The Scandal of the Gospel

Over at Connexions Kim Fabricus posts an excerpt worth reading from my favorite author, James Alison from Alison's book Faith Beyond Resentment.

You can read the post here:James Alison on a closer look at the Gospel Scandal. A small snippet:

In fact, the obvious reading of the gospels suggests that the real scandal is the possibility that when God himself becomes present in the midst of a particular human group, those who are scandalised are not scandalised by the heaviness of his demands. On the contrary, they are scandalised by the fact that God himself does not fit into the scheme into which, according to them, God should fit. It is not that God is too sacred for ordinary people to be able to bear it, but that he is so little sacred that religious people find it impossible to bear it.

James Alison, Faith beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2001), p. 178.

Thoughts on Hell

I feel that, for my own sake, I need to write a post on hell. I doubt I'm going to say anything that anyone else hasn't said already but I feel that I need to do this for my own benefit.

If you want a thorough-going review of where the concept of hell appears in Scripture and what its function is, I recommend the recent posts by UMC pastor Ben Witherington: Hell? No?, Matthew 10:28 - Why Anihilationism is not Universalism, and And Now - The Case for Permanent Residence in Hell.

I certainly can't do even half the job that Ben did. My only point would be that the broad concept of "hell" certainly does appear in Scripture. Although I think that the popular concept of hell is generally quite different than the many and varied images in Scripture.

So why are so many people getting their virtual knickers in a twist over the debate about whether hell exists and who God might send there other than the fact that Rob Bell has recently written a book on the subject: Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived?

Here are some thoughts:

+++ If you're out looking for converts, it's easier to convert someone who has hit rock bottom in their life and/or is scared shirtless. Evangelists have always noted how relatively easy it is to convert those who are really desperate. One great technique is to try to cause someone to become desperate by frightening the Bejezus out of them. Either convince them that they are a totally worthless human being or that they will go to hell if they don't convert. Literally, we keep trying to scare the hell out of people. Which doesn't work if God doesn't actually hate people enough to send them to eternal torture.

+++ In consequence, the popular version of Christianity that many people believe is that The Gospel Message is "You are a sinner and headed for hell but God sent Jesus to die for your sins. If you accept Jesus as your savior, you will be saved." That's what a lot of people think it means to be a Christian, so no wonder they don't like it if hell gets demoted to a non-Gospel issue. As someone once asked me "If we're not certain that non-Christians aren't going to hell, why would anyone want to be a Christian?" Yes, the person who asked me this was someone who was constantly proclaiming how good God is and how wonderful it is to follow Christ.

+++ A lot of us use fear to motivate ourselves and others. You know what? I do this too. Someone recently asked me what I do on days when I feel emotionally overwhelmed and don't want to see patients. I laughed and I replied that, if I'm being brutally honest, what I do is I try to scare myself with the reminder that if I spend days not seeing patients, I'll lose my job. I don't want to operate that way - and it's certainly not the recommended way for a Chaplain to motivate herself - but that was the honest answer: fear is what gets me off my butt. If we remove the fear, we might have to find another motivation.

+++ Many Christians seem fixated on the idea that if God loves us Christians then this love necessitates hating everyone else and sending them to hell. We seem to believe that there is a limited amount of divine love and mercy to go around and that God can only spend it on certain people. Along with many other Christians, I find it to be a monstrous image of God that God would "save" an immoral and unethical Christian who "said the sinners' prayer" but that God is ready and eager to damn a non-Christian who lived a moral and ethical life and who imitated Jesus. (Yes, I know about grace and I know that understanding the Gospel is always a balance of love and grace, but I'm not going into that here.)

I do believe that there are images of "hell" in Scripture. I also believe that these pictures are many and varied and sometimes even contradictory.

I don't believe, however, that belief in God's sending people to eternal torture in hell is an integral part of the "good news" of the Gospel message.

As Christians, we need to learn that there is Good News in the Gospel of Christ without us imposing more bad news on everyone else. My blogging friend, John Meunier, just blogged on Acts 10:34-43. Now, there is some good news. Unless, of course, we think that God can't love us unless God hates someone else.

The Gospel Message

Image taken from: Slap Upside the Head[1]







I'm not much in the mood these days for posting long posts, but something someone said on a friend's Facebook thread got me thinking. It was that "the Gospel message" is: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Now, I'm hardly going to disagree with this. And, just in case you harbour a sneaking suspicion that I do disagree with the statement, let me assure you that I wholeheartedly agree with it.

