King is sailing, they say

Last year about this time, I celebrated Easter as a committed believer of our Risen and Living Savior.  I have done so every Easter I can remember except for a rebellious stint I had while in my 20s (we all have those, no?).  The one thing I knew for certain was that it was impossible to be a true Christian without this conviction.

.…and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.   Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.   If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.  - 1 Cor 15:17-19 (NASB)

Of course I believed in the Resurrection.  It is a foundational belief.  It is essential.  As CS Lewis would say, it is part of “Mere Christianity”. 

I have always been an avid reader, and I always saw books in the library or store that had titles that just screamed, “Open my cover and browse my pages if you dare.  For we are here to challenge your Christian beliefs!”  My church pastors had words for authors of books like this:  Pseudo-Intellectuals, who “professing themselves to be wise, they had become fools” (Rom 1:22).  They were likely angry apostates, out on an agenda to debunk The Word of God, the Anvil that has worn our many Hammers.  It was easy to pass by these books left on the shelf without thinking another thought. 

Upon entering graduate school, I was introduced to the Internet, and I was soon a little overwhelmed with the ease that I could obtain information.  More than I few times, before I knew better, I had accidentally hit a porn site while in the school computer lab, and I would be furiously clicking the “close” button before an administrator noticed!  The power of the Internet, the Information Superhighway, where articles and opinions were shoved in your face before you had a chance to see what was on the cover. 

While working in the lab late one night all those years ago, I stumbled onto this site, an article by Dan Barker, self-proclaimed minister turned atheist, which challenged the reader to take what he called the Resurrection Challenge.   The Resurrection Challenge was a challenge to harmonize the accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Four Gospels, and the one in 1 Corinthians 15 to remove the (apparent) contradictions.  Dan Barker was a Christian minister who became an atheist simply because, he claimed, he found Christianity to be unbelievable.  Another angry apostate!  I read a few paragraphs of the article, but did not finish it.  Of course the Gospels could be harmonized - we are only talking about the inerrant Word of God here!  Sure the angels appear in different places in Jesus’ tomb, sure they said different things, but those details are so minor, so trivial, when considering he entire overarching theme of the Resurrection.  The funny thing is, I never took it upon myself to at see if the Resurrection accounts could be harmonized.  I knew they could, and that settled it.  I clicked the browser window closed and did not give the Resurrection Challenge another thought. 

Until last year.  I was hosting our small group Bible Study, and the seeds of doubt had begun in my own faith.  I was still a Christian, a believer in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I was scrounging around the Internet looking for some resources, until I again stumbled on, you guess it, the long forgotten Resurrection Challenge.  This time, I read the entire article.  Then I grabbed a steno pad, pencil with sturdy eraser, and attempted the Resurrection Challenge.

I admitted defeat in about 5 minutes.

Undaunted, I itemized most of the discrepancies that I found in the Resurrection Accounts just to see how many there were.  Some of the contradictions are listed in the original article, but I had to check for myself.  I was stunned at how divergent the accounts were.  Not only were they contradictory in nature, they were practically completely different stories!  This was not a case of several different eyewitness getting the story details slightly different, this was wholesale opposition.  The truth of one Gospel account had to imply the falsehood of the other.

I listed the portions of the Resurrection accounts which diverged from the other accounts, and gave up after a couple hours.  It really rattled me.  If God wants us to believe in the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, why are all these accounts so different?  If God wants us to believe, why did he make his recording of events so inconsistent with each other?  If these were separate Police reports of the same event, would they even be considered?  What truth could be gleaned from them?

Read the original article here.  Take the Resurrection Challenge.  What do you draw from your conclusions?

A list of some of the contradictions is at the end of Barker’s article.  But he did not list one that I found, one that I consider perhaps the most troublesome and baffling contradiction in the entire Bible.  It concerns whether Christ rose in the Flesh, or rose in the Spirit.  Here I list two accounts from the Resurrection narratives:

Account 1)
In 1 Cor 15, Paul is speaking of the resurrection of the dead, following the example of the resurrected Christ. He makes this remark that states Jesus was risen with a Spiritual, and most emphatically not Physical body.

So also is the resurrection of the dead It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1 Cor 15:42-44 (NASB) – but read the whole chapter for good context.

Account 2)
The resurrected Jesus has just disappeared from Emmaus, and has appeared to the eleven remaining disciples in
Jerusalem. He mentions that he has a Physical, and most emphatically not Spiritual body.

While they (the eleven disciples) were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.” But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them. Luke 24:36-43 (NASB)

The only way I have seen these two passages reconciled is with the tried and true Harmonization by Omission tactic.  I have heard the theory that Jesus could have risen as spirit, ascended to heaven while nobody was around, then came back to Earth as flesh.  I won’t even entertain that idea here, because to give it credibility is to be desperate to even include sheer brute force to make this issue harmonize. 

Some Christians concede that while the details of particular passages may differ, the essence remains consistent.  I don’t see a consistent essence in this case.  Everything differs except the amorphous detail that Jesus rose.  What message he left, who he saw, what form he took and what he did remains unknown, because not a single detail can be reconciled.

The essence of Jesus life through the Gospels seems to be consistent, at least through the Synoptics.  He taught similar things, he performed similar miracles, and events can be harmonized with a little ironing over rough details.  Why do the events diverge so greatly after the crucifixion?  There is general agreement that Mark is the first Gospel to be written, and many scholars agree that there is not much of a Resurrection story in that Gospel.  Many scholars agree that the Gospel ends at Mark 16:8, with the women fleeing the sepulcher in fear.  The End.  If that is true, could it be that when Matthew and Luke were independently compiling their Gospels from Mark, and left with a paucity of Resurrection material, had to elaborate their own accounts from Oral Tradition and legend?  What about John?  Perhaps he had to derive things independently as well, thus four wildly divergent Resurrection accounts. 

That is the only thing that makes sense to me.  Is the Resurrection of our Savior Myth and Legend?

Tomorrow I will go to mass with my wife and celebrate Easter with her.  I want to believe, I truly do, but what am I to hold my faith on?  I am convinced that the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy is incorrect, so do I have nothing to go on but 2000 year-old hear-say?  I want to believe because I am afraid to discard a belief I have held my entire life.  I want to believe for the sake of my family, and the sake of my wife. 

I am afraid to say it.  But I must admit it.  This will be the first Easter that I celebrate as a non-believer. 

