The Beautiful Heresy- Christian Universalism

Am I a heretic? Maybe. If believing that God is all powerful, all loving, wiser than His creation and perfectly willing and capable of saving all of His children makes me a heretic, sign me up.


Good News On Abortions  

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WASHINGTON - JANUARY 22: Pro-choice advocate M...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Pro-life or pro-choice, I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion. As I've pointed out to numerous people, no matter how you feel about a woman's right to choose, I think we can all get behind changing conditions so less women will be in a position to even think about an abortion (IOW- reduce unwanted pregnancies). There was some great news on this front recently as the number of abortions performed in America continues to drop. There were actually less abortions in the last year reported (2004) was actually less than in any year since 1974, the year after Roe V. Wade was decided. The rate of abortions also continues to fall (as it would have to since the population is increasing).

I saw a quick blurb about this on the news the other night and Googled it this morning. I was shocked at the lack of coverage of this statistic though. With abortion being such a hot debate in this country, I would expect everyone on both sides to be jumping all over this number when it's reported every year.

Whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, this is indeed good news. Education, better birth control and improving the adoption system are things we can all work on to continue this trend, even if women are still given the right to choose. The Washington Times article cites some suspected reasons for the downward trend. Better use of contraception and a decrease in the number of unwanted pregnancies are suspect to be two of the reasons.

For details, see these articles: U.S. Abortion Total Hits Lowest Mark Since... and Washington Times Article
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Gods Don't Want That  

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Aztec human sacrifice, from Codex Mendoza, 16t...Image via WikipediaLast night we were watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (of the movies in the trilogy, it's by far the darkest and most violent- I hope I didn't warp the girls for life).  During the scene where the priest is sacrificing an innocent victim, Kayla looked at me and said "Gods don't want that."  Out of the mouths of babes.

Just yesterday I posted an article here about all the unlearning so many of us have to do as adults due to the religious baggage we carry around. I was so proud to hear Kayla at 10 with her simple understanding of what it has taken me years to unlearn.


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Return to Innocence  

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The LibraryImage by BrianWestChest via Flickr

It's wonderful to be able to study "progressive" or emerging Christianity with people face-to-face finally.  After four or five years of searching on my own or only with people on the Internet, I finally have the opportunity to discuss these "deep" things with real life flesh and blood people.  But, there is a concern that some of us have about this "new brand" of Christianity.  Why is it progressive Christianity is so "intellectual"?  Do you have to have a degree in theology to grasp the "deep" truths some of us struggling to root out?  These thoughts are troubling.  Obviously Jesus didn't appeal solely to the intelligencia.  If anything, it was the opposite.  He appealed to the common man.  So why the emphasis on book learning in emerging Christianity?  Well, I think I know the answer...

As we form Nexus (the United Church of Christ I attend), we struggle with how to appeal to people, as any new church does.  How are we different?  Why should anyone attending another church leave that church?  Why should people who have decided to spend Sunday morning sleeping or attending their kids' soccer games come to church instead? One thing we've noticed about ourselves is that, for the most part, we seem to be a bunch of "theological intellectuals".  I would define that as people who do a lot of reading about theology.  Someone sitting in on one of our groups for the first time would probably quickly notice all of the names of authors being tossed around. If you haven't read Spong or Borg or Crossan or Pagels or whomever, you might quickly feel lost and wonder if it's necessary to read all that stuff to be a emerging or progressive Christian. I think the answer is either yes or no, depending on where you are coming from.  For some of us, it's very necessary.  For others, it would be a complete waste of time.

