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?

1993 Resolutions on Human Sexuality

I have just received some summary documents from The Annual Conference of The British Methodist Church. I note that one of the resolutions we passed was

'...the need to transcend the common habit of discussing the 1993 Resolutions as if they were solely about homosexuality.'

This got me wondering how many Methodists have actually read the resolutions? Because homosexuality isn't really their main focus. They are - as the title suggests - about human sexuality.  

Here is a link to the resolutions on the official Methodist Website: Human Sexuality The page also includes a bit of further discussion and some links.

As I understand the 'debate' about reviewing these resolutions within our denomination, there are people on 'both sides' of the homosexuality issue who want the possibility of individual interpretation closed on the matter of homosexual acts. Some want a clear condemnation of all homosexual acts. Others want a clear permission to bless Civil Partnerships in church.

Why were these resolutions not reviewed?  I was present at Conference when the possible review of the resolutions was discussed. Conference had asked for written responses from the Methodist people and the response was huge by normal standards.  I don't remember the exact number, but David Gamble said that on most consultations if they received 5 responses from churches or Methodist members, this could be considered 'a deluge of opinion'. There were apparently hundreds of responses to the consultation request on Human Sexuality ('Pilgrimage of Faith') and the results indicated that views were about equally divided on both sides of the homosexuality issue.  Results also indicated that most respondents did not want to review the Resolutions.

In light of what is happening at Lambeth, our decision not to review might seem contentious, but it didn't seem that way at the time at Conference.  The mind of Conference seemed to be that the most preferable solution was to hold Methodism together.  

I agree with this decision because I believe that the ability to live peaceably with those with whom we don't agree is actually a more important issue of discipleship and behaviour than the sexual activity (or not) of members.  Sex is, of course - er - a 'sexier' topic than reconciliation and being able to get along with each other.  Of course, as human beings, we resist being disciplined for the sin of refusal to reconcile because we all want to save other people from themselves.  And we all commit the sin of non-reconciliation.  

(And before anyone asks, yes, this does mean that I hold myself accountable for civil interaction with people with whom I disagree.)

Living Together

Following on from my post below entitled A Challenge of Tolerance?, my my friend Will asks a very important question: How now shall we live together?

Will says something that I think is vitally important:

I quite like the Derby Resolutions. As a friend of mine said, they were created for a purpose and not just because some people were bored one afternoon. But, perhaps the document that kept The Methodist Church from the tumult experienced in the Church of England has now outlived its useful life. Where do we go from here? I want a conversation that focuses on how we can trust each other enough to stick together. More than that, stay in fellowship with each other. Where can we have a conversation that attempts to work out how we will be a community of grace without digressing back into old arguments. How can we start to ask the question, ‘How can we live together?’

I actually think the most important thing that any denomination can do is to learn to have a conversation about this issue and other issues that passionately divide us.

I think that many people often misunderstand this as 'Anything for a quiet life' or 'Anything goes'. That's not what I'm talking about. I think that learning how to listen to to each other when we passionately disagree is at the very centre of Christian discipleship. Not at the centre of salvation, but at the centre of discipleship. When passions are high, the process of listening and forgiving and making room for the other view is difficult and painful. Rather than painful listening most of us - myself included - tend to go for avoidance; and avoidance is probably more the 'anything for a quiet life' option.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think 'How can we live together?' is one of the most important questions we face. And we'll have to figure it out sooner or later.

Forgiveness without Reconciliation?

In his post, What’s Wrong with Penal Substitution?, James F. McGrath makes the very interesting point that

The penal substitution view of atonement takes the metaphor of sin as debt and literalizes it to the extent that one's actions are viewed in terms of accounting rather than relationship. It is not surprising this is popular: in our time, debts are impersonal and most people have them, and it is easier to think of slates being wiped clean and books being balanced than a need for reconciliation. But the latter is the core element if one thinks of God in personal terms. And for God to forgive, all that the Bible suggests that God has to do is forgive.

I've been puzzled for awhile why people hold to penal substitution with such emotional ferocity. In their book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker explain the attraction of penal substitution by our society's obsession with assigning blame to individuals.

But I think that McGrath is on to something here. It's the same thing that many Jewish people complain about with respect to Christian forgiveness: that our moral system doesn't require us to seek reconciliation with the people who we have hurt, but that we simply pray to God and all our sins are forgiven.

I think that the popular view of Christianity as practiced in the West has its roots in 'quietest' tendencies. Quietism stems from the idea that sinful human beings cannot be reconciled with God unless God makes the first move. It goes on to say that because human beings can do nothing to be reconciled with God, that any attempt by human beings to 'do good works' is a rejection of God's grace. So any attempt to grow in holiness is often condemned as not believing in salvation by faith alone.

This whole system turns Christianity into a 'God and me' religion. God saves me by grace - however I think that happens - and then I don't actually have to change anything in my life. If I wrong someone, all I have to do is pray to God for forgiveness; I don't need to attempt to communicate or reconcile with the person whom I have wronged. 'Reconciliation' thus remains a 'spiritual' thing between me and God and it imposes no difficult practical demands on my life.

Sermon - Spirit Values

I've posted this morning's sermon, Spirit Values, over on my Sermon blog. This sermon is intentionally thematic rather than exegetical. It takes this morning's lectionary reading from Acts as an inspiration for this particular church's forthcoming Church Anniversary.

The sermon probably qualifies as a 'peace post' as well.

Sermon - Called by God

I have posted the sermon for the Third Sunday in Easter on my sermon blog site: Called by God.