I had intended to do several thorough book reviews on this site, but I read the books faster then I can write the reviews.  The task of writing reviews is just daunting to me, so I am going to quickly review every book I have read in the last year, mostly from researching and trying to make sense of my beliefs and Christianity.  Some of them are just indirectly related, and others are way off the topic.  After looking at this list, it is interesting how my faith has changed and how that developed from the books I read.  Yeah, I tend to go for the geekish stuff, I admit.  I guess I should explain that I am beginning this list before I started overtly questioning Christianity.  Here are the books I read in the last year or so in the rough order that I read them: 

The Source by James Michener.  I am not a huge Michener fan.  Hawaii is story-telling perfection, but most of his other work leaves me a little dry.  Not so with The Source.  This is historical fiction at its finest.  Michener weaves together the history of a tiny fictional village, just east of Akko in modern day Israel.  We see what might have happened in pre-history, the days of Abraham, Joshua, David, Jesus, the Diaspora, The Romans, the Crusades, the Muslim occupation, etc.  The only Biblical character that appears is King David, and it ain’t exactly a complementary portrayal either.  The only flaws are the short interludes which develop a lame love story between two modern archeologists.  Skim or skip that stuff; you won’t miss anything.  Lots of history of the Jewish people, lots of great story telling – very long – but I could not put this thing down. 

Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines by David Bain.  Bain, a writer and historian, travels to the Philippines and retraces (actually backpacks) the routes of Frederick Funston and Emilio Aguinaldo taken during the Philippine-American war.   It provides very interesting insight into the US Pacific expansion during the turn of the century – a historical period sorely neglected.  It also shows how this war and the American conquest of the Philippines changed much of the current Philippine culture.  I learned nothing new about Jesus in this book, but highly recommended. 

John Adams by David McCullough – I picked this up because I was curious about the infancy of our nation.  John Adams was a President, vice-president, ambassador, and framer of the constitution, so studying his life fit the bill.  I also learned that Jesus had very little impact on his beliefs.  Highly recommended. 

Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton.  Not much of his life is detailed here, more of his thought.  You *really* have to be interested in theology to get through this.  It is unbelievable how much power the Catholic church wielded at one time, and how much corruption was involved.  I learned that Jesus had a fair amount of influence on Martin’s life. Recommended if the dry academic style of writing is to your taste. 

Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence by Mark Antonacci – another in the “I started as a skeptic, but became a believer after intense research” category.  The book went through great lengths to show how the Shroud of Turin was the burial cloth of Jesus.  In the end, I did not buy the theory, but I still learned about the fascinating world of medieval relics, which is always fun.  The book included an appendix showing the manuscript evidence for the historicity of the New Testament, almost straight out of a Josh McDowell book!  What that had to do with the Shroud of Turin I don’t know.  Maybe he should have just dropped the subtlety and included the Sinner’s Prayer after the “Evidence by Pollen” section.  A little disingenuous, perhaps?  I admit a fascination for it anyway; I think the Shroud is the most ingenious hoax ever. Recommended if you dig medieval conspiracy theories.

 Let the Trumpet Sound by Stephen Oates.  I picked this up to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.  I ended up being convicted of our modern Church’s own infantile pietism.  I began to wonder if there was anything more to our own Christian faith than was meeting the eye.  Highly recommended. See my full review here and here 

A History of God by Karen Armstrong.  Technically, this is a history of monotheism, but I get her point.  This book shows how the notion of God changes as mankind’s needs change.  Much of the evolution of God can be seen in our own Bible, where the personal God who could sit and dine with Abraham in a tent, slowly morphed into an awesome transcendence with named intermediary angels in Daniel’s day.  It traces how our scientific discoveries, cultural and philosophical changes through history forced us to revision how God must be.  And our notion of God is still evolving through the present day.  I had always thought there was more to religious history then we were led to believe, but I never confessed that - not out loud to my church buddies anyway.  This book got me curious and a little hungry for more.  OK, I confess I skipped the chapters that described the evolution of the Islamic Allah.  I may get back to them later.  Recommended. 

Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman.  We Christians always assume that the Church started with the teachings of Jesus, was initiated as pure during the Upper Room scene in Acts 2, then gradually devolved into factions of heresy.  We Christians assume a long golden thread of true Christians have been around since those first days, but all heresies branched off from there.  Ehrman shows that Orhtodox Christianity had formed from many sources and many traditions, and there were diverse forms of Christianity since the beginning.  I devoured this book in two days.  I had never heard a single fact from this book taught in our churches, yet the evidence for the histories of these lost beliefs were all around – just the mere existence of all the non-canonical writings should tell us that there were all kinds of beliefs back then.  I checked this out of the library with a companion book, ‘Lost Scriptures’ which I read only portions of.  Seriously convicting and a blow to my faith – where did our Christianity really come from?  Highly recommended. 

All the Messianic Prophicies of Scripture by Herbert Lockyer.  I had always relied on Messianic Prophecy to bolster my belief in the Bible.  I thought the fact that Jesus fulfilled all those ancient prophecies added great evidence to God’s planning, directing, or forknowing history.  So I retreated to this book, taken from a conservative Christian perspective, to study Prophecy again.  First, the book was terribly written.  I would get a sentence or two describing how Jesus fleeing into Egypt fulfilled a verse out of Hosea, followed by a paragraph of ‘Glory be to God’.  Please, just the facts, ma’am.  Second, very little scripture is actually quoted in this book, so I took a long look at the prophecies themselves.  I always knew they were out of context, but after studying the Bible and reading Lockyer I realized just how out of context they really were!  It hit me that it made more sense if somebody could have just easily written the story of Jesus from many disjointed Old Testament verses.  Which brings me to my third criticism - Lockyer contrives all sorts of Old Testament passages and makes them prophecy!  For example – Exodus 27:16 describes the court of the Tabernacle which has 4 pillars.  This predicts the 4 separate Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ.  There are 3 spaces between the 4 pillars, representing not only the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, but also – check this – Jesus’ Threefold Title of Lord Jesus Christ, and that Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Life.  The book is filled to the brim with sort of nonsense – over 500 pages of invented contrivances.  Then it hit me.  Lockyer was taking passages from the Old Testament and turning it into Messianic Prophecy.  Isn’t it also possible that the Gospel writers did the same thing?  Because I see no stylistic difference between cutting out of context OT passages to paste into a Messiah, ala Lockyer, or cutting out of context OT passages to paste into a Messiah, ala Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Not recommended unless you want to put your Christian faith into serious jeopardy. 

The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis.  Not a bad book until we get to Lewis’ last three chapters on Hell, Animal Pain and Heaven.  That is when it starts to unravel for me.  Recommended. 

The Case for Christianity by CS Lewis.  Circular reasoning gone haywire.  Not recommended.  See my review here.

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by Bart Ehrman.  OK, now the doubt is getting heavy.  In this scholarly work, Ehrman shows that the ancient New Testament manuscripts differ significantly from each other, despite what McDowell, et al claim.  This is a slow, thorough and fascinating read (there are portions where Ehrman assumes you read Greek, but it can be read fine if not).  While most of the differences are scribal errors or some such, there are some which can be systematically mapped to different struggles in earliest Christianity.  Ehrman shows how the New Testament may corrupted passages from Adoptionistic, Separationist, Docetic and Patripassianist factions of anti-orthodox Christianity.  I began to really start doubting the validity of my faith.  This Bible was definitely not written the way I had assumed.  Highly recommended.  Best book of the year award. 

