Inconstant faith

My experience with evangelicals is that there is a game of Pretend afoot, that the faith has been largely consistent from the time of Abraham down to the present.

Clearly there is some truth to this, but let's not kid ourselves. Our interpretation of Scripture, our concepts of morality and justice, and many of our doctrines have changed, sometimes drastically over the past two millennia. Not only do we like to believe that extrabiblical concepts like capitalism and democracy were important to ancient Jews and ancient Christians, but we also have changed our understanding the Bible itself.

Honest faith must also admit honest doubt, and honest doubts need to be acknowledged and explored. God is big enough to handle tough questions, and it's not as though he's surprised when we ask them. Refusing to voice them leaves us with unresolved questions and a lingering, festering suspicion that we've been sold a bill of goods.

Satan's one example. Popular Christian culture has a lot to say about the rebellion in heaven, the way the highest of all the angels led a rebellion that ended with a third of the angels cast into hell and becoming demons. This is a great story, and I love it as much as the nice guy, but it's not exactly in the Bible. It's older than John Milton and "Paradise Lost," but as far as I can tell, the story first gained traction a few centuries after the canon was complete.

The gospel presentation has changed too. These dates we share the gospel by describing how all have sinned against God, putting us under sentence of death because God is holy and cannot abide the presence of sin or sinful people. The good news is that Christ stepped in and took that punishment in our place, satisfying God's need for justice, so that we can be spared the pains of hell as long as we accept Jesus as our personal savior.

That's quite a bit different from the older doctrine of Christus Victor, and also differs quite significantly from the first recorded creed "If you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and with the mouth that you confess and are saved" (1 Corinthians 10:9-10).

Unlike our modern gospel presentation, which requires personal confession of sin, there's nothing in that creed about confessing sin. It's all about confessing Jesus' sovereignty and resurrection. See the difference?

There's also the matter of sexual mores and morality. For centuries, the Christian concept of marriage looked radically different from our Western norm of getting married in church before having sex. In older times, couples would cohabitate and have children before getting their union blessed by the a priest, sometimes years later. The church in some parts of Christian Europe even recognized trial marriages that aren't that different from today's practice of premarital cohabitation.

Nowadays it's heterosexual married families ûber alles. The insistence on marriage-vows-first very well may be closer to what God desires, but I don't think we're kidding anyone but ourselves when we claim that the way we do things now in the West is how they've always been done or properly should be done always.

And so it is with hell. When Jesus talks about hell, he's describing the city dump outside Jerusalem. When we talk about hell with its picturesque and exquisitely grotesque torments for the dammed that go on day and night without stop, we're influenced by the Dante's hauntingly beautiful poetry in "The Divine Comedy."

We owe it to ourselves to do better than supporting a folk version of Christianity. It's essential to chase down the original meaning and intent of the Scriptures. Scrape away the barnacles and see what the hull of the ship is like underneath.

What does the Bible really say about hell, about heaven, about demons, about Jesus, and about even itself?

One quick example of how hell has been developed, away from the biblical teaching. Matthew 25 shows the exalted Son of Man judging the nations, and separating them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To the goats, the wicked, he says, "Depart from me into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels."

The funny thing is, the audience to that particular speech was a group of people who clearly believed in him. They recognized the Lord when they saw him, and asked in bewilderment, "But did we not heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons in your name?" If the term Christian has any meaning in the context of that parable, this group was in like Flynn.

Or there's the servant -- not an enemy, but a servant -- whose talent of gold is taken away and given to another; the servant whose debt was forgiven and then was beaten and thrown into prison. I've never heard these understood as anything but metaphors for hell, and yet the people being thrown there are all servants of the king/master/lord, thereby marking them as people whom today we would identity as Christians. So who is hell for?

Quite often, the Bible does not say what we have been taught to think it does, and though the investigation often leaves me with more questions than answers, I find that I prefer the uncertainty of faith to the cold hard certainty of what I was once taught to settle for.

We've been playing this game of Let's Pretend for far too long. Isn't it time to rediscover for ourselves what the Bible really says, and let that shape our faith?



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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open theism and prophecy

1) Certain things inescapably are brought about by the will of God; i.e., they are predestined. The Incarnation was one of those, since I believe God always intended that he would walk among us and share our lives; the Crucifixion was a response to sin, so that Christ would identify with us in our deaths so that we could identify with him in his Resurrection. This is Christus Victor theology, and is nothing new. If God predestines it, then he knows it will happen, even if it takes some unexpected shapes.

2) Even if God does not know exactly what shape the future will take, he knows how to read the signs. I felt the air getting cold today, and saw clouds gathering and said, "It's going to rain." If I had told Rachel about it, she doubtless could have impressed her friends with her prognosticatory abilities.

Thus God can see trouble brewing in the empires, hatred stewing for Paul, and know with certainty "Thus-and-such will happen." If God knows all that can be known, he can still hazard a pretty good guess about things are going to work out in the forseeable future, right? Many of them would fall under "absolute certainty."

