into the church if we demand they believe this: Someday you may be sitting on your patio, looking up at the sky, and it will rend with a great noise as all the angelic hosts descend to earth with Jesus; all around you, dead people will appear and Christians will begin to fly up into the sky to meet Jesus. Does this tend to engender faith or, on the contrary, the notion that Christians believe highly improbable doctrines?

Others will complain that a symbolic interpretation of the Second Coming does not give us a tidy enough system of eschatology. Where does everything fit in? What do we do with the resurrection of the dead, the Judgment, the reign of peace and righteousness or other elements of the "end times?"

The answer, which will fail to satisfy many, is that not all truth yields a comprehensive "system" that answers all the questions. It is possible to believe in a "broad brush" principle without having to explain how all of the details relate to it. All systems of eschatology have weaknesses, and this one is no exception. But it does justice to many foundational themes of Scripture, and that is good enough for many of us.

Conclusion

Such a view should destroy no one’s faith. While it may raise questions about the literal interpretation of the Bible or a supernatural Second Coming, it does nothing to wipe away such beliefs as immortality and the final triumph of goodness. These are at the foundation of religious life. They are bound up with the faithfulness of God himself. No view of "last things" should disrupt them. And so, as the hysteria continues about the "end times," we ought to be aware that such sentiment has come and gone over the centuries. Jesus’ coming to end the age took place in its essence historically, under the figure of falling stars and other disturbances in the heavens. It was not a literal or physical event.

The Apocalypse marked the demise of a religious institution. There is no compelling reason to expect it to happen literally in our future. Certainly not so long — so many, many centuries — after the prophetic announcement, "Behold, I come quickly."

Footnotes: [1] Adam Clarke, himself a historicist who believed in a future coming of Christ, concedes the use of this apocalyptic language. In a note on Isa. 24:23, he quotes the great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton: "The figurative language of the prophets is taken from the analogy between the world natural and an empire or kingdom considered as the world’s politic … Great earthquakes, and the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract and overthrow them; the creating of new heaven and earth, and the passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end of a world for the rise and ruin of a body politic thereby … setting of the sun, moon and stars, darkening of the sun, turning the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom. (Clarke’s Commentaries, New York: Eaton and Mains, n.d., Vol. IV, p. 115.) [2] One difficulty with this view is that only a minority of scholars believe the New Testament was penned in its entirety before A.D. 70. But they have some powerful arguments concerning the internal evidence of the writings, arguments that go beyond the scope of this article. [3] Some may object that it is anti-Semitic to define the Second Coming as the destruction of Old Covenant Judaism. This is a valid objection, one that I do not take lightly. The Jewish people have suffered miserably and unduly over the centuries, and we must all repudiate any hint of bigotry against them. Ultimately, however, the prophecies of Jesus against Jerusalem are no more anti-Semitic than the Old Testament prophecies against her (which are many). They are all calls to repentance, a holding out of God's grace to a people in need of it. Why the city's demise had to come with such violence is a mystery known only to God. This is but a portion of the larger problem of evil in world, a extremely thorny problem for which there is no easy answer.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Do I Have to Believe All of It?

Many of us believe in the story of Jesus. We believe in Christianity as an experience. But we can't embrace the theology that interprets both the story and the experience. We gladly accept that Jesus went about doing good, healing the sick, forgiving sinners, preaching selfless love. But we don't necessarily believe that all humanity is metaphysically ruined from birth because of Adam's sin. Or that every person will suffer a catastrophic afterlife apart from distinctly Christian faith. 