Looking for a Miracle by Joe Nickell.  I always enjoy a good debunking of scam artists, especially Televangelists.  This book takes on Fatima, Lourdes, and my favorite Divine miracle – the weeping Madonnas.  I tell you, if the best miracle that God can pull off is making statues cry, then we are truly most hopeless.  Light reading – but mildly recommended. 

Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible by Raymond Brown.  Very good book by a Catholic authority who answers tough Bible questions.  He seemed to want to approach the Bible critically, yet still believe in the virgin birth and immaculate conception as well.  I could not understand how he could have his cake and eat it too.  See my review here. 

The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.  Have you ever heard the Christian cliché, “with every turn of the archeologist’s spade there is more proof that the Bible is true”.  Of course you have.  Apparently that’s not so.  According to Finkelstein and Silbernan’s research, the Exodus never occurred, there was no conquest of Canaan by the Israelites,  and the Kingdom of David and Solomon as presented in the Bible is greatly exaggerated.  A very easy read and heavily illustrated.  Recommended. 

 Right about this time, I started HeIsSailing .  Like every other Christian, I have always had doubts about my Christian faith, but ignored them and relied on pure faith.  These books made me realize that I needed to take those doubts out and address them.  To stay fair, I am trying to pick books that represent a balance, and reasoned facts and arguments from both sides, not just editorializing.  Well, I tried to pick them that way, but sometimes I did not read what I was expecting. 

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  Trash.  I was too kind in my original review, but it was recommended to me by a Christian friend whom I trust.  I was assured that it would put my doubts in Jesus to ease.  It just got me upset.  Is this the best that Modern Christian authors can do?  This is this trite, infantile Christianity that I am trying to escape from!  Worst book of the year award.  Even worse than Lockyer. 

Twilight of the Gods – Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible by David Penchansky.  Fascinating.  I had always read the old testament with a monotheistic mindset.  This book dares to question 2500 years of tradition and shows how the old testament is filled with polytheism.  This was not my favorite book of the year, but I think it was the most paradigm shattering.  The polytheism begins in Genesis, where the Garden of Eden makes actually makes sense as mythology involving a pantheon of gods.  The sections on the Psalms and Proverbs were particularly interesting.  There are Psalms blatently include many gods, and the English translations have hidden this quite well.  Proverbs contains a personified goddess of wisdom, a daughter of YHVH, that may have been the precursor to the Greek notion of Sophia.  Ever wonder why Lucifer, a Greek word, is left in Greek when the rest of the Old Testament is translated back into a Hebrew Text?  Mindblowing – so is this Bible just mythology after all?  Like every other ancient religious belief?  My Christian belief is taking a nosedive.  Things are not as they once seemed. 

The Formation of the Christian Bible by Hans von Campenhausen – more than you ever wanted to know about very early Christian history.  This book is scholarly and somewhat conservative, which I liked for a balance.  It covered the early struggles that Christians had with Marcionites and Gnostics, the Law and its place in Christianity, the authorship of the New Testament books and  the concept of Canon and the struggles to define it.  The history ends about the time of Origen, before the Canon is fully solidified.  This history confirmed for me much of the huge diversity of Christian belief in the earliest days as I read from Bart Ehrman.  Recommended, but be patient and put your thinking cap on. 

It was here that I read two books by authors I was told by my Calvary Chapel pastor to avoid. 

Out of my Life and Thought by Albert Schweitzer.  I have been quoting Schweitzer a lot lately, and that is because I have added him to my list of heroes.  Born in modern
Eastern France, then Germany I think, Schweitzer was a young church organist and theologian.  He viewed Jesus as sort of an apocalypic radical who thought the world would end during his own lifetime or shortly after.  All Jesus’ preaching of selling all one’s possessions was due to the fact that Jesus envisioned the Kingdom of God coming very quickly.  Despite these liberal views on Christianity, he was so moved by Jesus’ moral example that he enrolled into medical school to become a missionary and doctor in Lambaréné Africa.  It was there, and as a prisoner during WWI, that he developed what he believed was mankind’s greatest calling, what he called the Philosophy of the Reverence for Human Life.  The book’s story ends around 1935, so the last 30 years of his life are never recorded.  The writing is a little stiff, and not exactly a page turner, but I really enjoyed the thinking of a Liberal Christian.  Recommended. 

Why Christianity must Change or Die by Bishop John Shelby Spong.  Spong’s book was liberating.  Spong argues that Fundamentalist Christianity has put the Bible into a stranglehold, suppressing further insight and interpretation.  He condemns the Christian community’s stance on homosexuality, and repression of women’s rights, and blames that attitude on strict literalist interpretation of the Bible.  I read the book, and marveled at this Episcopalian bishop’s audacity, and inwardly agreed with most every word he said.  I wanted to say these things as a Christian, but did not have the nerve to disagree with my dogma.  Truly liberating, but I can also see why my old pastor warned his congregation about Spong.  My one complaint is that while he thoroughly deconstructed the Bible, he never built up a theology from it that he did believe in.  Describe the Christianity that you envision, Bishop Spong!  What is it based on?  Recommended. 

The entire year has also been filled with re-reading large chunks of the NASB Bible, but without the lens of inerrancy to filter it.  It is a whole new book to me – and you can read about some of that in my articles.  I have also been reading some related articles off the internet, but I have to watch it there and practice my “Gift of Discernment”.  I have found a lot of good stuff, but a lot of trash – from all ends of the theistic spectrum. 

What am I reading right now?  The Orgins of Christianity – a Critical Approach, edited by Joseph Hoffmann (heavy reading);  The Fingerprint of God, by Hugh Ross (light reading) 

In the hopper for future reading:  On the Genre and Message of Revelation by Bruce Malina;  The Reason Driven Life by Robert Price;  Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen

I tend to stay away from topics that are too emotionally charged.  I am more of the systematic type – here is a Bible verse, here is what I think it means, here is a creed, here is my polemic spew on it.  But a lot of our beliefs are based on highly charged emotion, and sometimes it must come out.  A lot of my criticism of Christianity is intellectual, but many of the reasons I first began to question my faith were driven by pure, painful emotion. 

I used to be involved in a small group home Bible Study organized by our Baptist Church.  We usually hosted it in our house, and sometimes I led it.  We had a workbook as a rough guide, and since I thought the book was rather tepid, I liked to venture into gray areas that were not discussed in the book.  This was always more meaningful and relevant for me, and hopefully challenging for the participants.  We usually followed this up with prayer requests and intercessions before God.  

One particular night, our topic was prayer, specifically prayer for the sick.  Our Scripture was out of James:   

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective - – James 5:13-16 (NIV) 

One of the members recalled her deceased father.  He had always been a good father, she said, and we let her speak as she shared some reminisces.  Then she began crying.  Why did God take her father while he was so young? she cried.  He was a devout man, she said, he always obeyed his parents.  We all sat and let her grieve.  He always obeyed his parents, so I don’t understand why God took him so young.  I don’t understand why God did not keep his promise.   

