a quote from losingmyreligion.com:
"...I struggled to see any cause/effect relationship between my actions of faith and the actual events unfolding all around me and other believers."
Me too.
Are Christians as a group really any different from anyone else? Within a group of Christians, you have all the kinds of people that you can find anywhere else. Christians have the same struggles as everyone else... some Christians do really well at overcoming those problems, some Christians don't. Same as everyone else.
But our Gospel teaches that those who become Christians are new creations... and are happier, more peaceful, more successful in life than everyone else. This is even held up as evidence of Christ's existence: transformed lives. We can't see Christ, but look at how different Christians are from everybody else.
I think this kind of belief can create dishonesty for people who really buy in to it- ie. I am told so often of the peace and the joy that I have now that I am a Christian, that I can't really see or acknowledge the ways in which I am not peaceful and happy.
Showing posts with label questions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label questions. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Other Religions
Does God really want the whole world to be Christian?
Then why did he make us so varied?
Whole people groups will begin, live, and die without ever hearing about Christianity; they will practice the ways of their ancestors.
There is too much variety on the earth to think that God intended us to be so homogeneous...
What does he want from me as a Christian? Does he really want me to evangelize everyone?
Everybody who is not a "Christian" is going to hell? Of course not.
What if God thinks that everyone is needed, as they are?
Maybe he views us all the same. No difference.
Or he has different ways of grouping people together- not by race, or country, or religion, but maybe he just sees groups like "the humble" or "the oppressed" or "the rich" or "the proud."
There are a lot of things in the Bible that, I think, seem to point to the idea that being a Christian doesn't guarantee us right standing with God, and not being a Christian doesn't disqualify us either.
Ex. lots of verses talk about how God will judge each person, according to what they do.
Jesus' teachings in the gospels of how the people who were the most religious, or performed the most miraculous signs, will be rejected by God.
Jesus' rejection of the religious establishment of his day.
Lots of examples thru old testament of people outside Judaeism gaining God's approval (Rahab).
But if this is really true, then the Gospel Message as we know it is profoundly undermined. Our Gospel is that Christ died to redeem all from the dire consequences of our sin, and that through Christ, and Christ alone, we can be saved and reconciled to God. If people of other religions (or none) who've heard or haven't heard of Christ, can still go to heaven- doesn't this undermine the very core and vital claims of Christianity as we know it?
But I don't quite believe this Gospel, as I know it now. Perhaps we've oversimplified things. Boiling everything down to those Romans Road verses... the Gospel in a nutshell: Got Jesus? You're in. Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? You're out.
To be honest, when I think of my father- and mother-in-law (Arab Muslims), I don't feel any anxiety over their eternal salvation, and I don't think that I'm somehow better off than they are.
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
...and the world will live as one"
"... that they may be one as we are one."
"He's got the whole world in his hands..."
Then why did he make us so varied?
Whole people groups will begin, live, and die without ever hearing about Christianity; they will practice the ways of their ancestors.
There is too much variety on the earth to think that God intended us to be so homogeneous...
What does he want from me as a Christian? Does he really want me to evangelize everyone?
Everybody who is not a "Christian" is going to hell? Of course not.
What if God thinks that everyone is needed, as they are?
Maybe he views us all the same. No difference.
Or he has different ways of grouping people together- not by race, or country, or religion, but maybe he just sees groups like "the humble" or "the oppressed" or "the rich" or "the proud."
There are a lot of things in the Bible that, I think, seem to point to the idea that being a Christian doesn't guarantee us right standing with God, and not being a Christian doesn't disqualify us either.
Ex. lots of verses talk about how God will judge each person, according to what they do.
Jesus' teachings in the gospels of how the people who were the most religious, or performed the most miraculous signs, will be rejected by God.
Jesus' rejection of the religious establishment of his day.
Lots of examples thru old testament of people outside Judaeism gaining God's approval (Rahab).
But if this is really true, then the Gospel Message as we know it is profoundly undermined. Our Gospel is that Christ died to redeem all from the dire consequences of our sin, and that through Christ, and Christ alone, we can be saved and reconciled to God. If people of other religions (or none) who've heard or haven't heard of Christ, can still go to heaven- doesn't this undermine the very core and vital claims of Christianity as we know it?
But I don't quite believe this Gospel, as I know it now. Perhaps we've oversimplified things. Boiling everything down to those Romans Road verses... the Gospel in a nutshell: Got Jesus? You're in. Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? You're out.
To be honest, when I think of my father- and mother-in-law (Arab Muslims), I don't feel any anxiety over their eternal salvation, and I don't think that I'm somehow better off than they are.
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
...and the world will live as one"
"... that they may be one as we are one."
"He's got the whole world in his hands..."
Questions
What if this (the temporal world) is all there is?
How much do I really know about God?
How much can we know?
Was I ever very near God?
Was God really IN that Christianity? Was that God's home? Or does He live somewhere else?
What does Christianity (as a belief system) offer that I can't get somewhere else?
How much do I really know about God?
How much can we know?
Was I ever very near God?
Was God really IN that Christianity? Was that God's home? Or does He live somewhere else?
What does Christianity (as a belief system) offer that I can't get somewhere else?
The Questions Begin...
I was giving my son a bath one night two weeks ago
and, for the first time,
wondered:
What if this is all there is?
no eternity, no heaven, no going on forever and ever,
no "everything is just going to be okay because God is there."
just my son and I.
Looking at my beautiful boy,
alone together in this shabby bathroom
late at night,
the bubbles cracking in the silence.
looking at him.
two tiny human beings,
alone in the great wide world,
alone in this moment.
Fragile, temporal, vulnerable.
Tiny.
It was exhilarating.
I felt Alive- maybe for the first time.
like a lifelong anesthetic was wearing off my mind-
A Great Dullness was fading away.
I had been living in a world without questions.
I need to start asking, wondering and imagining.
No question is off limits, and all answers are viable options.
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine...
and, for the first time,
wondered:
What if this is all there is?
no eternity, no heaven, no going on forever and ever,
no "everything is just going to be okay because God is there."
just my son and I.
Looking at my beautiful boy,
alone together in this shabby bathroom
late at night,
the bubbles cracking in the silence.
looking at him.
two tiny human beings,
alone in the great wide world,
alone in this moment.
Fragile, temporal, vulnerable.
Tiny.
It was exhilarating.
I felt Alive- maybe for the first time.
like a lifelong anesthetic was wearing off my mind-
A Great Dullness was fading away.
I had been living in a world without questions.
I need to start asking, wondering and imagining.
No question is off limits, and all answers are viable options.
Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine...
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