My question, however, is: "What does it mean to believe in Jesus as Lord?"

You know, we talk about how our faith is supposed to be relevant to our everyday life and, frankly, unless we unpack what exactly it means that Jesus is our Lord, I don't see how we make "good news" out of this statement.

What I learned as a child was that I should "accept" Jesus as my Lord: that is was some kind of cognitive agreement like: "Oh yeah, I believe in gravity. I believe that it's fact that when I let go of something it falls to my feet." "Oh yeah, Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth, that's a fact."

So what?

I think we need to unpack that statement a lot more if it's going to be "good news" for me, for you or for our world.

What do you think?

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[1] I am simply crediting a website for a great illustration. Please let's not be distracted by the general content of the website.

Faith in Your Damnation

I don't have faith in your damnation. You whose Christianity doesn't meet some standard of "good enough". Or you who are a Jew, a Muslim, a Bahai'i, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Pagan, or maybe "spiritual but not religious", I don't have faith in your damnation.

Don't get me wrong. You and I might both very well be damned. But, thanks be to God, it's not my job to decide who, if anyone, is damned. That job belongs to God.

However, you might very well have got the impression from many of my fellow Christians that the main meaning we Christians derive from our faith is that you are damned and we are not. And I don't blame you if you've got that impression because I think that's the main message that Christians have communicated.

After all, some would argue, why be a Christian if everyone else is going to get into heaven too?

We've made the "good news" into the message "Good news! God will love you if you are just like us and believe exactly what we tell you to believe." But the flip side of that belief is "Bad news! God doesn't love you for who you are."

The only people who can't seem to see through this message is us.

That's a funny kind of faith - a faith that mainly focuses on the question of who is outside the Holy Fence. To talk to a lot of Christians, it's as if there isn't actually any meaning, reconciliation with God or salvation to be found inside Christianity, so we need to find our meaning in the idea of "Thank God I am not like that sinner." (Oops, didn't Jesus have a parable about that?)

Do we Christians really believe that there is good news at the heart of Christianity? Can we stand before God, just me and God, and find forgiveness, reconciliation, transformation of life? Or can we only feel "saved" if we have the comforting knowledge that there are some people who God just doesn't like - not now, not ever?

Naming the Demons

Over on the blog of my cyber-friend, Allan Bevere, I've been ranting a lot recently about what I call "the institutional church". This evening, I came across the quote below by Richard Rohr.

I'm prepared to own these words, but I didn't write them - I wish I had. I'm happy to dialogue with readers (if there are any of you left) about what these words mean to me. Sometimes it's just good to know that you haven't totally gone off the deep end. (Please, no comments from the Peanut Gallery!)

The three great things that in my opinion we have to let go of are the following. First there is the compulsion to be successful. Second is the compulsion to be right - even, and especially, to be theologically right. That's an ego trip, and because of this need churches have split in half, with both parties the prisoners of their own egos. Finally there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control. I'm convinced that these are the three demons Jesus faced in the wilderness. And so long as we haven't looked these three demons in the face, we should presume that they're still in charge. The demons have to be called by name, clearly, concretely, practically, spelling out just how imperious and self-righteous we are. This is the first lesson in the spirituality of subtraction.

That lesson also has many social and political implications and leads us to letting go of our political mythologies: for example, that we're the best country in the world, as many Americans believe. Pretty soon we've got to overcome nationalism - there isn't a lot of time left. We also have to give up the compulsion to possess so many thing and to have our own private stock of everything. The fact that not every one of us needs our own auto or washing machine would naturally make a good argument for physical community.

From "Simplicity: the art of living" by Richard Rohr, (Crossroads Press, New York 1992) p.44

I'll just briefly say that I think the church goes wrong when it buys into the ideas of being successful and powerful and when it pushes congregations and clergy to be these things. I think the point about being theologically correct is self-evident.

The Gospel: Love, not sin

This is an excellent article and well worth reading: WESLEYAN WISDOM: ‘Way of Salvation’ begins with love, not sin :

“we United Methodists do not believe that God’s way of salvation begins with the person’s sin; we believe it begins with God’s character, which is love.

And this is even true for other Methodists! ;-) [Minus 2 points for forgetting that the US is not the only place where Methodism exists!]

Masculine Christianity

My friend Dave recently linked to a post which suggested that the church should have a masculine ethos. The premise is that 1 Corinthians 16:13 says in the original Greek that the church should 'Watch, stand firm in the faith, be men, be strong' so somehow, this means the church should have a masculine ethos.