She was referring to this:“Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” - Ephesians 6:2-3, which is just a rewording from the commandment in Deut 5:16. 

We heard her right.  The commandment that she referred to has a promise attached.  She was accusing God of breaking that promise right in front of our eyes.  “Why”, she cried, “did God break his promise?” 

The group collectively said nothing.  No, I don’t think she was expecting answers from us.  She just missed her father terribly and wanted to mourn.  But I felt completely impotent.  When she was done crying, she collected herself, wiped her eyes and prepared to continue with the workbook.   I felt not only impotent, I felt that Ephesians 6:2-3 and Deut 5:16 were just as impotent.  We could offer no answers, no support, and neither could our Bible or our faith in God.  She asked why God broke a promise that is clearly stated in Scripture.  Her father kept his end of the deal, so why did God not keep his end?  But we dare not dwell on these things, because in the end it is all according the divine Will of God.  The Will of God trumps everything.   

So we ignored the whole thorny issue, said not a word about it, and moved straight on to James 5:17.  “Elijah was a man just…” 

That was the last small group that I led.  I just could not go on with that same pious routine, which I felt was losing all spiritual relevance and meaning.  Our small group just seemed to excel at passing around short excerpts of Scripture that had long since become trite platitudes that ultimately meant nothing. This was nothing new; I had experienced this sort of thing many times before.  This spiritual dryness brings about the call for ‘Revival!’ amongst the truly faithful.  Since we had become lukewarm and stale, it was time for a revival of the Holy Ghost, to stop being mere spectators of the Faith, and be on fire for the Word again!  So Revival would begin by being more fervent and emotional in our singing, studying daily to find the ‘meat’ of the Word, more time in the ‘Prayer Closet’, secretly giving an additional offering over the 10% tithe, and more Evangelistic calls to the lost.  But this time I had to face it.  Unless we are some natural born Billy Sunday, this attitude just does not last.  I knew that even if our small groups witnessed the most dramatic revival ever, we would still be powerless to answer a simple question like “Why did God not keep his promise in Scripture?”  Holy Ghost empowers our revivals for only so long before we lose the fire and drift back into Biblical Platitude Land.   

I figured if revivals worked like this, we were barely alive.  “Call the Medic, The Church needs reviving again!”  I know what the Christian reader will say at this point.  You need more faith!  You need more prayer!  You cannot just try Jesus and quit if you don’t like Him, it is a full commitment!  I don’t know what to say to this, except to say, to quote DagoodS, “You have no clue”.  We were all committed Christians with saving faith, including my wife and myself.  But I just had to face the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong with this faith that seems to be empowered by nothing but our own fervent desire, our own deeds of study, prayer and evangelism, and our own good intentions. 

Reader Heather submites the following comment and open question:

Here’s a general question for anyone — in terms of the Bible, what are the clear-cut, no way around it, ways that one knows one is saved? All I’ve really found is believe in the Son, and ‘publicaly confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in one’s heart in the resurrection.’ Other than that, it comes across as somewhat vague.

Here is my answer.  It started as a direct answer to Heather, but quickly morphed into a general rant so sorry for the crude structure.  Other answers and comments are, as always, welcome.

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Salvation, as preached from our Pulpits seems very simple.  Our Pastors generally have it down pat – and it makes sense if you follow their logic and not think too hard about it.  But I agree that if we put away our Four Spiritual Laws pamphlets and Chick Tracts and see what the Bible actually says about Salvation, it gets hairy.  It is no wonder theologians have struggled with these issues for centuries. 

Here are a few passages that come off the top of my head.  Mind you, there are more: 

John 3:16 says if we believe in him we will have eternal life.  Simple enough. 

Ephesians 2:8-9 says we are saved by grace and not by works.  Cool. 

Matthew 19:16-22 has Jesus telling a young rich man that he will attain eternal life by following the commandments, selling all his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor.  No mention of grace, or God’s favor.  OK, now it is getting confusing.  Are we saved by grace or not? 

Romans 6:3-5 says that we will be united with Christ Jesus in the resurrection if we are baptized into Christ Jesus.  This is said in the context of dying to sin.  No selling of your possessions here.  Again, what does baptism mean in this context? 

Titus 3:4-8 says that we are saved by the mercy of God through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  God gives his mercy when we trust in him.  Do we trust in God that he will save us?  That he is merciful?  Trusting that God raised Jesus from the dead? 

1 Corinthians 15 defines the Gospel (The News) by which we are saved.  Hold firmly or believe on this word: That Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day and that he appeared to Peter, the Twelve, more to 500 people simultaneously, James, all the apostles, then lastly to Paul.  OK, so we simply believe these things – no word of giving to the poor or baptism for our salvation.  Which is it? 

These instructions are tough to put together, but it gets worse.  For instance, when baptism is mentioned, what does baptism even mean?  Is baptism necessary for salvation or isn’t it?  If so, is it by Immersion?  Sprinkling?  As an infant? As a cognizant believer?  As repentance?  As witness?  And if we have to believe in Jesus, we have to make sure it is the RIGHT Jesus.  Is Jesus the sole atonement for our sins?  If baptism is a requirement for salvation did Jesus die for all sins up until the time of baptism or also after?  Do we have to believe that Jesus was God Incarnate?  Or is it enough to believe that Jesus was the Son of God?  Am I wrong to believe that Jesus is a god outside of the Father?  No, that is clearly heresy.  Or is it?  OK, then can I believe that Jesus is another personality of The Father, like a schizophrenic God?  No?  Is Jesus a separate entity from the Father all together to form a united GodHead, much like a father and son form a single united family?  That is heresy too?  But what else is Three Persons in One Godhead supposed to mean? Then is Jesus the same as the Father but in a different form, like liquid and ice are both forms of water?  Is that the Jesus we are to believe?  This doctrine says that modalism is a heresy, is it?  I don’t know, you tell me.  Are we to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or does that not matter?  Are we to believe in Jesus as Savior?  Or are we to believe in Jesus as Savior and LORD? 

This may seem over the top, but it is really not.  Over the years, brilliant theologians wrestled with all these issues and countless more to ensure that they understood God’s Plan of Salvation.    

Here is an example to consider:  In my last article Trusting Jesus for my Salvation, I quoted Mark 16:16, which says that you have to believe and be baptized to be saved.  Period.  What do you believe? The resurrection?  The crucifixion?  That Jesus is the Son of God?  Do we believe a person?  An event?  A teaching?  Almost as troublesome -  How are you baptized? With water?  With the spirit?  Both?  What does that even mean?  When are you baptized?  As an infant?  On the deathbed?  As a literal confession of sins?  As a symbolic witness?  There is no mention of these thorny issues. 

