Ideal Christianity

I just finished reading Shauna Niequist's Bittersweet, a sequel to her first book, Cold Tangerines. Even though I am not currently a Christian and don't believe in God, I continue to read her books because there are so many things that I miss about my old faith. I have never been angry at God or hated/judged Christians because in spite of the bad things, I think there are so many beautiful things about this religion. Shauna Niequist's writing will always remind me of those good times; of how this faith brought me joy and happiness, how much I learned to love others, and remind me of the wonderful purpose I felt when I was a Christian. Honestly, I always leave her books feeling a mixture of sadness and possibility. I think, "This sounds so good. I miss this... is there any way I could come back and experience this goodness again?" There will always be a part of me that yearns for those good times and mourns for what is lost, but for now, I just can't imagine going back.

The Christianity that is described by Niequist and so many of my friends is truly a beautiful way to live. It's a far cry from the picketing, abortion clinic bombing, gay-hating version of Christianity so many people look down on. Instead, this Christianity is full of joy, kindness, and beauty. These Christians read the New Testament and take comfort from the promises that God will work everything out. They read about the generosity of the new believers in the book of Acts and donate money to charity and serve Thanksgiving to the homeless. These are your best friends; the ones you can call in the middle of the night and the ones who will bake you brownies and drink wine with you when your heart is broken. It is a wonderful way to live your life and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it.

Except one thing. It has nearly nothing to do with the ancient text we call the Bible. The Old Testament paints a picture of a jealous God who hand selects one group of followers that wander the desert and commit genocide to preserve their way of life. The OT God led his followers through an amazingly complex sets of rules and regulations and many violations were met with death. While this God displays fierce devotion to his followers, there is little love or compassion. In the New Testament, Jesus is not exactly a kind, safe figure. He commands that we not only continue to follow the letter of the law set out by the Israelites, but up the ante to our thoughts and intentions. He commands us to leave our families without saying goodbye, give up all our material possessions, and never to throw parties for our friends, but to only invite those who cannot pay us back. It is an admirable and terrifying way to live. It also has nothing to do with our million dollar church buildings, our secure jobs, our nice things, and Jesus definitely does not promise that God will work everything out ok in the end (...of this life anyway. Eternity, yes).

This is why I struggled so deeply as a Christian. I'm not a very detail-oriented person and I mess up a lot in life, but the big stuff, the life-changing, important stuff, I will always dive into head first. When I really became a Christian, I read the words of Jesus and took him seriously. I gave up a lot of my things, I traveled to Africa because I thought that's where God was calling me to go, I prayed and studied up to 2 hours a day and fasted almost twice a week. I even thought about joining a community in an inner city that had no possessions and dedicated their lives to improving that community (sort of like a hippy-Jesus commune).

And all the Christians I knew thought I was crazy.

They said that God didn't mean us to take him so literally. All of those things Jesus said were a metaphor or were taken out of context. If God had wanted us to be poor, he wouldn't have given us talents to use. There's nothing wrong with having nice things as long as you don't get too attached to them. But all those comments just sounded like taking the easy way out. Is it hard to live the way Jesus did? Of course! It's scary and painful and lonely, and I certainly don't want to do it if I don't have to. I just feel that we either need to take this document seriously or forget it altogether. I'm just not capable of saying that Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life and I would follow Him anywhere... and then go on and live my life as I always have. I can't do it.

So everytime I read a book that makes me nostolgic for the comfort and purpose of that old life, I think about all the things Jesus commands us to do and I know I can't ever be that kind of Christian. Maybe one day I'll believe again, but if I do, my life will never be the same.

Faithful Misrepresentation

As a Christian, I had one fantastic miracle story in my repertoire; I had seen God multiply food. I was in Africa at the time with about 50 other college students doing AIDS work/mission work for a month in the summer and one morning I was in charge of oatmeal. Beacause there were so many of us, we were organized into teams to divide up the daily chores and this was my team's morning for breakfast. There had barely been enough food for all of us and each morning we had been served a tiny scoop of oatmeal meant to last most of the day. I was dreading the job of distributing less than enough food to my friends. As the first person came through the line, I thought, "to hell with it" and gave each person as much as they wanted. I kept scooping and scooping until suddenly I realized that everyone was sitting down with their breakfast and I had one scoop left over.