3) I'm not describing the Almighty as a clockmaker who created the world and is letting it run down on its own. He is an Author who remains inextricably involved with his story, and who is capable of nudging things in whatever direction he chooses to send them.

He is a Musician leading a free-form jam session, guided by the rules and structure that separate music from mere noise, yet still capable of guiding the band through crescendos and decrescendos, across movements and toward a final fermata where he wants it.

He is a Choreographer, set upon the stage with his troupe in an improvisational dance; yet though he dances among them, they follow his lead through moves we have no name for. History remains his to guide and direct, and he can do that through a miracle that sounds as a trumpet blast that tears the caps off mountains, or through the quiet voice that whispers in our hearts.

If he wants something to happen, he can make it do so.

4) Many prophecies concerning Christ were not solely concerned with him. The prophecy "The almah [maiden, virgin] shall be with child," for instance, referred to the events in the reign of Ahaz; later, the gospels writers saw something in that that spoke to them of Christ, and they included it. That we associate it primarily with the birth of Jesus and not with the promise of deliverance from the Assyrians that Isaiah made, is due to the emphasis our liturgical calendar places on that verse in light of its citation as a messianic prophecy.

Psalm 22 unquestionably resonates with the experience of Christ on the Cross, but so do virtually all the psalms about how the psalmist feels abandoned by God.

I don't know what David was thinking when he wrote that psalm -- it could easily have been written about his experience fleeing from Absalom after the prince had wrested the kingdom from him -- but my point remains the same: David's suffering and anguish over being defenseless before his enemies resonates with Christ's suffering and anguish on the Cross, much in the same way that we can identify with his suffering when the chips are rock-bottom down for us.

on sanctification

I'm aware of two different doctrines of sanctification. The first, found in some Pentecostal and Holiness denominations like the Nazarenes, holds that Sanctification is a moment when the Holy Spirit removes a Christian's sinful nature. From that point on you are in lockstep with God, and anything he wants is your desire also. (And with that comes the flipside: Anything you want is God's desire also, so that anyone who opposes is resisting the will of God.)

Aside from being merely dangerous, I would tag this doctrine unbiblical, considering Paul's words on the subject of sin nature: "So I find this law at work in me: WHat I want to do, I do not do; and the things that I do not want to do, I find myself doing" and "Here is a trustworthy saying: Of all sinners, I am the worst."

The other doctrine of sanctification I know is one that holds that over time we become more and more like Christ, that as we grow closer to him and serve him longer, our desires gradually become more like his, and we become more like Christ in character and holiness.

I don't really hold with this one either, for much of the same reasons as above. I can't find any evidence that we "get better" in terms of sin. The psalmists regularly lament the sinfulness of the assembly; the Apostles kept quarreling with one another long after the Ascension; and so on.

What I have found myself is that I become more aware of my own sin as time goes on, and I return to the Cross for forgiveness for the same old sins time and time again, and for other sins that had never even crossed my mind before, even though I'd been guilty of them. Generally I think we become more aware of the sin in our lives as time goes on, rather than seeing a triumph over it; with the result that we seek forgiveness more, and pray for grace increasingly just for that day, that hour, that moment.

But of course, it doesn't provide as great a sound bite to say, "I'm still gay, and every day I ask God to give me peace with being homosexual, to help me stay celibate, not to get too rough on myself when I fall, and to forgive the people who just want to lecture me" as it does to say "Jesus healed me of being gay!"

redemption: the journey

I do not have to feel "whole" or "complete" or "healed" to be where God wants me, or to experience him and reveal him to others.

Isn't this what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians? To keep him from becoming conceited because of the surpassingly great visions he had, he was given over to an angel of Satan, a thorn in the flesh, and when he asked to be delivered from it, Jesus told him, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." If God heals us, we no longer need to depend on him for our daily bread and no longer need to lean on him for strength. But when we have a lifelong and unhealable wound like the Fisher King's, communion with him is essential.

I have spent so much of my life expecting to experience some sort of wholeness or easing of my pain as I got "closer" to God. And isn't that what the church often promises? That although the road is long and hard sometimes, God eventually fills in the chinks and you have a wondrous peace and joy for the rest of your life?

And isn't that a bunch of crap?

It's drilled into you in the testimonies you hear and are encouraged to share as a new believer. You talk about how messed up you were and now how everything's sunshine and roses. It would be unthinkable to share in church that you have a lot of anger and unforgiveness in you heart, that you still feel lonely, that you enjoy S&M or wearing women's clothing,^* that doubt runs deep, or even that you face depression on a daily basis.

Following Christ does keep us out of a lot of life-ruining stuff that we would otherwise get ourselves into -- sexual immorality, drugs, a life of crime -- but the decision to follow doesn't suddenly make us suddenly Christlike in anything except our standing before God. And while I've known a lot of people who have found peace, learned humility, and become tireless advocates for the poor and the needy, even the best of them will admit that they have miles to go.