Does it make sense to call Jesus "Lord," but then disagree with several of his teachings as they are presented in the gospels? I don't know for sure. Despite my spiritual longings, my mind can't embrace some New Testament ideas. Nor can my emotions. My heart, though moved by the humble service of Jesus on earth, remains unmoved by biblical descriptions of Christ's cosmic reign over all things -- a theme that so enraptured Paul. I'm warmed by the gospel accounts of Jesus forgiving the lowest of sinners, but the doctrines of vicarious atonement and justification by faith leave me stone cold. I can't rejoice in formulas, even when they're in the Bible.  If Christianity really is a religious club requiring assent to a bunch of doctrines -- the equivalent of an "official handshake" -- then I suppose I can't join. But did the people whom Jesus encountered in his ministry "join" something? Did they confess a set of beliefs before him? No, they moved God-ward as a response to this Jewish rabbi, turning their lives in a new, liberating direction. By the doctrinal standards of evangelicalism, they might not even be considered legitimate Christians. They wouldn't have known the official handshake. But they were redeemed in the sight of Jesus. That raises a pointed question: Who decides what a legitimate Christian really is? Or what the fixed core of Christian distinctives must be? Hasn't the faith been in a constant state of theological flux from the very beginning? For example, Jesus made it clear that a rich man had no place in the Kingdom of God. But a short time later, Paul wrote that the wealthy church members should be willing to share with the poor (not that the former couldn't be Christian). Jesus called men to leave their families. But later Paul wrote that any man who fails to care for his family's needs is worse than an infidel. Here we have a shift in teaching within one generation. Yet, few would say that Paul was something other than Christian. It is presumptuous in the extreme to suggest that the Protestant Reformers and today's evangelicals alone possess the true Christian faith, or that they are in perfect doctrinal accord with Peter, Paul and John. The voice of apostolic theology is relatively faint and must be pieced together from incidental statements in their writings, which are few. But we do know the spirit and hearts of these early saints. Isn't it enough that we emulate this?

[rethinkingthefaith]

Here I Stand

Here's a concise reason for my continuing to be Christian, despite all of the doubts that gnaw at me. It has nothing to do with historic arguments about the empty tomb (like, "Who moved the stone?" or, "Who would die for something they knew was false?"). Nor does it hinge on whether the gospel authors were eyewitnesses. And it certainly is not because of the alleged reasonableness of traditional Christian doctrine.  Here's the reason, summed up in one paragraph by Albert Schweitzer:

"Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our time also. This fact can neither be shaken or confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity." (Albert Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 399).

Everything else may be debatable, but the truth in this statement isn't.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Does Pardon Hinge on Right Belief?

Two praying men ask God to forgive their sins. One is a Jew, asking fervently that the God of Israel might remove his guilt. The man utters a petition that ascended heavenward from the lips of David thousands of years ago: "Create within me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me." But the prayer that justified the Psalmist does not work for his modern-day kin. God treats this man's prayer like one of Cain's sacrifices. Rejected. Meanwhile, another man prays -- a Christian. The petition is only moderately heartfelt, but it ends with the phrase "in Jesus' name, amen." Because of that religious postscript and the accompanying doctrine of Christ as personal savior, the man receives full pardon. Does this make sense? Does the Being who spread out this majestic universe, created down to the sub-atomic level and designed the infinite complexity of life really suspend forgiveness unless the penitent has the correct beliefs about salvation? And does he exempt Himself from the command to forgive seventy times seven, irrespective of worthiness, to those who ask pardon? Maybe so. I won't pretend to have figured out the religious issues of pluralism vs. exclusivity. And I may be guilty of imposing my own "American experience" on the universe (everyone having a right to follow the dictates of conscience). But the demand for right belief and the withholding of pardon for all but the religiously correct doesn't sound like it rises to the dignity of the Supreme Being. There's always a good chance that I'm wrong to doubt such attested-to orthodoxy. I know many of you can quote Scripture verses that prove it. Still, there are biblical texts that suggest something other than the exclusivist view. In Romans, Paul intimated that the heathen who lives up to his portion of light may be vindicated in the end (2:14-16). It seems, therefore, that the Jewish man could be, too. And for Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, the one condition for receiving forgiveness is to forgive others (a radical view that doesn't get enough play):

"'Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." (Matt. 6:12-15)

Another point is that Jesus died asking God to forgive his murderers -- people who were not his followers, obviously. Why would our Lord ask the Father to pardon people who by their religious persuasion were incapable of receiving it? You're entitled to whatever belief you deem most soundly Christian, most consistent with the perfections of God. And if the exclusivists are right, may God forgive me -- yes, in Jesus' name -- for not wholeheartedly endorsing that view.