This is just a smattering that comes off the top of my head.  There are other passages which mention works, baptism, repentance, the old Mosaic Law, …… 

Most Christians attempt to harmonize all these Salvation passages into a coherent unit, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.  For the last few hundred years, we have been in a unique period in history.  We actually have the privilege of opening up the Scriptures and reading and interpreting them for ourselves, where the poor commoners in the Middle Ages had to rely on the word of their local priest.  And we now see for ourselves how difficult it is to put that Divine Jigsaw Puzzle together.  After reading the Bible for myself and being as objective as I can,  I honestly don’t think I even know what Salvation means anymore.   

Here is another example to consider:  God spent the better part of 20 chapters in Exodus giving Moses and the Israelites very detailed instructions on how to communicate with him by means of a portable structure: The Tabernacle.  The Tabernacle was to be where the Glory of God lived, where the High Priest would atone for the sins of the people, and where God would meet with his people.  God went through great effort to give Moses unambiguous direction on how the Tabernacle was to be built.  He gave specific size dimensions.  He gave encampment instructions for the twelve tribes.  He gave the materials to be used in the Tabernacle.  He described the rooms, the Outer Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place.  He gave great detail to the implements and ornaments to be used in the Tabernacle.  The colors, the metals, the types of skins, the curtains, the braids, the hooks, the pins were all specified.  The shewbread, the laver, the branched lampstand, and the alter were all detailed.  In the Holy of Holies was the very focus of the Tabernacle – The Ark of the Covenant, the construction of which was detailed in every way.  The lid was actually a separate item, the Mercy Seat.  The materials were specified, along with the cherubim engraved on top, which protected the Holiness of God in his meeting place.  The uniforms or vestments of the priests were also detailed.  The aprons, the breastplates, the helmets, the robes, the tunics, the … 

You get the idea.  I have not even commented on the ceremonial feasts, cleansings or offering instructions as given by God.  If God gave Moses this much detail on his Tabernacle to Moses, written like a bulleted list that even a caveman could understand, then why are we, the Saints of the Church Age given such ambiguity as to our eternal salvation?  If Jesus’ atonement by crucifixion and subsequent resurrection is the culmination God’s Plan for the Justification of humanity, the event the Old Testament prophets dreamt and wrote of, the event where Christ humbled himself to obedience to death and God exalted him to the highest place, the absolute Apex of the History of the Universe, if all that were true you think God would at least give us Clear, Consistent, Unambiguous, Non-Contradictory instructions on how to take advantage of that Plan of Salvation.   

But it is not simple.  It is very difficult.  God’s plan for Salvation is not a clear list like he made for Moses when the Tabernacle was built.  God took that effort for the Israelites, but not for us.  I have to wonder why God never made that effort for those whom he loves so much.  Unfortunately, we have no clear instructions and that is why we have countless Christian denominations, which all interpret the Bible, and in many cases, God’s plan of Salvation very differently.  He lets us put together a jigsaw puzzle of seemingly random passages that say very different things about salvation.  And you better make that puzzle fit and interpret these salvation passages correctly.  Don’t just find a church creed that teaches the interpretation of Salvation that you find palatable, or rely on the church interpretation that you were born into and have grown comfortable with.  Your eternity rides on how you decipher these passages.  Our eternity rides on knowing God’s Secret Handshake.     

Are you interpreting God’s plan of Salvation correctly?  Are you sure?  How do you know?  Are you really sure?  Are you willing to gamble your eternal destiny with the knowledge that you currently have and your particular interpretation of Scripture?  

**sigh** Hand me that simple Four Spiritual Laws pamphlet, will you?

I am a little drained from writing so much last week.  I have a lot to think about, and a lot to sort through.  I want to have faith in God, but it is whittling away despite my fervent prayers and study. 

In the meantime, I found this article by DagoodS called Can’t Win.  He is a much better writer than me, and fully expresses the predicament of losing faith in God.  Yesterday, in a comment on this site, I admitted that I had lost all faith that God would answer any prayer.  It is rattling to even type that confession here, but there it is.  I do have much to think about the implications of that statement.

As a fully deconverted Christian, DagoodS may also be predicting my future in his article.  Maybe.  I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I will keep searching, and will continue to be honest.

Read the article here.  It is long, but read it to the end and you will be rewarded.  DagoodS expresses many of my own thoughts better than I ever could.

When I was in my early to mid 20’s, I went through a phase of doubting my own salvation in Jesus Christ.  I lost faith in him and desperately wanted it back.  My lack of faith came from the string of broken promises that are in the Bible.  Consider this whopper, from the Great Commission of Jesus to his disciples:

Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.   And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.  He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.  These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” - Mark 16:14-18 (NASB)

There are many other portions of scripture like this (John 14:12, Matt 17:20, Matt 18:19, Matt 21:21, Mark 11:24, etc), where the followers of Jesus are promised that they will be able to accomplish miracles and wonders with the power of God.  I believed this as a youngster, but as I grew older reality set in.  The world around us tell us that these promised miracles never occur.  No matter how devout we are, no matter how much faith we have, the promises of the miraculous never occur.   

But it grew worse then that when I prayed for, not the miraculous, but base and simple things.  I prayed fervently for the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit to help me witness to my friends at work.  After a while, I felt as though I were merely talking to myself; pumping myself up with confidence, “I can do it with your strength, I can do it with your strength, I can do….”  But I felt no overwhelming power than that which I could muster up from my own being.  This worried me.  I felt that I was being ignored by God, despite my living as sinless and faithful life as I possibly could.

Many attempts are made to reconcile these portions of Scripture with this fact of reality.  I have heard that the promises only apply to the original Apostles.  I have heard that the promises are applicable to Christians as a whole, and may not apply to individual members.  I have heard that we cannot perform miracles today because we are a sinful and faithless bunch of Christians.  I have heard ‘casting out demons’, ‘serpents’ and ‘deadly poisons’ allegorized to mean things like alcoholism, and ‘speaking in new tongues’ allegorized to mean speaking in love.  All sorts of attempts have been made to excuse the Bible for what we witness in our natural world.  

I have long ago lost patience in trying to rationalize these troublesome portions of Scripture, because I found in it something far more serious.  There is a small phrase in the Great Commission that really concerned me:

 “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

If Jesus did not keep his promises concerning the obviously miraculous, or even simple and mundane requests in prayer, what kept him from keeping the promise of salvation?  If the promises were only given to the Apostles, was his promise of salvation only to the disciples?  If everything in the Great Commission is allegory, should Jesus’s promise of salvation be allegorized also?  If that is true, what does salvation even mean? 

I was thrown into a real crisis of faith.  If all these elaborate arguments needed to be made to excuse the Bible’s broken promises for the believer, if these promises of the miraculous are never fulfilled, or my mundane prayers seemed to be ignored, what is to keep Jesus from fulfilling his promise of Salvation?  Was I really at the whim of a God who will show mercy on just those whom he will choose? (Exodus 33:19, Rom 9:15).  Was I saved by God’s grace or not? 