As I've wrestled with my faith over the last several years, tearing it apart, piece-by-piece, laying all the pieces on the floor and then reassembling it, I've found it has been a challenging, scary and often confusing process.  Not all of the pieces I take out fit back into the new structure. Sometimes I need a new piece to fit in to a certain place and have to search around to find it.  Then, there's the fear that now that I've torn this all apart, will it actually fit back together into something that works? I'm the kind of person who has to figure things out.  I'm an engineer by nature. When I was a child, I would go through the trash, take things out and literally take them apart and put them back together to see how they worked.  I do the same thing with my faith.  As I've gone through this process I've made amazing discoveries, one after another. I'll get all excited about some paragraph or chapter or book and excitedly point out to Ty the discovery I've made. "Oh!"  I'll tell her "Look at this.  What I was taught was all wrong.  This makes so much more sense."  She'll take a look at it, think about it for a while and say.  "Yeah, it does make sense.  I don't have a problem with that." (or "That's what I believe, too.") like it's just no big deal.  No struggle.  No need to read the whole book.  No concordances or looking up parallel translations of the Bible on the Internet. No wrestling with theological concepts.  Just acceptance.  What I've come to realize is that for people like myself the reason we need to do all this intellectual wrestling is not because we have to learn emerging Christianity or learn progressive Christianity, we have to unlearn years and years of wrong thinking that was buried deep in our psyches and etched into our ways of thinking.  It's a hard process for many of us.  We have to read books on how to read the Bible. Our filters are so strong that we can't look at the Bible with "beginner's mind" anymore.  We have to listen to theologians explain how G-d really does love us unconditionally and here's exactly how and why.  But, for others there's no need to unlearn all the stuff some of us have to unlearn because they didn't learn it in the first place.

My wife is fascinating to me.  She was raised Catholic.  So, I assumed she knew all the standard Catholic dogma. But, apparently, she had some sort of built in shield against all the crap she was supposed to have learned as child.  It seemed to roll off of her like water off of a duck's back. For years, we'd be having a discussion about some theological point and I'd tell her that as a Catholic she was supposed to believe this or that or she had been taught this or that and she'd simply say she never looked at it that way.  Somehow through all of the indoctrination they tried to give her about her relationship with G-d and how the church was the sole arbiter of that relationship and how G-d was mad at her (and the rest of humanity), she never lost her innocence. Her big test was not theological or Biblical, her test was how she felt about G-d or what she knew about G-d deep in her own soul.  If someone told her something that didn't make sense in the light of that relationship/knowledge, she simply ignored it.  It would be like someone telling you something about the nature of your best friend.  Who are you going to believe, the person who says she knows something about your friend or your own experience of your friend?

I think children are born intuitively knowing what we progressives are struggling to learn.  They are born with a built-in relationship with a Creator who loves them unconditionally.  My girls used to talk about being in heaven with G-d before they were born like it was just common knowledge.  They don't have any fear of G-d abandoning them or not loving them anymore because they screwed up.  The idea that G-d is an egocentric maniac is taught.  So far, they have retained their innocence. And, if I have anything to say about it, they will.  I'm hopeful that for the next generation of Christians, it won't be as much of a intellectual journey to be emergent.  It'll just come naturally because they won't need to do all of the unlearning some of us have to do to return to that innocence.  For some of us the return to innocence is a long, difficult journey.  But, for others, it's a pretty short trip.   Check out this video.  You might have to watch it 2X to "get" it (especially if you're slow like me.  It took me a couple of times).



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Foolishness  

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The wisdom the world is foolish.  I've heard this a million times from Christian promoting the idea that the more outrageous a doctrine, the more it must be true.  If you don't understand something they're trying to get across to you, all the better.  It's foolish.  You're not supposed to understand it.  If you could understand it, it wouldn't be from G-d.

The Wisdom of God
 
1 Corinthians 18 The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. 19 As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”[e] 20 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. 21 Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. 22 It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. 23 So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
I guess the idea came from this passage in Corinthians where Paul is talking about the message of the cross.  But, as always, the passage has been stretched to explain things that are literal foolishness, like how eternally tormenting can be in any way considered loving or glorious.

I've been told that the foolishness of the cross is this.  G-d needed to punish someone for our sins. A debt was owed that we couldn't pay.  So, G-d took it upon Godself to pay it.  G-d couldn't just forgive the debt. So, G-d killed His Son in our place.  Now, His Son wasn't tortured eternally (the purpose of Hell- as I've been told) and didn't stay dead forever (the wages of sin).  Yet, the debt was satisfied. OK.  I have to agree with at least this much. This is foolish.  It's incomprehensible to me.  Why would G-d set up a system where He created a creature bound for not only destruction but for Eternal Torment?  Why would God have to pay Gddself?  And a million more questions immediately pop into my mind.  But, let's just accept that is is foolishness.  Since it's foolishness and since the Bible says G-d's wisdom is message of the cross is foolishness, this must be the message of the cross.  That's what I'm asked to believe.  Not so fast!  Is there any other foolishness in this story that might actually be an alternative? 