[rethinkingthefaith]

No Evidence for Your View

One of the silliest, most disingenuous things I hear in my interactions with the theologically dogmatic is this: "There's absolutely no evidence for your view." That's what they say: NO evidence. Nothing in Scripture, experience or common sense gives any support at all to my point of view when it swerves from orthodoxy.  Why would anyone hold a belief that has no evidence at all in its favor? Such a person would be the ultimate fool, deliberately plucking convictions out of a vacuum. A little honesty might shed some light on this subject. If the dogmatist were really pressed, he or she would have to (presumably) admit that there must be some evidence for the opposing view. While the evidence may not favor the opposing opinion, that's not the same thing as an utter dearth of evidence. So why do the dogmatists imbibe in this dim rhetoric? It's simple: There must be no doubt about the "theologically correct" view being self-evidently true. Otherwise, God can hardly require that we all believe it. If there are ambiguities in Christian doctrine, the demand that we all embrace identical convictions is blunted. The way, therefore, must be lucid as a new window pane -- hence, the conspicuous cocksureness. But facts are stubborn things. There really are ambiguities in Christian doctrine. Lots of them. There are evidences for universalism, evidences for eternal punishment. There are evidences for preterist eschatology, evidences for futurist eschatology. There are evidences for trinitarian theology, evidences for unitarian theology. The question each interested person must decide is whether the preponderance of the evidence favors one particular view over another. The dogmatist may protest that such a process hardly leads infallibly to the right conclusion. And that's true. We probably all make a passel of errors when it comes to religion. For that reason, I can't imagine that theological precision is a litmus test of one's Christianity. If it is, then the scholar and the bookworm have a marked advantage over the common person. And for those of you who disagree, I'll concede that there may be evidence for your point of view. But not enough to convince me.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Gospels at Odds?

When I read the Synoptic gospels (Matthew through Luke), I'm struck with how different they are from the gospel of John. More conservative Christians would say that they present varying emphases, but the same essential message. I used to say that, too, until intellectual honesty caught up with me. The message of John, I now maintain, is so different than the preceding gospels that it barely seems like the same religion. In John, everything comes down to believing in Jesus. "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:18). That text has many equivalents in John – none in the Synoptics (as far as I can tell).  In the Synoptics, Jesus never seems to offer simple faith in himself (plus nothing) as the deciding factor in the struggle between darkness and light. Rather, inward purity, love and good works determine who is with God and who isn't. In Matthew, love for our enemies makes us God's children (5:44-45); we receive forgiveness by forgiving others (6:14-15); our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (5:20); the Judgment turns upon how we have responded to the needy (25:31-46). There seems to be no call for a distinct "born again" experience in the first three gospels that involves a primal act of saving faith in "Jesus as Savior." Yes, people repent and go on to live renewed lives. But the evangelical idea of turning from one's own righteousness to receive a free, perfect righteous from Jesus is an concept alien to those writings. Also, the Synoptics speak far less about "eternal life" than about the Kingdom of God, a reality that was ready to break in upon that generation. That kingdom was a realm that one entered via radical righteousness – not by one act of justifying faith. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). The dogmatic Christians with whom I've discussed these matters tell me I'm dead wrong. The New Testament paints a perfectly unified portrait of salvation and righteousness, they insist. In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus is simply enjoining upon us the logical aftereffects of the conversion experience (by faith alone). I can't help but wonder what they would admit as a negation of their claims. Had Jesus said, "black is black," in Matthew and, "black is white," in John, I'm confident that my disputants would have a ready argument to dispense with the difficulty. Theological necessity will always find a way. What is the upshot of all this? Must we choose between the Synoptics and John? Or should we accept a religion that amounts to a synthesis of both? I have come to the conclusion that the first three gospels probably contain a more accurate account of what Jesus said and did than John's gospel. Accordingly, the Synoptics hold a more prominent place in my Christian faith and life. Let everyone be persuaded in his or her own mind. If John is your doorway into a life of love and exalted goodness (as it is for many), I certainly won't lodge a protest.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Suicide, Survivors and the Gospel