In the end, I decided to just forget all that troublesome clutter and just have faith in Jesus.  I guess that is called ‘resting in his grace’.  I decided that these passages of Scripture were probably never going to be reconciled in my lifetime, but if I were just to be saved by the grace of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I should just trust in that and not worry about the complications. 

In other words, I pretended those broken promises did not exist.  I ignored the contradictory passages of Scripture that promised great things and never delivered.  Frankly, I ignored those passages out of fear.  Who am I to question God? 

Now that I am out and openly questioning these difficult passages, I again ask these same questions.  The Scriptures which make promises of this type make no sense to me.  Can I trust Jesus for salvation when trusting in him in other promises avails nothing?  Is the concept of salvation just an allegory for the disciples’ ears?  Is there even any such thing as Salvation? 

[footnote:  Now that I have done more reading, I am well aware that many modern Scholars consider Mark 16:9-20 to be spurious.  If that is true, that opens up a whole nother can of worms, but that does not negate plenty of other passages of Scripture which promise us Salvation through Jesus and answer to prayers.]

Heather contributed with the following comment:

“This is another thing I’ve found interesting about conservative Christianity in general — discouraging members from reading books that promote opposing viewpoints. Or just reading books on those opposing viewpoints that are written by conservative Christianity.”

Many of the comments that are made by readers leave me thinking for some time, and Heather’s recent comment was one of them.  So while everyone here was fighting over whether Hitler was an atheist or not, I sat about thinking about what books I have been discouraged from reading, what movies I was discouraged from watching, etc.  I tried to remember everything that I was explicitly warned about by clergy or my parents, for strictly religious reasons.  Were they trying to protect me?  Were they trying to hide something from me?  Were they trying to keep me from falling into sin, or challenge God with questions?   

When I was a very young boy I was told, by either the church or my mother, to dispense of, not watch, or pay no heed to the following items:

• Song of Solomon from the Bible (too racy)
• An animal show that I liked as a child, that I cannot remember the name of (No, I don’t think it was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.  I was allowed to watch ol’ Marlin Perkins).  There was always a segment on this show which described how the animal of the week evolved from some extinct animal to its present day form.
• My Bible Picture Book (my own mother said this was inappropriate, but I’m not sure why – maybe she did not like an interpretation of a particular story?)
• My 45 rpm single of Convoy by CW McCall (it contains the line “eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus”)
• The Ten Commandments movie (half of it was viewed by my church as blasphemous fiction, the other half was ok)
• My dinosaur flashcard set

The following TV shows were banned strictly on religious grounds:

• I Dream of Genie
• Bewitched (church rumor had it that Agnes Moorhead was a real witch)

As I got older, my mother enrolled me in a private Baptist school.  The school was in the 3 room basement of the local Baptist Church.

ALL rock music, in fact nearly all music of any kind, was banned at my Baptist school. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Kiss and Elvis (of all people) were given specific attention as being Satanic. I was at least allowed to play some of my music for the principal before he passed judgment.  He banned everything I played for him except an ambient snippet of a Kansas song that I used for a school play.  The music I played for him, hoping for acceptance, included the bands Yes, Rush, Devo, Jethro Tull and Moody Blues.  I didn’t even try to play him other stuff I liked that I thought had no chance of passing through his filter.  I was also really getting into jazz at the time, but he put a stop to that, claiming all jazz to be self-indulgent and not glorifying to God. My mom was much more accepting of my music than that school, but she did confiscate my brother’s Love Gun LP by Kiss. 

These are all books that I was threatened with confiscation by my Baptist school.  They never outright took these from me, but I was told never to read them on school grounds again.  I was caught reading these mostly in the bus to a basketball game or during lunch.  I admit that while I did enjoy all these books, I sometimes blatantly read them on school grounds just rattle the Baptist principal’s cage.  My version of geek teenage rebellion, I guess.

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• The Hobbit by Tolkein
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by Tolkein
• The Silmarillion by Tolkein
• The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Illearth War by Stephen Donaldson (if memory serves.  It was one of the Covenant Books)
• The Time Machine by HG Wells
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (This one got me in a
  LOT of trouble)
• I nearly had CS Lewis’ Narnia series banned, but it was a hard sell.

The game Dungeons and Dragons gave particular ire, and was repeatedly banned by church, school and parents.  I tried to get around it by playing a subpar game called Tunnels and Trolls, but nothing doing. 

The Baptist school discouraged us from seeing ANY movie in the theater.  Fortunately, my mother was a little more liberal than that, as she did let us see movies like The Apple Dumpling Gang and The Lincoln Conspiracy.  She did relent and let us see Star Wars when nearly every other teenager on the planet was going.  The only movie that I can remember being forbidden to see by my mother for strictly religious reasons was Monty Python’s Life of Brian.  I am tempted to include The Exorcist here, but really that movie is not suitable for children anyway so I won’t. 

As I got older, nothing was outright banned from me by the church.  We are in the United States after all, and it is easier to ban these things from impressionable children than law abiding adults.  However, the Pulpit was still used to actively tell us certain movies, books and music were unacceptable to God.  The following is a list of things that were strongly discouraged by the churches that I have attended over the years. These are movies that I remember being actively discouraged from the Pulpit:

• The Last Temptation of Christ
• Brokeback Mountain
• Jesus Christ Superstar
• Jackass (TV Show)
• Beavis and Butthead (TV Show)
• The DaVinci Code
• Phenomenon
• The Prince of Egypt
• Bruce Almighty
• Rent
• Cheers (TV Show)
• The Simpsons (TV Show)

Strangely enough, I was actually encouraged to see The Omen by one of my Bible teachers. 

For some reason, books seem to get more attention than movies.  These books were named and actively discouraged by churches that I have attended:

• The Apocrypha of the Catholic Church Canon
• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
• Holy Blood Holy Grail by some folks I can’t remember
• Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
• The Urantia Book by.. by Space Aliens I guess
• The Harry Potter Series (I live just a few miles from a church which sponsored a Harry Potter book burning a few years back)
• Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
• The Miracle of Seed Faith by Oral Roberts
• Quest for the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer
• Anything by John Shelby Spong
• Anything by Erich Von Danikan
• Anything by Henry Miller
• Good Morning, Holy Spirit by Benny Hinn
• I’m OK, You’re OK by Thomas Harris
• The Book of Mormon
• Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard
• The Gospel of Thomas
• The Gospel of Judas

The number of musicians we were warned of from the Pulpit are too numerous to mention.  But there was one incident that will live in my memory forever.  A number of years ago I had a prayer meeting in my apartment, and everyone noticed my enormous collection of LPs (I had several hundred at the time - music has always been a passion of mine).  After several hours of Holy Conviction by my hyper-Pentacostal buddies, and convinced of my own sinfulness against God, I willingly threw every last one of those LPs in the dumpster – well almost.  I saved only two LPs that I did not tell my friends about.  One of them contained a song called ‘He is Sailing’. 