I don't want to debate the process of translation or of exegesis that arrives at this understanding.

What bothers me is the idea of 'masculine Christianity' that appears to be becoming popular, doubtless due in no small measure to the the rantings of Mark Driscoll and his disciples who come up with amazingly anti-Gospel sound-bites like:

We are deadly serious about the great commission and loading all guns to storm hell with the gospel of grace. And we need more men.

Driscoll and his ilk are going to be macho for the Gospel? They are going to do what? Shoot anyone who doesn't love his or her neighbour? Help to usher in the Prince of Peace to his Kingdom through war and hostage-taking?  

Well, count me as one woman who grew up with this sort of doggy-do of a theology and who is not going to be silent in the face of this kind of untruth-dressed-as-truth.

Imagine 'masculine Christians' in the Desert with Jesus: Come'on Jesus! Show the devil your stuff and jump off that Temple. Take control of the world and we'll be your army. And while you're at it, sure, you can go ahead and feed the hungry by turning those rocks into bread.

Or how about in the Garden of Gethsemane Hey Jesus! Why are ya prayin'? Prayin's for girls! Now is the time for action; are you afraid to defend yourself? ****** he's putting the soldier's ear back! Stupid wimp. I guess we knew all along that he didn't have the guts to do what needs doing.

It's not about 'masculine' Christianity or 'feminine' Christianity, it's about Christ-centred Christianity. It's about the church of Christ imitating Christ. Jesus pointed out that he could have called down legions of angels rather than submit himself to the cross. Going to the cross was not an act of passivity nor was it a lack of decisiveness or courage: it was an act of faith. An act of faith in the Resurrection and in the Father's being completely without reference to death. It was an act of faith that death and evil would be defeated not by swinging swords at them, but by entering into them.

The kind of 'masculine Christianity' that is being advocated today is the same self-help idolatry that the ancient Israelites fell into and it's the same that the Roman Empire promoted and it's the same self-help idolatry that our own culture promotes: that our power rests in our own courage and strength and ability to fend for ourselves.

Those who see themselves either as being 'in power' or entitled to being 'in power' will easily fall prey to this idolatry. It's also easy to see why those who either consider themselves to be underdogs, or who have sympathy with underdogs, will grasp the meaning of Christ's gospel that the last will be first and that his strength comes when we are weak. It's obvious why those who want to see themselves as strong and macho don't like the real Gospel, but that doesn't make them right.

A Mature Faith?

I found the following article by Giles Fraser in this week's Church Times to be very interesting: Growing Up is a Moral Business

Fraser writes:

The true grown-up is the person who is able to face genuine otherness with gratitude and thanksgiving. The grown-up does not need to analyse every situation with a sharp eye for how it benefits him or her.

Winnicott put it thus: “A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another.”

Fraser goes on to write that churches (usually? often?) take the approach with young children of teaching them the simple message 'Jesus Loves You'. But as children get older, there is also 'a call to wake up to the needs of others'.

Sometimes Christians quibble about whether 'the Gospel message' is about 'God loves you' or whether it is about service to others. Along with many other expressions of the Christian faith, Methodism has always asserted that 'the Gospel message' is about both of these things: knowing oneself to be loved by God and serving others because of having been empowered by God's love.

I've seen at close hand that damage that people do to their own lives by living life as if the primary human questions were 'What can other people do for me?' 'How can I make sure I get (more than) my share of stuff in life?' 'How can I make sure the other guy doesn't take what's mine?'

If the Christian faith is more than simply serving others, then it is also more than simply saying 'God loves me.'

Sermon Blogging

Catching up on some sermon blogging again:

Sunday 16 November 2008 - No Buried Treasure

Sunday 23 November 2008 - Sharing our Gospel

I didn't have to preach today as I got to hear the new Bishop of Worcester, John Inge preach at St. Peter's Church Birchen Coppice. when Foley Park Methodist Church joined with all the churches in the Kidderminster West Parish for a united 'Fifth Sunday Worship' service. Hopefully, more about the Bishop's sermon later in another blog post.

Surprised by Hope

I've been travelling on a short break over the last few days and I finally had a chance to finish Tom Wright's latest book Surprised by Hope

I'm not even going to attempt to give a 'book review' as I'm still processing the experience of having read it which feels like one of those instances when a whole range of thoughts and experiences have converged. Ever since I had what I've called my 'Aldersgate Experience' I've been on a journey where I have been seeing 'the Good News of Jesus Christ' as being more and more of an event. No less a 'personal experience of salvation' but much more of a cosmic event: Jesus as someone who not only died to save me but whose life, death, resurrection and ascension are somehow events that really truly ('ontologically'[1]) changed the fabric of creation.