What theological cruelty it is that damns all suicide victims. Parents mourn the self-inflicted death of their son. As if their grief isn’t already brimming over, the prospect of the young man existing forever under the wrath of God is shattering beyond words. But the mandate of narrow-minded theology stands out in high relief. The words of pastors and Bible study leaders come to mind with haunting effect: A suicide cannot be saved because he cannot ask God for forgiveness. The stroke of death took that option off the table. Case closed. If this is true, imagine for a moment how much more blessed it is to kill another than to kill oneself. The murderer lives on and can request divine pardon. The suicide victim cannot. Murder, therefore, is attended with floods of hope that are absent in suicide -- all based on an unfortunate technicality. "But that’s the way it must be," the objector says. "Certainly, we must confess our sin and ask for forgiveness if we hope to escape perdition." But such theology deprives virtually everyone of life eternal. If hope hinges upon our ability to enumerate our sins and ask forgiveness for each, we are all undone. Who can possibly remember every breach of the divine commandment, every instance in which we failed to love God and neighbor to the fullest? These dogmatic assertions claim more knowledge than is warranted for such a limited being as man. They also negate the ancient belief in post-mortem hope, held by many and suggested in a few New Testament passages. This is not to excuse self-murder. But to burden grieving parents with such excessive sorrow is to make Christian faith something less than good news.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Rethinking the Purpose of the Crucifixion

The cross has long been the chief emblem of Christianity. The New Testament writings give it a preeminent place. The death of Christ is said to have reconciled us to God, defeated the principalities and powers, destroyed death, provided a ransom, removed our sins. Everywhere, we have language that conveys this idea: The death of Jesus has brought us life.

Out of this language have come elaborate theories of the atonement. These theological formulas attempt to explain how a Jewish preacher's death two millennia ago could remove our sins. Chief among these theories today is penal substitution. For multitudes of Christians, it is the only conceivable way to view the crucifixion; it is the dogma of evangelistic tracts and conservative preachers.

In a nutshell, the doctrine is as follows:

God, because He is infinitely holy, cannot look upon or tolerate sin in His creation.

At the same time, God loves us and desires our fellowship.

This poses a problem of sorts for God, because He must be true to His justice, which demands retribution against all sin.

The cross is a resolution to this problem. God poured out his wrath upon Jesus, who took our place at Calvary. He was punished in our stead.

Because of the cross, God's justice is satisfied and he is free to welcome us into His presence.

This idea draws support from passages that speak of Christ bearing our sins. According to penal substitution, God vicariously imputed our sins in some mysterious way to Jesus, who suffered for them—just as if he had been the guilty party.

Despite its popularity, the view has some serious difficulties.

For one thing, it asserts that Jesus bore the actual punishment due all people while he was on the cross. The punishment that rightly falls on us fell on him, we hear. But what is the punishment that conservative orthodoxy tells us awaits the sinner? To endure the agonies of a cross for several hours and expire?

I ask this with all gravity, knowing that we are speaking of something supremely solemn: What punishment did Jesus literally bear? The Adventist believes the punishment of sin is permanent extinction of being, annihilation. But Jesus was not annihilated forever—he lives on. The traditionalist believes that sinners will go to hell forever. But Jesus certainly did not do this, either.

Again, this is not an attempt to make light of something so profoundly serious. The point is to show how the penal substitution theory fails to connect the cross to the sinner's ultimate punishment in a literal way.

At this stage, we will get arguments about "equivalence of punishment." Christ's death on the cross may not be the same punishment as ours, but is equal to it because Jesus is the Son of God. All such speculation brings us far outside of Scripture, which never tells us that God exacts one debt from our substitute and a different one from us.

Another problem is that penal substitution undermines the concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the free discharge of a debt, not the exacting of payment from another. Suppose a landlord is ready to evict a tenant, but at the last minute receives payment from a tenant's friend. We can never say that the landlord forgave the debt—he didn't. He simply got paid by someone else. Penal substitution unintentionally contradicts the free forgiveness it proclaims.

"Be mindful of your mercy…. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions," wrote the Psalmist. "According to your steadfast love remember me for your goodness' sake, O Lord" (Psalm 25:6-7). God here forgives because of His "mercy," "steadfast love" and "goodness." That benevolent disposition is always the ground of divine forgiveness. Jesus told us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" (Matt. 6:12). Do we withhold forgiveness until we have exacted payment, either from the transgressor or a substitute? No, we are bidden to forgive as God forgives: freely, abundantly and mercifully.

It is unreasonable to demand one simple explanation of Calvary and its relationship to our redemption. After all, many different views of the atonement have ascended, then fallen over the centuries of church history. The ransom-to-Satan theory, Anselm's theory and many others have come and gone.