This is an enormous amount of effort by others to keep outside influence away from me and out of my Christian life.  Looking back at this list, it is interesting to me how long it is, and I live in a very permissive and free nation!  I cannot imagine the repressive hell lived by those who have experienced true censorship, or really experienced Orwell’s Thought Police enforcing a Fahrenheit 451-type policy, be it political or church driven.  When the Church gains political strength, I think that is when real trouble begins.  Given human nature, I have no doubt that had the Christian Church the power and political force that it once had, most every one of these items (and whole lots more that I did not mention) would have been outright banned from our society.  It has happened before, it is still happening outside the
United States, and there is nothing guaranteeing it will not happen again.  

JennoPo, joeyanne and Heather discuss the very essence of Christianity - our salvation and our means of salvation.  The Bible is NOT that clear what it means to attain salvation.  Matthew, James and Revelation in particular seem to think you are saved by faith and the law.  Paul’s letters are all about grace.  What about the need for baptism?  I can quote a few places that mention that.  So while most Christians try to harmonize each of these conflicing passages into one plan for salvation, I have started looking at each author individually and seeing what each Gospel or letter has to say independent of everything else.  You would be surprised how diverse the opinion was in early Christianity as represented in our own New Testament! 

This is what the kernal of Christianity is all about, so if we are going to ask tough questions of God, it won’t get much tougher, or much more crucial, than the topic of our salvation.  And with that out of the way, here are our guest writers, JennyPo, joeyanne and Heather - take it away!

jennypo Says:
March 28th, 2007 at 1:12 am

Heather sez:
God ‘foreknows’ and ‘predestines’ a lot of people who will choose Him. Now, one can say that God is still demonstrating free will because He simply knows who will pick Him – except there’s Paul’s conversion story. He received a direct vision from God which turned his life around and make him a follower of Christ. Before that vision, the Bible makes it clear that Paul was adamant in trying to wipe every last Christian off the Earth. The disciples didn’t really choose until they had proof of Jesus’s claim to the Messiah – which was the resurrection.

Heather, you continue to give me great questions and thoughts! I know that numerous Christian leaders who have taught that God chooses who will be forgiven by him. This is nothing short of ridiculous considering the teachings of the Bible, and it comes (as do most of these kinds of ideas) from taking pieces of the Bible at the expense of others.
“God…is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish…” (2Peter 3:9)
Both Old and New Testaments refer to people who are “chosen” or “set apart” by God. The question we have to ask is, what were they “chosen” for? In the Old Testament, the Jews are God’s “chosen people”. They become chosen at birth because they bear Abraham’s blood, and God promised Abraham that he would make Abraham’s descendents a blessing to the nations of the world. The New Testament marks an expansion of God’s plans for human beings, and it is no longer only Abraham’s descendants who are chosen. Under the new covenant (or testament), they are “chosen in Christ”. Those who are born into God’s family because of the blood of Jesus are immediately ushered in to something more than mere forgiveness - they are “elect” or “chosen” for a great purpose… They are not only forgiven, but God reveals that his plans for them are much bigger and that he has been planning their future since before he laid the foundations of the earth. They are destined (predestinated) to become the children of God. “…he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ…” (Ephesians 1:4-5)
God, unlike any other creator, has designed a peer - someone who will be able to love him back as he loves, at a cost and at will. In the context of the chapter, the word “predestinated” means that the future for those who have chosen Christ is non-negotiable. It isn’t dependent on their faithful church attendance, on their dedication to God. Quite simply, it isn’t going to be taken away if they mess up. God has already made his plan, and it applies to all who have accepted forgiveness in Jesus.
I hadn’t even considered Paul’s conversion in relation to our free will until you brought it up, but Heather, doesn’t it just demonstrate God’s understanding of our choices? God doesn’t zap Paul into hell for torturing his followers - instead, he looks at the choice Paul has made within his heart. Why has Paul been persecuting Christians? Because he believes they are blaspheming and misrepresenting God! It is his love to God that moves him to protect Judaism in this way. He is wrong, but God doesn’t read his actions - he reads Paul’s heart. Were Paul acting out of hatred, I don’t believe he would have been convinced, even by the vision of a blinding light, to sit on his pride and go join the people he has just been beating up. God will read our hearts, too. That’s why Thomas got answers, while Simon (the smug Pharisee who invited Jesus to dinner and mocked him in his heart for associating with a “bad” woman) got rejected.
As for the disciples’ choice, how about Peter in Luke 9:20 - “‘But what about you?’ [Jesus] asked. ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God’.”
As a side note, one of the most convincing aspects of the whole Bible for me is the fact that its main characters (and those who would seem to be its greatest promoters), including Jesus’ disciples, are portrayed in such great weakness and confusion. Were the Bible a piece of propaganda (or let’s face it, even an ordinary historical account!) it is amazing that its greatest propagators, from the Jews of the Old Testament to the disciples of the New Testament, should have been content to allow the world to see them so faithless. Is there a Christian living today who would allow such an embarrassment? Where are the revisionists and the spin doctors? Could they have been so unselfish as to have promoted their dead friend at their own expense? Could they have allowed such a threat to the credibility of their message?

joeyanne Says:
March 28th, 2007 at 9:06 am

Heather, I have been thinking of your comments on forgiveness all day (thank you for that!). I think you hit the nail on the head with the story of the prodigal son. Only, I think, you missed one important point. The father in that story did forgive without any “action” on the part of the son. But, and this is a big but, the son didn’t come into the “good” of that forgiveness until he “came to himself”, realized his sin against God and against his father, and went to his father in his humbled spirit. The forgiveness didn’t depend on the son’s receiving of it, but the son could not experience the benefit of that forgiveness without accepting it. (repentance) In the same way, God has forgiven all of us for the sake of His Son, because of the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross. However, we cannot experience the “good” of that forgiveness without repentance and acceptance of that forgiveness. I realize this is still only a picture of God’s amazing grace, but it shows the meaning.

Heather Says:
March 28th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Joeyanne,

Believe me, the logic gets annoying sometimes. There are times when I want my brain to just shut off.

I did read the article, and it will no doubt not surprise you that I have thoughts.

The arguments I see at the post are that sin leads to death, forgiveness is only found in the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, and that God being just has to punish sin. Which is saying that He can’t just ‘forgive’ sin, but must punish something in order to forgive – that’s how I’m reading it. There was a reference in the article that, “Okay, I could make this easy and just forgive everybody, but I’m going to make the rule that first, I have to kill my son and then everybody has to believe in him”. But that is basically how it’s coming across. God can only remove/forgive sin through killing His Son, and the only way around being sent to Hell is to believe in Jesus.