Redemption is not a decision as much as it is a journey, and the healing of our world-wounded selves is never-ending on this side of heaven.

And perhaps not even there.

^* Well, OK. Those might be bad examples. And I'm sure a woman could share in church without risking judgment or rejection that she enjoys wearing women's clothing, although it surely would puzzle a few people why it was worth mentioning and why she "enjoys" it.

demonology

A friend of mine launches a discussion on the Christian doctrine of demons
1: Do you believe there is such a thing as a literal "demon"? If so, where do you think they came from?
Pittsburgh.

No, seriously, I'd say the testimony of Scripture is pretty clear that there are spiritual entities that are evil, but what they are, doctrines are going to vary. The traditional explanation, which I side with by default, is that demons are fallen angels that took place in a rebellion against God back at the beginning.

That's not entirely stated within Scripture. Christ bears witness that he saw Satan "fall from heaven like lightning," and there is a passage in the book of Revelation that talks about a war in heaven that ended with a third of the stars being cast from the sky. We assign that story to the beginning, but I'm not clear on why, except that it's what we do.

The Greek New Testament calls the spirits Jesus casts out of people "unclean spirits," with no explanation of where they came from, although the spirits recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God and recognize that they have a date with destiny.

The prophet Micah, in 1 Kings, declares that God sent a lying spirit into Ahab's court so that Ahab's prophets would all promise him victory, so that Ahab would go into battle and be killed. The book of Job also has Satan entering the presence of God and giving an accounting of his activities to God. So while Scripture clearly indicates that Satan is in opposition to God's kingdom and his plan, it also shows that he is subject to him, which makes for a different sort of rebellion than we usually imagine.

There was a school of thinking among the ancient Hebrews that Satan was a servant of God whose job was to take the opposite view and be (you'll pardon the phrase) the Devil's Advocate. That certainly seems to be one of the functions he has.

But yes, I believe in demons and devils, even though I won't claim to know definitively and exactly what they are.

Do you think that "demon-possession" is often a case of a misunderstanding of a health problem, either physical or psychological? Are tales of such things from the Bible a superstitious view based on incomplete understanding by the authors?

I think there's some overlap. Some people are like Father Zosima in the Brothers Karamazov, who saw more devils than hell could hold. To them, any head cold or missed parking space is an attack by Old Scratch. Other people believe everything has a natural cause and completely disbelieve in angelic or demonic beings -- what Lewis called the two equal but opposite errors concerning the Devil.

Sometimes mental illness is demonic affliction. Other times it's just mental illness. Same is true for physical ailments, I would say.

Just because something has a physical cause doesn't mean it's rooted solely in the physical world. The natural world is a subset of the supernatural world, and so the supernatural world is able to affect the natural world we live in, in ways that we cannot perceive, just as our physical activities have repercussions in the spiritual world.

So to answer your question, my short answer is No, and my long answer is Yes, but.

Demon possession seemed to be very common in Jesus' time, at least compared to today. Why do you think that is? Is it because of the sort of misunderstanding mentioned above, or were there other issues at work? Do you think maybe the stories are a metaphor?

Like everything else in the Bible, the accounts of deliverance from demonic possession are layered with meaning and can be interpreted correctly in several different lights. I believe they happened pretty much as described.

As to the explosion in demonic activity, I'd say it's because of Christ's grand entrance onto the world stage. The world and its people didn't notice much at first, but in the spiritual world Mary's pregnancy was a rock that shattered mighty empires into dust that blew away, and then grew into a mountain that covered the earth.

And I'd say demonic activity is just as pronounced now as in New Testament times, but I think we're inclined to disbelieve it because we're more enlightened.

I've been through demonic oppression. I know other people who have been. I know two people who claim to have been demon possessed, and a few others who claim to have cast demons out of people. (I'm sure someone's going to make charges of crackpottery, but there you have it.)

Interesting points: The Greek word we translate as "possession" also gets translated as "anointing" when it's used to describe the Holy Spirit and his effect upon Christians. Thus it's not possession as much as it is an unholy anointing of sin, or, as could be said, "demonization."

Other interesting point: The New Testament authors used the same word to describe Jesus casting out demons as they did to describe what he did to the money changers in the temple.

Do you think it's possible that even modern medical problems, fully understood by medical science, are in some way physical manifestations of spiritual conflicts?
I already answered this, but yes, I do.

For example, I have a severe case of psoriasis. It covers about 20 percent of my body. The biological causes of psoriasis are all well documented: hyperactive immune system from not being breastfed as an infant, stress factors, skin damage, weight problems, zinc shortage, blah blah blah.

Let me focus on the stress factor. Do you think just maybe that there could be something even slightly demonic that could trigger a stress attack and lead to a flareup in psoriasis? That's a minor thing, of course, and I'm not saying that Satan has given me a severe case of psoriasis, but I do think it could be a physical side effect of something else like a spiritual attack that has nothing to do with the health of my skin.