The implications of the cross are too vast to fit into a credal "one liner." Christ's death is multi-faceted. The following is an attempt to approach the truth of that staggering event from several directions.

One of the aspects of the cross seldom appreciated by mainstream Christians is its role in defeating "the powers" or "the authorities." In Colossians, Paul writes, "[Jesus] disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it [the cross]" (2:15).

The system crucified Jesus. First, the religious authorities handed him over to be killed. Then the Roman government, the most powerful secular force on earth, carried out the deed. The evil system of this world –- the one that adheres to "might makes right," that seeks power over others and crushes its rivals—fastened our Lord to the tree. The authorities sought to wipe him out the way it had done with thousands of others: brute force.

Jesus stood up against the authorities with the weapons of humility, nonviolence and trust in his God. He defied the sword, the spear, the lash. And he triumphed. He started a movement that swept across the globe, despite all efforts of the system to destroy him. Now, the name of Caesar is little more than a curiosity of history buffs; the name of Jesus holds sway over millions.

In an act of nonviolent resistance, Jesus defied the evil world system of domination, and won out. Calvary’s cross has beaten the principalities and powers in a public display of meekness.

The cross is an open and graphic condemnation of the violent world system.

There is another simple way of looking at the cross, one that remains true to Hebrew figures of speech. It also takes seriously the ethics of Jesus as a crucial part of redemption. It is simply this: Jesus went about preaching the kingdom of God, calling his hearers to radical love, peace and selflessness. He introduced God as a loving Father in heaven. He befriended the lowest of sinners, urging them to repent. Throughout his ministry, Jesus wonderfully transformed lives and set people free. Despite his knowledge that certain death awaited him were he to continue his ministry, Jesus pressed on. He laid aside self-interest to do the will of his Father, and was crucified for it.

That death was a manifestation of everything God calls us to be. Like Jesus, we must lay aside our own interest for the imperatives of love. When we do this, we experience redemption from what we once were. Had Jesus lived out a long life, modifying his message to keep himself alive, his words may no longer reach us through the ages. But he sealed his words in his own blood, forever imprinting them on the human consciousness.

Jesus ratified a New Covenant with his death. His blood was the stamp upon the proclamation of a new era—an era of unmatched grace and forgiveness. The cross is a marker suspended in history, dividing the age of ethnic favor and the age of "whosoever will." Therefore, the blood of Christ cleanses us from our sins.

We sometimes hear this kind of language applied to patriotic themes. "The blood of the patriots has made us free," someone might say. Does he mean this in a mysterious sense, a literal sense? Everyone knows this is not the case; he is saying that the deaths of these people set in motion events that led to our freedom. If we can understand such usage in secular language, why not in sacred?

Calvary set in motion the events that gave birth to the Christian church. It was also a symbol of inclusiveness—the Old Testament sacrificial system that built walls between Jew and Gentile, male and female, was fulfilled. Christ was "hanged on a tree," a cursed condition under Old Covenant law (Gal. 3:13). Therefore, he could relate to the needs of the "cursed" Gentiles who wished to know God. The death of Christ, accordingly, brings redemption to those once shrouded in darkness.

The cross was also the vehicle to the resurrection appearances that so galvanized the disciples. Without his death, Jesus could not have risen. The hope of life beyond death is bound up in the fact that Jesus died and yet now lives. Therefore, the death of Christ brings us life.

Why do we need a doctrine of atonement beyond this? Is the beauty of Jesus' resignation to death not obscured when we turn it all into a cosmic transaction that automatically "fixes" our legal standing with God? With all due respect, penal substitution seems to turn us from the Hebrew thought world, with its grand figures of speech and metaphors, and usher us into the mist of Greek speculation.

And what of this dilemma within the nature of God, the alleged struggle between His justice and His love? This doctrine reduces the death of Christ to the fulfillment of a legal obligation to which God was supposedly bound. Strangely enough, this view suggests that the cross reconciled God to Himself—it furnished God with a kind of "escape clause" whereby He might now be merciful in a way He could not be before. But doesn't this turn the death of Jesus to a kind of divine legalism?