Sin leads to death – I would agree with this, and the Bible is big on it, too. So is that being interpreted that Jesus had to die because sin leads to death? I would say that the two aren’t automatically related, though. If we go back to the prodigal son, sin did ‘kill’ him in a way, given what it did to his life. Anyone who is caught up in hatred or lust or envy can be ‘killed’ because of how it internally changes them. Even Paul mentions that in his reference to the old man/new man. Which is why we need to be rescued because of how self-destructive sin is.

Remission of sin only in the shedding of blood – this one is the catch and it gets a bit tricky There are many OT references to God asking for Israel to return him, and He will cleanse their sins, without any blood sacrifice. ‘Shedding of blood’ isn’t listed as a requirement, so I’m curious as to where it came from in the epistle. In fact, there are references that God doesn’t want anymore sacrifices at all in the O. If we go back to the Prodigal son, we don’t see this in effect, and most of the Synoptic Gospels basically infer that returning to God with a humble heart or repentence is enough for forgiveness. Even when the disciples and Paul are preaching, it is in effect, “Repent, turn from your sins, and they’ll be erased” or “be immersed in the name of Jesus.”

God is just – this is going to depend on how one interprets justice. In the OT, many of the prophets referred to the justice as a good thing, because it equaled freedom from oppression and equality. Yet this viewpoint leaves God’s justice as something to be feared. I see God’s justice as more restoring everything, not a retributive justice.

Then I get into the punishment. What exactly did this punishment consist of? Jesus dying? Because we all still die, but only physically. The soul is eternal, so then how can death be the punishment if, in rejecting the forgiveness, hell is the punishment? It would be difficult to say that Jesus was sent to hell for three days, since he also tells a thief that ‘today you shall be with me in Paradise.’ In John, Jesus says that, “again, I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.” Or in Luke, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” If it’s that God poured His wrath on Jesus, what does that consist of? Jesus does seem to suffer, but no more than any other person who would be crucified would suffer.

What if there was a different possibility? Given the disciples’ reactions at the Resurrection, it seems apparent that had Jesus died of old age, or even not resurrected, there wouldn’t have been much of a movement. What energeized them was the resurrection itself, and allowed them to fully grasp everything for the first time. Jesus was killed by sin and for sin to show that 1) the end result of sin is always death and 2) sin never trumps God’s power. Ever. No matter how much sin there is in your life, God can handle it, and remove it, and make you new. The resurrection was his ultimate proof that God has the last word. But he needed that bloody, public death, with all the mocking people because he needed to bring the sin in the forefront, in order to showcase its destructive power to the hilt, and how ineffective it is, in the end.

The Case for Christianity by CS Lewis 

The Case for Christianity is a series of transcribed radio talks given by CS Lewis during WWII, and edited together with additional notes into book form.  It is one of three books that ultimately made up his famous apologetic work Mere Christianity. 

Reading the book reminded me of some mathematics seminars I used to attend.  The speaker would spend great effort in setting up the initial steps of some elaborate proof, only to spend the last 3 minutes of his talk rushing through the rest to get to his conclusion.  It is the classic cartoon of a math professor writing “Poof, a miracle occurs here” in the middle of his equation list.  Lewis attempts to build the case for Jesus Christ on first principles.  The argumentation style is that of a long chain of assumptions and arguments, with one continuously built on the other.  The problem with this type of argument is that when any argument or assumption in the chain is shown wrong, or even questioned or doubted, everything else that follows is discredited.  If the foundational argument fails, the whole structure collapses and we might as well not read the rest of the book.   

Lewis begins his arguments, indeed the first half of the book, with the argument of our moral conscience.  He claims that since we have a moral baseline, which seems to be a standard across humanity, that it must have been implanted into us upon creation.  Since our moral conscience cannot conceive of the abstract notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ unless they exist, they must then exist outside of our selves.  Has our moral base been implanted into us, or are we born with it?  It is the classic sociological problem of ‘nature versus nurture’, which I am not well versed in.  But even if we are born with a moral conscience, is it truly universal?  Is right and correct in one culture equally abhorrent in another?  Does this moral base exist in the same sense as a universal multiplication table, as Lewis claims?  Is this truly evidence of a transcendent creator who implanted that base into every human?  I don’t know the answers, but they are important questions to consider when reading Lewis’s line of reasoning.  Lewis spends over half the book establishing this argument, so he needs to move quickly to get from here to the divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Lewis then argues the subjectivity of good and bad. By defining these terms with the frame of reference of an observer standing outside of each, Lewis rejects the concept of Pantheism.  Lewis uses a frequent tactic by assuming that humanity cannot conceive of an abstract concept if it did not exist.  For instance, consider this quote: 

If the universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes we should never know it was dark.  Dark would be a word without meaning. 

This type of argument permeates the book.  He could have saved a lot of space by simply claiming that if God did not exist, we could not conceive of him, therefore God exists. 

The ultimate conclusion to this book is the divinity and salvific nature of Jesus Christ.  He concludes with the famous ‘Lord, Liar, Lunatic’ argument that is famous amongst Christian apologetic circles.  In a nutshell, Lewis considers the claims of Jesus as God, which are mostly found in the Gospel of John.  Then he argues that Jesus could not be just a great moral teacher without being God:  

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher.  He’d either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he’s a poached egg – or else he’d be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. 

I first remember reading this argument in Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict about 20 years ago where, if memory serves, he devotes an entire section to the above quote.  I was astounded, even as a Christian, that I could refute it about 5 seconds after I read it.  There are other options besides the three that Lewis has given.  Because in order to accept this thesis, you have to accept that the Gospel of John is recording the whole, accurate, and unexaggerated words of Jesus claiming to be God lock, stock and barrel. And if you are that far, then you are probably a Christian anyway.  In other words, this argument, like many of the apologetic arguments out there, will only work if you already believe.  

In the end, The Case for Christianity is a long case of circular reasoning, and I was left disappointed.  This is too bad, because Lewis is a clever writer, and I really enjoy his fiction.  But it frankly amazes me that Lewis is held up in Christian circles as a great intellectual champion of the Faith.  He was not as popular when I first read him in the mid-1970s as he is now.  I think that perhaps his legend has grown 45 years after his death.  But his apologetic work just does not hold much water for this reader.

Has anyone ever seen this?  I have never heard of this show, but I just stumbled into it yesterday while browsing some videos.  Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene) discusses his thoughts on the dangerous, delusional and ugly sides of religion and explains why he thinks belief in God should be a left as a relic from our superstitious past.  This also includes some fascinating, and even gutsy interviews with disgraced evangelist Ted Haggard, and an American Islamic cleric in Jerusalem (I forget his name).  It’s about 45 minutes long so grab some popcorn.

Is Dawkins right or wrong?  Critique this for me - what are your thoughts?  I will save my thoughts for later.  Oh yeah, and to my personal friends who I hope are still reading this blog - don’t blow this off even though you may be offended.  Just watch it with an open mind and critique it.

[update 30 March:  The original video has mysteriously disappeared, but I found this alternate one which is also dubbed into Spanish]