Pretty fantastic, isn't it? I was so thrilled I told everyone about how God had provided for his children when they needed it most. Except... that's not exactly what happened. Everything I said was true, but there were a few other factors I didn't include. I never told anyone that even though I barely had 3 cups of oatmeal in my pot, two other of my friends were serving cream of wheat and students would choose which one they wanted. Also, I really did have one scoop left over, but it was because the last guy in line said he really didn't feel like oatmeal. So what appears to be a re-enactment of the feeding of the 5,000 is really my lack of attention to detail.

Before you judge me too harshly, I need to clarify that I never intentionally misrepresented the facts of what happened. In that moment, I was completely convinced that I had seen a miracle. I knew God had done something and if I told the whole story, that would just confuse people about whether or not there really was a miracle. Thinking back on this, it makes me wonder if many miracle stories are like this; faithful followers who saw something they truly believed to be the work of God and who leave out what they perceive as insignificant details. I'd like to believe that most Christians, instead of being con-artists, are genuinely mistaken.

Maybe Hope...

I think humans have an enormous capability for creating beauty, hope and wonder. Yes, we can be self absorbed, tripping over ourselves to push our way to the top, but sometimes there is something wonderful the emerges out of our unique humanity. We have the ability to see the world around us for what it could be, and are filled with compassion and desire to make it that way. For this reason, I have chosen not to hate religion. While some will take their religious documents and create dogmas and persecution, others will see life.

I just read a journal entry from a friend a have who is returning from India. She spent the last six months learning about human trafficking and has dedicated her life to find a way to make a difference... somehow. I was touched by her genuine love for the girls and women she met and how she passionately wants to love others for exactly who they are and without agenda. The standard she holds herself to is loving others the way Jesus loved.

Do I believe that the Bible is the word of God? No, I can't say that I do. Do I believe that Jesus really did and said all those things attributed to him, or even that all those things are good? No, probably not. What gives me hope, though, is my friend's ability to create the most beautiful compassionate selfless person from an ancient book and dedicate herself to becoming as close to that as she can. I will always support this type of religion; one that pledges to love all persons no matter their social standing, ethnicity or even beliefs. If this is the direction religion is going, count me in.

The Case for Faith: Hell

As promised earlier, I will continue my review of the claims in Lee Strobel's Case for Faith. I decided not to follow them in order because honestly some of these claims just aren't that compelling. I would like to address the issue of hell, mostly because that particular theology is what triggered my growing doubt in the Christian god. I grew up with the standard view of hell ( or at least what I thought was standard); those who don't choose to accept Jesus will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. While this idea bothered me some, I was able to hold a suspension of disbelief about the justice of this teaching because I was told that God didn't send people there, but they chose it. It wasn't God's fault that people didn't want to be with him; he was just giving them what they wanted. It was easy to imagine that those hard-hearted wicked people were choosing to live apart from God, and just getting what they deserved since I didn't have to deal with the reality of someone I loved being sentenced there. When I realized that the majority of people who were "going to hell" weren't evil and wiked and openly rejecting a God they had full knowledge of, but rather good, kind people just doing their best, the whole idea flew right out the window.