Yet, many will insist that the Bible clearly teaches penal substitution. They will point out, for example, that Scripture sometimes tells us that Christ "bore our sins." Is this not an indication that the early Christians believed in penal substitution? This is a possible interpretation, and such a view may be a "minority report" from Scripture. But this is not the only way to interpret such passages.

First of all, we must ask this question: Did Christ "bear" our sins (1) for the purpose of suffering for them in our stead, or (2) for the purpose of carrying them away from us (symbolic language)? The latter makes more sense, given the entire scope of the Bible's message.

One text sheds abundant light on this subject. During his healing ministry, Christ is said to have fulfilled the words of Isaiah, "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases." (Matt. 8:17) Note here that by healing, Jesus was "bearing" the people's diseases. Was he taking them upon himself and becoming sick in their stead? Not at all—he was "bearing" their sicknesses away from them by imparting wholeness. Metaphorically speaking, he was picking up their sicknesses and transporting them away from the sufferers.

In the same way, Christ's death carries our sins away from us by teaching us love, self-denial and goodness. An ethical view of the cross does justice to Christ's bearing of sin. This is consistent with the Old Testament image of the scapegoat, which symbolically carried away the sins of Israel into the wilderness.

Another argument commonly advanced in favor of penal substitution involves the burnt offerings of the Mosaic law. The sacrifices presumably took the place of the penitent, just as Christ takes our place. But the real point of the Old Covenant sacrifices was not the animal's death nor its sufferings. The bullock was not being "punished" in the place of the sinner. Its death was swift and sure, involving little agony.

The main issue of the sacrifice was the application of the blood. The death of the animal was itself only the beginning of the sacrifice. Elaborate ritual surrounding the use of blood was the essence of atonement, a practice fraught with mystery. Whatever its meaning, and however it may typify the crucifixion, the Mosaic sacrifices bear little resemblance to penal substitution.

I believe that we preserve the grandeur of Calvary when we view it as a means of sanctification. Jesus' death works a change in us so that we give up our sinful, self-absorbed life and walk in his steps. This is salvation, the life of cross-carrying discipleship. But for many Christians, the response here is automatic. Christianity is not about living right or being selfless, but simply about accepting Jesus as Savior and believing in his vicarious atonement. The death of Christ is more about getting us "off the hook" for our sins than about making us better people, they tell us.

The New Testament, however, supports the idea that Christ died chiefly to bring us into a state of transcendent goodness. Note the following:

"He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people who are zealous of good deeds." (Titus 2:14)

The cross is here set forth as a means of purification and good works, not a means of changing our legal standing in God's eyes.

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." (1 Pet. 2:24)

Here we find the familiar idea of Jesus bearing sin, but for the purpose of making us "live for righteousness," not for the purpose of intercepting our punishment in a substitutionary way.

"And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them." (2 Cor. 5:15)

Clearly, the cross was designed to turn us away from self-centered living to follow Jesus.

The message of the cross should always be coupled with the message of discipleship. We must take up our cross and follow Christ in a life of servanthood and love. It is common for the New Testament authors to speak of the cross, then to speak of our need to "die" to sin and self-centeredness. And that is the crucial point—the grand objective of the crucifixion. It is for our sanctification that Jesus gave his life. Paul's declaration "I am crucified with Christ" should be ours.

But is there no place for the idea that Jesus in his death effected our redemption in a way that goes beyond ethics? Is the forgiveness of sins not tied in some way to Calvary? This I will not deny. I leave room for that possibility in my belief system. But I will say that such ideas must be regarded as mysteries hidden within the Divine.

When we speak of the crucifixion, we ought not devise theories, but sit in awe of such great condescension.

[rethinkingthefaith]

Christian Boldness Inferior to Christian Meekness

There is a class of people whom Jesus said would inherit the earth. Against all odds, the meek and humble souls are destined to triumph. But for some segments of Christendom, places where uncompromising zeal is deemed the loftiest of graces, Christ's words on the mount should read, "Blessed are the bold."

But nothing can alter the fact that Jesus exalted meekness as a crowning virtue. That may not always be evident, however, when we listen to some impassioned sermons. "What we need today among God's people," many a pulpit thunders, "is boldness. More flat-out zeal in evangelism. More tell-it-like-it-is-without-apology testimony." This is a distant echo of Spurgeon. He sometimes lamented the departure of fire-breathing orators like John Knox, who roused men to a holy violence. From the Metropolitan Tabernacle onward, preachers have chastised us for not adopting boldness as our defining trait. For not being consistently in-your-face about God. For failing to denounce sin and hammer home the gospel with force.