It's human justice that demands an eye for an eye.  It's human justice that says when a King is insulted, the peasant must pay. The peasant  would often pay with his life.  That's where this idea that G-d, the ultimate King who has been insulted, demands we pay).  It's a human idea that the Messiah would come in splendor and glory conquering His foes, throwing the mighty from their high places by force.  It's humanity that demands blood.  The only thing foolish (from the human system of retribution) about the idea presented above is instead of G-d smiting His enemies, He smites His Son.  But, still it's G-d demanding somebody's blood.  That's human-like, not Godlike.

Jesus came unexpectedly. He came quietly, meekly.  He wasn't born in royalty or splendor, He was rumored to be a bastard.  He didn't work within the prevailing power structures of government or religion.  He defied them.  This is utter foolishness.  If G-d wanted to announce His presence to the world, wouldn't Jesus at least have been the son of a Rabbi? (not that the Jews were all that highly esteemed).  Wouldn't He have come as mighty and powerful?  Jesus was born in a backwater, hick
town.  That's foolishness.
Jesus came to bring a Kingdom.  How did human kingdoms establish themselves?  By power.  Human kingdoms prevail by using armies and crushing their enemies.  What did Jesus do?  Did He crush the power grubbing systems of the day by leading a violent revolution? No.  He peaceably allowed them to crush Him.  The "church" (Jewish temple system of the day) and the Roman government conspired to silence Him.  He could have called down legions of angels to protect Himself.  But, He did not.  That's foolishness.

My buddy RanRan tells me I have an ego problem because I think G-d loves me.  But G-d must love me.  He sent Jesus to save us while we were still estranged from Him.  As Paul said, in Romans 5:7, it's hard to find someone who will die for a righteous man. But, you might.  But, try finding someone who will die for an enemy.  That's foolishness. 

But, not only did Jesus die for us. Jesus died at our hands.  It's not G-d who killed Jesus. And, while you can say, in a sense, Jesus sacrificed Himself (because He would not shut up, recant or resist His execution), Jesus didn't die at His own hands.  Jesus didn't die at the hands of a Priest (as in a temple sacrifice) or at the hands of G-d.   Why didn't Jesus have one of the disciples sacrifice Him on an altar if  substitutionary atonement was the point?  Jesus died at our hands.  We killed Jesus.  We the sinners and the corrupt systems of the world demanded His blood.  The very governmental and religious system that He railed against, He allowed to take His life.  Not only did He give Himself for us, He gave Himself over to us. We did the killing.  Again, more foolishness

This is pure foolishness to the Jews who were expecting their war-god to come screaming down from heaven, destroy their enemies and put them in their righful place of power.  It's nonsense to the Gentiles who think of god as unmoving and dispassionate. A God who would die for rebellious and ungrateful people?  I agree with those who say the cross is foolishness to those caught up in the power systems of the world.  For those who think an eye for an eye is justice, the idea of justice actually being the restoration of right relationship is incomprehensible.  But, I believe the point of the cross is when we look upon it we realize a few things.


I believe Jesus when He said when He was lifted up He would draw all men toward Himself.  How can you resist when you look on someone willing to give their life to show how much they love you?  Who does this before you even know who they are?  Who dies for you when you can't possibly love Him back? How can you resist when you look on someone willing to say "I love you so much, I'm willing to allow you to kill me."?  I don't believe Jesus died to pay any debt we owed to G-d.  I believe Jesus died so that we could no longer have an excuse for not coming back to G-d.

Here's the message I see when I look upon the cross.

1. He was willing and able to accept us back home any time we were ready to return. G-d has never been far from us. It's that we perceive Him as far from us. The Kingdom of Heaven (really the Kingdom of G-d) is, and always has been at hand.


2. Yeshua showed us the metaphorical path in a very literal way. We have to be willing to die, to take up our cross and follow Him to be born again. We must lose our life to find it.  All of these metaphors, He acted out on the cross.


3. Yeshua showed us how to give sacrificially in a big way. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friend (John 15:13)

Yes, unconditional love.  Loving those who have turned away from you.  Foolishness indeed.

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How Addicted To Apple Are You?  

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A w:Macintosh 128K (that has apparently been u...Image via WikipediaI took a quiz to find out how addicted I am to Apple.  Not as bad as I thought.  Since I drool every time Apple launches a new product and I upgraded to Leopard in the first week of its release, I know I'm on my way to full fledged Apple fever.  But, because my history with Apple is relatively short, I scored pretty low.

How about you? Do you have a Mac yet?  What are you waiting for?  Click on the picture below if you want to take the quiz.

61%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

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