Lately, I'm having a lot of trouble with the rules and exclusions of Christianity.
We spend our entire lives setting rules for ourselves, rules that not only do we intend to keep, but that are actually easy to keep. Often, they're even rules that would better us in some way, or at the very least, make our current lives a little more tolerable.
Take, for instance, milk. If I eat dairy products, not only do I have symptoms of lactose intolerance, but they also give me migraines. And once a migraine is triggered, I risk months and months of a low level migraine in its wake. So, obviously, I have to set a rule in my life: no dairy. Based on the consequences and the alternatives available to me, one would think that "no dairy" wouldn't be all that difficult a rule to follow.
And then you realize how milk products are in everything- bread, cookies, um... that's all I can think of right now, mainly because I've had a fierce craving for cookies for like a week now. But I digress.
So it's not that easy to avoid milk products, but still, it's doable. I've spent every day since I was ten years old watching out for oats in everything, and that too is difficult, but I got used to it. Along with the wheat intolerance that came later. Then the citrus intolerance. And so on and so on.
It is absolutely possible to do cut stuff out entirely.
Vegans do it...
Today, I was hungry, so I ate cheese. And then I decided that cheese wasn't enough, so I went to the store to buy supper materials, came home and on the way, ruined my appetite with milk chocolate.
Oh, yes.
It was tasty.
And it got me wondering. God is supposedly all about knowing how we operate and working around that. He's also all about the rules that are really to our own benefit. They benefit our soul. Right?
But how can this God know us at all if He supposedly decides who is in or out based on a set of intangible rules?
I can't even go a day without eating some sort of dairy product, and in the grand scheme of things, that's a drop in the bucket.
So then Jesus comes and He says He fulfilled the Law, and yet, establishes a whole bunch of new laws. Or, rather, they're the same ones, but since He fulfilled the old ones, they're new again...ish? And then He dies on the cross so that our sins are washed away and we can be with God... but only if we try hard enough? Only if we go to church? And let's not forget, we have to recruit new members for the army (otherwise they'll be excluded).
Ah, the exclusion part. That's where my agnosticism kicks in. I still can't imagine a God who creates us this way, ultimately sending us straight to hell. I can't imagine that some of the things we do to help each other out in this unbelievably messed up world are things on the list that also lead to damnation.
"There are no levels of sin," they say. "Sin is sin."
So if a rapist rapes, if a victim aborts, if a friend lies to protect the victim, sin is sin. And God abhors sin.
If a priest molests a kid, if a man moves in with his girlfriend, if a woman can't forgive her mother for the horrible pain she has caused, if two people of the same gender intertwine souls, sin is sin and it's all the same.
There's just no way. There's no way that a) God would give us this "sense of justice" that supposedly reflects His own and then have us believe that "sin is sin" and b) God cannot be God if He doesn't know that we're terrible at rules.
In theory, b) is easy to rationalize away. He knows we suck at rules, so that's why He sent Jesus. Right? Except that Jesus left us with rules, so that's kind of a circular argument.
Unless...
If it really is "just Jesus", then it makes sense. Then we aren't expected to follow any rules, rather they're guidelines and Jesus, being full of empathy after having lived in this busted up world, knows that it's almost impossible to stick to them all the time.
I mean, really, the guy only lived till thirty. It's kind of like Marilyn Monroe. You wonder if she had survived a little longer, would she have aged well? Would she have stayed sexy like Sophia Loren? Or would she have ended up a washed up mess with no dignity? And sure, Jesus was God so He had that, but depending on your view of Him, don't you wonder if He could have made it till ninety without sinning? Of course, as a good Christian, you have to answer, "yes," right?
But my point is if Jesus came here and endured this and has empathy for our situation as a result, why is everybody going to hell? It's so bizarre and twisted. Why, if our God is so loving, is the default hell? I don't get it.
God created us this way. God knows who we are. God knows what we'll do before we do it. God loves us. So then clearly it only makes sense that ultimately He's going to ship us to hell by the bus load? And don't forget- if you don't believe that, you're bumped up to the first bus.
Fantastic.
So yeah, lately, I'm having a lot of trouble with the rules and exclusions of Christianity. :D
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5 comments:
Take comfort, Prin: the doctrine that "all sins are equal" in its simplistic form is not a universally accepted Christian doctrine, so you can feel free to challenge it. I think it was developed to address a specific concern (perhaps to demonstrate that a generally good person is still in need of redemption), but not to be broadcasted on a large scale to any sins however horrific or mild in the particular way it is getting applied. The Catholic Church, for example, separates mortal and venal sins (from what I can gather, based on whether or not they are a direct attack against Love or merely damage it while allowing it to continue).
The Catholic Church (for another example) is also not hasty (as we Evangelicals often are) to declare whom God is going to be damning. It would be entirely in keeping with their doctrine to say that a soul that has responded to Love even before identifying the source of Love is on the road of redemption, and it is presumptuous to say how far along that road a soul has to be before it is out of the hell-category. I think God's default is not hell but redemption, and in whatever ways our damaged soul stumbles toward it, therein lies our hope for Grace.
Not that I'm trying to make an argument for Catholic doctrine... I just want to make sure you know that you are welcome to wrestle with these theologies quite a bit and still be completely in the realm of Faith. Many Christians have come to terms with these issues differently than Tim Keller.
Thanks for that. I do take comfort in the sort of flexibility you suggest. Kind of makes me breathe a little easier. :)
To add to this, and I in no way wish to be mean, here, when I look at the authors you quote it's a pretty small slice of the theological pie. It's also a rather more Calvinist portion of the pie, which (in my opinion) tends to favor simple answers that don't make sense of a complex world. For instance, this window is positioned it such a way that I see, right below it, your comment "the whole 'you can't lose your salvation' thing that the Protestants seem to bask in". Except that's not Protestant, it's Calvinist.
I remain amazed, actually, that you aren't MORE frustrated with this brand of theology. It's perfectly acceptable to look at the world and say, "But wait, what you just described doesn't look like ANYTHING I see out there, are you sure?" Now, humility has it's place - we all will do this sometimes when, actually, we're the ones not getting it. But it's worth remembering that some of the points that bother you are not universally held to be true by Christians.
How is that mean? :D I know my slice of the theological pie is tiny. I think I don't spend enough time exploring other avenues because I feel as though I should master one first and then move to others. But that's unlikely to happen, especially when I hit the flaws and they turn me off Christianity entirely...
The reason I'm not "MORE frustrated with this brand of theology" is because I came from no theology at all, so it makes sense that stuff is ridiculous, right? At one point, it was all ridiculous to me. I pretend the ridiculousness is just my lack of understanding rather than blatant ridiculousness. It's a benefit of the doubt thing. :D
I keep meaning to return to this, and I've finally done so. Theology should not be ridiculous. Theology is, literally, the study of God, and as such should follow some general rules we expect from the other -ologies.
There's a tendency across Christianity to dumb things down for the consumption of the "little people". In some areas this has become a formal theology - a formal theology that makes no sense in the real world, that touches none of the goodness or redemption that is plainly visible. Is it too hard to understand how God might judge everyone on a scale that takes into account their individuality in a way we simply can't? Then let's just say you need to say these magic words to be saved.
Let me recommend a two books by eminently sane people: Dallas Willard's "Divine Conspiracy" and N.T. Wright's "Simply Christian". Perhaps reading theology will not feel quite so much like whacking your head against a wall.
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