And the verdict on this sentiment? I say, without hesitation, that such emphasis is wrong and out of step with the New Testament record. It does not represent the truth as it is in Jesus, nor is it consistent with his own example.

But first, a disclaimer: I am not denying a place for boldness in the Christian life. When the apostles were filled with the Spirit, they "spoke the word of God boldly." There is a season for everything. There is a time and place for prophetic passion. By definition, this is a relatively infrequent and circumstance-specific phenomenon. And there are appropriate objects against which the prophet bears witness. In the Bible, these are most often power structures, particularly religious. Jesus boldly dressed down the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Paul condemned the Judaizing troublemakers among the Galatians. Peter withstood the Sanhedrin and said that he must obey God, not them.

Under the unction of heaven, people spoke with fire and conviction. They preached to the masses and sometimes rebuked blatant evil. But surely there is a vast difference between speaking boldly under a divine anointing and having boldness as the defining quality of one's spiritual temperament.

The "boldness" temperament that preachers tell us to adopt is not the imitation of Christ. Paul did not write of "faith, hope and boldness – but the greatest of these is boldness." The reverse is true: He told us that we can be singularly zealous, moving mountains with faith and giving ourselves up for martyrdom. Despite all of that, we can still lack agape and be nothing. We can be "on fire" for God and remain non-entities in His Kingdom.

It is easy to contrast the boldness-oriented temperament with the meekness-oriented. My daughter, a Roman Catholic, saw this firsthand recently. She attends a Franciscan parish where the priests are clothed in humility and sweetness, following the rule of St. Francis. One Sunday, while traveling with a friend, she ended up attending a large nondenominational church instead. There the preacher boomed out a sermon entitled "Bulldogs for Jesus" (two of the most incompatible nouns imaginable). At the end was an altar call for those willing to commit to zealous witnessing. And so, my daughter spent one Sunday morning listening to a gentle soul and another listening to a "bulldog" — the starkest of contrasts.  

The boldness-oriented temperament sees evangelism, no-holds-barred evangelism, as a primary New Testament mandate. But such an idea is biblically obscure. The canon contains few commands to evangelize. There is the Great Commission, of course. This is an order given to the Twelve specifically, and the church by extension. But each individual is not called to be an evangelist. If each were, there would not be a specific gift of evangelism (Eph. 4:11) given only to some.

Besides, the Great Commission is not just preaching or soliciting a "decision for Christ." It entails teaching people "to observe everything I (Jesus) have commanded you" (Matt. 28: 20). It is showing people how to love God and neighbor, to turn the other cheek, to reach out to the suffering, to forgive endlessly. This calls for a gentle spirit, not bombast. "Bulldogs" need not apply for such work.

The boldness-oriented temperament appears often in young converts. Their experience with God, in all its newness, kindles an inner blaze. This is positive. But it must be shaped and directed. Like a spirited horse, a young firebrand must learn to bring zeal under control. Too often, well-meaning people congratulate him for being hard, overly frank, insensitive. It's gospel boldness, they tell him. But this boldness is like a rifle given to a boy who lives on a farm. It has a valid use and helps the boy learn responsibility. But unless a wise father instructs him on proper use, songbirds will begin dropping from the sky and stop signs will end up riddled with holes.

The boldness-oriented temperament is often drawn to "apologetics," disputations with nonbelievers and doctrinal red-herrings. The meekness-oriented temperament finds less flamboyant service. Such a person knows that anyone who gives a child a cup of water in Jesus' name will be recompensed.

The bold can come off sanctimonious and intimidating. The meek are approachable. Sinners know that, like Jesus, these Christians will not excoriate them for their faults. And so the gentle saint makes inroads that the loud herald seldom travels.

Zeal, passion, boldness—unchecked by Christ-like agape—are the most overrated of virtues. Paul fails to enumerate them among the fruits of the Spirit, which are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).