For me, Wright's book conveyed 'ontological salvation' in a way that I can get my brain and my heart around much easier than I could before. Hugely simplistically, I read the book as saying that scripture paints a picture of a Creator God whose purpose is to bring all of history to the point of New Creation (this is a very Wesleyan theology, by the way).

Jesus' own resurrection is the first of a general resurrection and is the sign that The New Creation has been inaugurated. The eschatological conclusion of history will not be some sort of calling of believers to a spiritual heaven, but it will be a 'heaven coming down to earth'. The reality in which we are living now is but an incomplete shadow of the reality of The New Creation, where heaven and earth will meet.

The Good News of the early Church was not only that the New Creation had been inaugurated, but that we can be part of it in the here and now as well as in eternity. In baptism, we die to the 'old Creation' and are raised with Christ into the New Creation. As his followers and disciples, we will not be held responsible for building the New Creation, only God can do that. But every good work that we do out of love and self-giving will be used by God in the building of the New Creation. Even actions that we might think have been futile.

Try reading the bible with this overlay: God's Kingdom - his New Creation - has begun, heaven and earth will unite in a new, more real reality and all believers will be raised to share in this Kingdom forever. This overlay makes much of the bible make a lot more sense.

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[1] 'Ontology' / 'Ontological'

I try to write simply most of the time, but sometimes I feel that I have to use 'jargon'. 'Ontology' is one of those jargon-words that is hard to replace with one simple word. It means something like 'the core of one's being', 'what is really real'. To change something 'ontologically' is to change the very core of it's being and meaning; it's not just a cosmetic, temporary change, but a real, permanent change.

Good News

This is a bit of a repetition of a previous post, but I was asked to write 'A Thought for the Month' for one of the church newsletters and I'm posting it here in the spirit of 'don't let a good piece of writing go to waste'.

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A few weeks ago, 'The Church Times' carried an interview with the American Christian author Philip Yancey who will be appearing at The Greenbelt Festival this year. Yancey is one of my favourite Christian authors because he often seems to provide one important thought that leaves a person thinking for a long time afterwards, even if it was something that you knew already!

In this interview, Yancey said: 'Jesus said the truth shall set you free, and he came to give life in all its fullness. If it doesn't sound like good news, it's not the gospel. If it's not setting you free and enlarging life, then it's not Jesus's message.'

I think that this is an important nugget of wisdom because it gives us two 'touchstones' of what our Christian lives can look like if we are faithful to the gospel: freedom and an enlarged life. But this idea seems to make some people nervous. Indeed, I think that there will always be individuals in all cultures and faiths who will be made nervous by any teaching that tries to set human beings free rather than to control them.

Scripture makes it clear that Christian freedom is not about the pursuit of private pleasure, but rather that it about the pursuit of justice and goodness and righteousness. The simplest illustration of this is that warm feeling we get when we help another person out or when we contribute our time or money to a worthwhile cause. Indeed, psychology understands that looking outside of our own welfare to the welfare of others is fundamental to mental health and to a life well-lived.

There are many voices in our culture that will try to tell us that the message of Jesus is not a good news story. Some will tell us that Jesus' message is bad news because they wish to discredit Christianity. Others behave as if they believe that God's love for humanity depends on our good behaviour, so their message to us is that we'd better strive for perfection rather than rest in the assurance that we're forgiven sinners.

But Yancey's idea is a good touchstone. Ask yourself 'Does this action, thought, or message point people to the love of God or to the love of others? Will it result in freedom and an enlarged life for everyone and not just for those who already have power?' If it does, then it is good news and it is God-honouring.

May the blessing of God be with us all as we endeavour to demonstrate his good news in our lives!

The Gospel of Inclusion

My friend Dave over at 42 says he is sliding down the slippery slope of thinking that Christianity proclaims a Gospel of inclusion.

Dave writes:

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to whether you think the gospel is more about inclusion or exclusion. For me that is no contest. Jesus made it clear that the two greatest commandments were about love and according to the gospels he reserved his anger for those who abused religion to exclude others. So if there is a knife edge with slippery slopes on both sides then I am always going to err on the side of love and inclusion as that appears to bring me closer to the Jesus we meet in Scripture. Now that he something to be joyful about as we slide down that slope - wheeeee!