In Strobel's book, his interviewee makes different claims about hell, which are becoming more popular given the blatant injustice of the typical theology. J.P. Moreland clearly feels that fire and brimstone teachings about hell are no longer en vouge; he writes off all passages about fire and torture as "figurative" and then devises his own ideas about what hell must be like. "The punishment of hell is separation from God, bringing shame, anguish and regret.... The pain that's suffered will be due to the sorrow from the final, ultimate, unending banishment from God, his kingdom, and the good life for which we were created in the first place." He makes it clear that while there will be no official torturing of souls, "Hell is the worst possible situation that could ever happen to a person". So, even though he eliminated the fire, this is still an awful, eternal, tortuous place to exist. While this view is still cruel and unjust, if he had stuck to it, at least there is some support from scripture to back his claims. However, he continues, "You have to understand that people's character is not formed by decisions all at once, but by thousands of little choices each day without even knowing about it. Each day we're preparing ourselves for either being with God and his people and valuing the things he values, or choosing not to engage with those things.... If people do not fall passionately in love with him, then to force them to have to be around him forever--doing the kinds of things that people who love him would want to do--would be utterly uncomfortable." At this point, Moreland has just stepped all over his argument. He wants to communicate that hell is a terrible place to be, because if it isn't, Christianity might lose a portion of their followers who are believing solely on Pascal's Wager. However, if hell is a terrible place, then it is cruel of God to send people there for all eternity, so Moreland attempts to argue that people choose to be there and wouldn't really want to be around God anyway. I think the problems with the argument are self evident, but what is interesting is that scripture is pretty clear about what hell will be like; no sugar coating there.

This is a summary from religioustolerance.org of a few passages about hell:

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matt 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This passage relates to Jesus' judgment of all the world.
Mark 9:43-48: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." The reference to fire is repeated three more times in the passage for emphasis.
Luke 16:24: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This is a plea described as coming from an inhabitant of Hell.
Revelation 20:13-15: "...hell delivered up the dead which were in them...And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulphur. In order for sulphur to form a lake, it must be molten. Thus, its temperature must be at or below 444.6 °C or 832 °F

In spite of the flames, Hell is totally dark:
Matthew 8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness..."
Matthew 22:13: "...take him away, and cast him into outer darkness."
Matthew 25:30: "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness..."
Torturing prisoners with sulphur:
Revelation 14:10: "...and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." The "Lamb" here refers to Jesus. It is not clear whether Jesus and the angels are present as torturers or merely as observers.
Worms -- apparently flesh-eating:
Mark 9:44-48: "Where their worm dieth not..." The immortal worm is repeated three times in this passage for emphasis. One point of interest is that the author of Mark refers to "their worm" not to "the worms." That seems to imply that each prisoner has his own worm.
Extreme thirst:
Luke 16:23-26: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame."
Prisoner's reaction to the torment:
Matthew 8:12: "...there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:42: "... there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:50: " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 25:30: "... there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth"

Thats quite a lot of metaphor....

Heaven

I spent this weekend with my husband at the beach and it was fantastic. We walked through a secluded beach, watching tiny crabs scatter through the salt marsh, climbing over fallen palmetto trees and sitting in the warm sun watching sail boats pass by. We worked in the garden, planting a beautiful yellow jessamine and a few lillies and sat on the back porch with fresh caught shrimp. I was so happy.

And then, as it always does, Sunday night rolled around and I had to kiss my husband goodbye and make the long drive back to school in the dark. In these moments of incredible joy, I am struck with an inescapable piercing sadness. I desperately wanted to cling to that weekend, to stay in that place of timeless peace and love but I realized that no matter how beautiful my experiences are, they will always come to an end. Every moment, every relationship, every home and comfort will blossom and eventually die. At the end of everything, there is pain and death, and then nothing. It broke my heart.

This weekend, I fully understood the psychological need for heaven. I need to know that even though my moments of beauty and joy pass so quickly in this life, there is another life coming when happiness is not hovered over by the lurking cloud of ending. Otherwise, the greater the joy in the moment, the greater the pain experienced when it is over. While I have certainly heard the argument that without pain and suffering, we would not know joy and happiness, I have to disagree. For example, my husband and I have been living apart for years because he is in the military and I am finishing a degree. Some of our friends have told us this is a blessing in disguise because absence makes the heart grow fonder and we appreciate each other more. What is interesting to me is I have found quite the opposite. The more time we are able to spend together, the better our relationship becomes. I also have heard the argument that it is because our lives have an ending that they are meaningful; each day is ripe with purpose because we will only have it once. Yet, instead of bringing me comfort, this thought only stabs me. My life is counting down to nothingness and no matter how much purpose and love I experience in my few years alive, it will all come to a crashing end, leaving my loved ones in anguish with my passing.