Boldness can prompt foolish acts, like Peter's wild sword-swipe. It can exalt machismo and aggressiveness. But love never fails. For every soul drawn to Christ via the hot eloquence of an evangelist are scores drawn by the character of a meek spirit. The sweetness of a grandmother, Sunday school teacher, youth leader, friend, spouse, co-worker – these virtues shape destinies. All too often, the thrust-out tract only annoys.

Isaiah said this of the coming Messiah: "He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench" (Isa. 42:2-3). Of himself, Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matt. 11:29). The meek temperament is the temperament of our Lord.

Zeal has its role in the walk of faith. But gentleness must pervade our essence if we wish to be like the Lamb of God. "Let your gentleness," wrote Paul, "be evident to everyone" (Phil. 4:5).

[rethinkingthefaith]

Non-Conformists: The True Movers of History

One of the smallest volumes in the library of fictitious books would be "The Mighty Acts of Conformists." A small volume to match a relatively small contribution.

The greatest of accomplishments and discoveries have come from those who refused to allow the past to define the future. This is true whether the subject is science, religion, philosophy or the arts. It has been the nonconformist — even the heretic — who has so often made the difference in human affairs.

And yet, the masses resist the nonconformist's vision. In general, people prefer to rest snugly in an "apostolic succession" of ideas. In this comfort zone, which people reach via the well-worn "road most traveled," there is a foundational maxim: "Nothing new is true." There the consensus of history, the nods of past generations, are the main drivers of conviction.

Admittedly, majority opinion is a safe haven. It requires more courage, a thicker skin, to step into those outer regions where affirmations are so scarce. But this is where the payoffs are greatest.

Look at the contributions of the most reviled ground-breakers. Take music, for example. How flat and one dimensional, how lacking in texture would that art form be were it not for the temerity of a Beethoven. He broke music free from the strictures of the past to give it new power and beauty. In science, Copernicus and Galileo departed from the orthodoxy of Ptolemy and Aristotle to push the race's understanding ahead by light years.

Nowhere is the dissenter's contribution so pronounced as in religion, especially the Christian religion. Note the freshness of Jesus' teaching. He spoke with an authority that escaped the Scribes and Pharisees, the ancient custodians of precedent. "You have heard … but I say to you." Jesus poured new wine into new wineskins and they would have none of it.

"It is contrary to tradition," and, "This is the way it's always been done." These match the indignant cries of our Lord's opponents. And their spiritual descendants carry on that same work today by opposing everything that lies outside the pale of orthodoxy.

This is not to say that Jesus broke with tradition simply to be a maverick. The great nonconformists of history have only defied established thought when there were sound reasons for doing so. They did not court outcast status for its own sake, nor did they seek to be novel. They were only following truth wherever it led.

Saul of Tarsus was a man steeped in the tradition of his forefathers. He was brilliant but unlikely to leave any mark on history. A follower of the past, he was destined for obscurity. But his conversion to Christianity changed everything. Paul imbibed the fresh spirit of this new faith, taking it in a bold new direction when he became an apostle to the gentiles. He challenged every old idea that proved an impediment to true religious progress.

And yet, some of Paul's most zealous advocates today embrace his pharisaical traditionalism — his pre-conversion temperament — more than the open-mindedness of his Christian self. Ironically, they think this makes them closer to Christian soundness.

Today's Protestant Christian traditionalist wants to trace the pedigree of his beliefs back to the creeds and confessions, back to the Reformers and to St. Augustine and the host of Church Fathers. And yet, many past worthies whose agreement today's orthodox covet were themselves hated innovators. Martin Luther, for example, stood against centuries of tradition and would not yield to those who condemned his departure from the theological majority.

It is amazing how the dissenter's children become the most obdurate champions of tradition. At times, their frowns have even turned to violence, so lethal have they esteemed new ideas.

It remains true that our greatest religious legacy has come from nonconformists. They form a great chain from Origen, to St. Francis of Assisi, to the Anabaptist martyrs, to John Bunyan, to the Wesleys, to the Quakers, to the Unitarians, to Albert Schweitzer, to Martin Luther King Jr.

We remember them. Who remembers the names of their thoroughly orthodox detractors?

So let the dissenters, the nonconformists, the heretics speak. Make room for their ideas. Give them a hearing. For of such is the kingdom of heaven.