Preach it, brother!

A Free Sample of the Gospel

First, I should acknowledge that I've not blogged about the sad death of evangelist Rob Frost, Methodist minister and founder of Share Jesus International.

I don't normally blog about 'news items' and I find it hard to craft a suitable post in this instance. Rob's death at the age of 57 is obviously tragic. He was a visionary, a called and gifted evangelist and I know that his ministry touched the lives of thousands of people. I'm sure that all Christians who knew of his work were sad to hear of his untimely death. How can one not mourn such a loss?

The Share Jesus International website gives some information about Rob's last days as does President of Methodist Conference, Martyn Atkin, in this post on the blog he shares with Ruby Beech, the Vice President of Conference.

I was really struck, however, by Martyn's tribute to Rob Frost in this week's edition of The Methodist Recorder. Martyn said that:

...(Rob) was an effective evangelist - a "free sample" of the Gospel rather than a salesperson.

I can't think of a more wonderful tribute to any Christian life.

I pray for the grace to be a 'free sample' of the Gospel. I pray that all my readers will have the grace to be a 'free sample' of the Gospel.

May Rob Frost rest in peace and rise in glory and may his family and all those who mourn him be comforted in the knowledge of the Resurrection.

God is Love - I'm Confused

I've often joked that I grew up believing that the message of the Christian Gospel was something like: 'Jesus died on the cross to pay the price of your sins, so the Father has to let you into heaven but he's really pissed off about it because he hates you.'

I didn't grow up in the UK and I didn't grow up a Methodist, so I frequently get told that my experience is due to having grown up in a strict denomination in the United States and that this experience is pretty much unique to me.

Then, as I reread Steve Chalke's The Lost Message of Jesus, he writes (in 2004, so not in The Dark Ages):

...in the popular mind, this is exactly who the God of the Bible is: a sadistic monster, a powerful and spiteful punisher of people who are having a tough enough time on earth as it is...Most people today, if they believe in God at all, think that he is power and that power is all about the domination of others. (p. 47)

So what, exactly is the deal? Does 'everyone' believe that God loves them? Are Chalke and I (and Gerard Hughes, for that matter - thinking of his 'Uncle George') all wet? My conversion came when I began to believe that God loves me; is it really the case that few people need to hear this message?

Living the Gospel

As my harvest sermon for tomorrow will make clear, I don't think that 'the Gospel message' is simply about professing Jesus Christ as Lord so that one will go to 'heaven' when one dies.

Non-Methodists may disagree, but it's fundamental to Methodism that 'all can be saved', in other words, that God's offer of salvation extends to every person who has ever lived or who ever will live. The conclusion that I arrive at from 'all can be saved' is that every single person is equally beloved by God and is equally precious and with equal dignity. Furthermore, God's central commandments are to love God and love my neighbour.

I therefore conclude that I too am commanded to treat every person as equally precious and with equal dignity. That means every person is important to God and should be important to me. I confess that I don't always live this out as I should do, but this is what I believe.

I want to stress that I do not in any way deny the importance of Christ's divinity, his atonement or any creedal statements. I'm simply putting emphasis on what some call 'the social gospel' because I think it has been denied for too long.

This might seem obvious to many people, so why am I saying it? Because there has been some suggestion in the British Methodist blogsphere that a minister's time is far too precious to be spent engaging in allegedly 'ineffective' things like conducting weddings for non-church members. Apparently, unless the wedding (or presumably a funeral, a baptism or a visit) results in a conversion and larger numbers of people in church, it's not worth the minister's time.

When I talked about the church's responsibility to the wider community in country villages, this was regarded as 'socialising'. Amazing how the church trying to love its neighbour by caring about them ends up sounding like two corporate fat-cats swigging G&Ts whilst betting on the horses.

I simply don't believe that it's possible to preach the message: 'God loves you, but I won't care about you until you start coming to church.' Any fool can see past this sort of hypocrisy; people are not stupid. How on earth do you preach that all people are of equal worth to God and then act as if an individual is not worth the church's time? How does this fit with 'Let the little children come to me and don't forbid them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these?'

By all means, pray for revivial. But don't expect anything to happen if the church is not prepared to to see non-Christians as people who are worth our time.

Sadly, the church all too often reminds me of Lucy Van Pelt's comment in the old Peanuts cartoons. Lucy says 'I love mankind, it's people I can't stand.'