As much as I want to though, I can't accept the Christian teaching, or really discern anything about the existence of a god. Is this necessary for an afterlife? Do we have this deep desire for nothing? Is there something I just cannot see?

Palm Sunday

I went to church again this week with my husband and given that it was Palm Sunday, I expected to hear a sermon about how the Jewish people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week and somehow managed to turn against him five days later; a cautionary tale about how our hearts can quickly turn against God. However, I guess our church doesn't do a Good Friday service because the sermon was centered around Jesus' painful death. The basic message was 'do you trust God in difficult circumstances?' and that Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for our sins. It was so interesting to me that this message, which really outlined the tenets of the Christian faith, made no sense to me anymore.

First, the very idea that Jesus' death is a demonstration of God's love and justice seems ludicrous. We are told that we are sinners from birth, that no matter how good you think you are, you have a deep, evil, sin-nature which eternally can separate you from God. (This is also used in the argument for the justice of having a hell, but I'll save that for another post) We are born sinful and there is nothing we can do about, and therefore all of us deserve the punishment of death. This theology creates the necessity of Jesus. Can't ever remember lying or cheating? Never committed murder or adultery? Doesn't matter; you're still just as bad as everyone else and without Jesus, you're going to die. Now, if we are born this way and can do nothing about our condition, who's fault is that? Didn't God create me? Didn't he give me this sin nature? One could argue that it's Adam and Eve's fault; that they introduced sin into the world and now we are all born this way, but if one man can doom us all without our consent, why doesn't Jesus save us all? Why must we choose Jesus but had no choice in Adam?

Second, Christians are faced with an interesting dilemma regarding sin nature and babies. I don't know of any Christian who believes that if a baby or young child dies, they will go to hell, and rightfully so. Who would tell a grieving parent that through no fault of their lost child, he or she will be suffering for all of eternity? While there is little scripture to support this, Christians recognize the cruelty and injustice of that position and since God is good, he clearly can't send babies to hell. If he can forgive their original sin without them accepting Jesus, why can't God do that for the rest of us? Also, if the next life is the only thing that really matters, and dying as a child or baby is a guarantee into heaven, why are Christians so worked up about abortion? All those babies now have a ticket to heaven whereas if they were allowed to live, they may have chosen otherwise.

Getting back to the role of Jesus, I feel that most Christians tend to flow back and forth on exactly who He was for the sake of any particular argument. Was Jesus the son of God, an offspring produced by God who is separate, or is he God who has come down to earth? When reading the accounts of what Jesus did and said, it would make much more sense if we all believed that he was a literal son of God who had privileged communication with Him. If they were the same person, why did Jesus always ask permission from the Father, and talk about how he was in his father's will? Some Christians will say either that was the human part of him (because apparently he is 100% human and 100% God, which makes no sense) that talked to the Father or it was God modeling for us how we should act. But then why, when Jesus was about to die, did he cry out "God why have you forsaken me?" Can God forsake himself? Jesus seemed to be unsure of the future or what was happening to him at the time. Was that the human side of him just taking over? Did he pretend to be in anguish for our benefit, so we would know its alright to cry out "why?" to God in distress?

The Case for Faith

Until recently, I was involved in a small group Bible study at my church. I have a few close friends who have been asking me why I haven't been showing up, but I can't imagine I'd be a good addition to the group anymore. I haven't yet "come out" as a non-believer to most of my church friends and I know if I go to this small group, I'll say something that reveals my lack of belief. I did find out, however, that they are reading Lee Strobel's Case for Faith. I had read the book several years ago and certainly wouldn't mind getting into lively discussion about it, but church small group isn't exactly the best place. I thought maybe I would find a summary of some of Strobel's main arguments and post my thoughts here.

Chapter 1- The Problem of Evil

Strobel interviews Dr. Peter Kreef, who replies with a few key arguments. One, "How can a mere finite human be sure that infinite wisdom would not tolerate certain short-range evils in order for more long-range goods that we couldn’t foresee?” He argues that since God claims to be all knowing and all powerful, he allows us to go through painful experiences because we learn from them and grow, or because He needed to accomplish something and pain was required in order for that task to be accomplished (as in Jesus' painful death for our absolvement). There are two main points in this argument I would like to address; God allows evil in order for us to grow and learn from painful experiences, and He allows evil in order to accomplish some greater good that we cannot yet see. Kreef uses the example of teaching his daughter to thread a needle; she stuck herself and experienced pain several times before getting right, but if Kreef had stepped in and prevented the pain, his daughter would not have learned. While I understand this argument for small struggles we have in our lives, I can't imagine this logic holds up for truly evil or terrible circumstances. For example, thousands of children in Africa starve to death because of drought each year; a problem which could be significantly mitigated if God would just send rain. Is God allowing this evil in order that the mothers can learn from the painful experience and trust God more? I would bet anything that a mother who has lost a child would gladly give up any character development she gained from the experience so that her child could live.

Secondly, Kreef argues that maybe God allows evil temporarily in order to accomplish something good that we cannot conceive yet. This argument is a bit of a cop-out because we can never know for sure all future outcomes of a given event. It is possible that every evil thing does somehow lead to something good, but that requires an enormous amount of trust or assumption with very little evidence. If I am expected to just believe that all the evil is part of a greater plan for good, then there should be plenty of examples either in scripture or in our everyday lives. When I look at the history of the Israelites, there certainly is plenty of evil, both committed by God's chosen people and to them. First, when God is trying to establish a nation with this people group, he commands them basically to wipe out everyone around them so they won't be influenced by their sinful ways. The entire scenario screams injustice to me, especially since we all are supposed to be born with a sin nature and God admits he chose his people through no merit of their own. So, in the grand scope of things, genocide is committed, a temporary evil in which we should later see the greater good that came out of that evil. However, throughout the Israelites' history they mostly encounter war and enslavement. Should we all be saying "Good thing God wiped out all those people groups or the Israel wouldn't be the established nation it is today."
Kreef also makes the argument that evil isn't really God's fault; its ours. He gave us the choice to sin, and therefore evil is caused by humans and God can't or won't do anything about it. First, I disagree with the assumption that if there was no evil, we would be robots with no choice and no free will. Were Adam and Eve robots while in the garden? They were allowed to live in paradise, tended to the garden and walked with God each evening. They had things to do, relationships to enjoy and things to hope for in the future (the next meeting with God, perhaps development of the garden they tended to etc.) It appears that they had the choice to engage with God (he didn't force them) but He was readily available to them if they were interested, which they were. Kreef also touches on the fact that having difficulty in life gives us something to do and that if there were no problems, we would be bored. This begs the question 'what does he expect heaven to be like?' If it is possible to exist in communication with God without sin and evil in heaven, why is that not possible on earth? A topic perhaps for another post is why did God cause all of us to be born with a sin nature? Why does Adam and Eve's action doom the rest of us? The argument that evil is caused by our sin also doesn't cover things like natural disasters. Why did God allow the earthquake in Haiti? Did hundreds of thousands of people die so that we could all go down to help and improve our character? Did God wipe out all those people because it was necessary in order to accomplish something else? If God is all powerful, why does he need to kill in order to do good?I have heard the argument that even natural disasters are apart of sin; that Adam's sin caused the world to be "broken" and set on a course that allows natural disasters, even though that wasn't God original design. That also sounds like God's fault to me. Why did Adam's sin have to be so catastrophic? God created the world and created the laws that govern it, so couldn't he have said, "It's alright Adam. I forgive you" instead of dooming the planet?