Statement of (The Upside Down World’s) Fundamentalist Faith: There is great disagreement within the church regarding whether the bible should be taken literally and if so, which parts must be taken literally. Unfortunately, this ongoing disagreement has often kept us from paying enough to those verses which we can all agree ought to be taken literally. So, although there is freedom in Christ which allows … Continue reading Let’s All Be Fundamentalists!
What would happen if we all stopped judging each other tomorrow? Would everyone start sassing the boss, not realizing they could be fired? Would families start roasting each other for dinner, knowing no one would judge them for it? Is judging properly the only thing that’s standing between us and a world of complete chaos (as opposed to the one we currently inhabit!)?
Or to put the question another way – what effect do we think we are having when we observe for others what is right, wrong, correct, mistaken, etc? I’m going to go way out on a limb here and guess the actual effect doesn’t exactly line up with our desires. Somehow people rarely react to being told what they are doing wrong by saying, “gosh – thank you so much for telling me. I’m going to get right on fixing that now and devote the rest of my life to making up for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
The reality is that being right is no big thing – anyone can do it. The kids I met in juvi knew the difference between right and wrong. But it’s really hard is to actually do what Jesus tells us to do: “don’t judge.” Now I know I just lost a bunch of y’all there. The last time I said we should take his instructions not to judge more seriously, if not literally, the comments had a good number of “but Jesus said judgmental things” and “we have to judge – it’s judging in a way that condemns another human that we can’t do.” All arguments I have made myself in the past. Only I actually tested the not judging thing. And found out that in order to judge properly, we need first need to learn how not to judge. Continue reading “Judging Christians”
When I first started looking at the issue of women in the bible, I wasn’t attached to any particular set of ideas about women and men. As a child of our times a more egalitarian ideal made a lot of sense to me. But I also knew that we get a lot further by conforming ourselves to God’s ways than to our own ideas. I wasn’t closed off to the idea that a subordinate role for women was something I would need to make peace with.
In fact, it was trying to make peace with a subordinate role was what motivated me to study women in scriptures. I figured that if I could learn more about what God had to say and why, the idea of being under men would not be a source of pain, but would be a source of life, as all things which come from God are. Like many, many women I’ve heard from over the years, I wanted to have peace about this subject, but something deep in me kept rebelling at the idea that God had given me the role of less-than all my life.
If you read what I have written previously, you’ll see that the more I studied the matter, the more it became clear to me that using scriptures to demand that women take their place under men was an abuse of God’s word. At a bare minimum, it was blazingly clear that there is nothing in scriptures which would bar full equality between men and women. So, you can make an argument for a subordinate position for women from scripture. And you can make many, many arguments for the equality of men and women which rely not just on a few verses, but stories and themes found all through scripture. Both arguments can be made, so the real issue isn’t which on is biblical – they both are, if you just look at it a certain way. Either way is faithful to scriptures. As always, all that is left now is our own choices.
In late July, 1549, the first Christian missionary reached Japan bearing the “euangelion” – the “good-message” – the “good news” – English “gospel” to the people of Japan. The missionary carrying the good news of Jesus Christ was Francis Xavier. The Japanese he found there lived in a society completely arranged around their religious beliefs – various ancient forms of Shintoism. Shintoism actually teaches that there were spirits outside of one’s own tribe spirits who can sometimes be the source of new truths, innovations and ideas. So this strange man from distant parts of the world was not dismissed out-of-hand. And Xavier had lived an exemplary life consistent with his beliefs which lent his teachings some credibility. He was given a friendly reception, but it took less than a year for this new religion he was preaching to be banned by the Emporer.
One particular belief held by all Japanese was “Tama” or reverence of ancestors. The ancestors were revered because they had created the current generations. The people have come from the ancestors at birth and when they died, they would become part of the ancestors. Of course the Japanese people were very interested in the question of their revered ancestors. Xavier recounts these conversations:
“One of the things that most pains and torments these Japanese is that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives; and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope . . .and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. The grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow . . . I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing many so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done and can never be undone.”
The good news arrived and brought what to the people of Japan? Sorrow that nearly kills them? Grief that has no hope of comfort? This is what Jesus sent us into the world to bring people – news that their dead babies are being tortured in hell with no hope of escape? Euangelion indeed. Suffice it to say that the conversion of the Japanese at that time wasn’t particularly successful. Continue reading “When The Good News Becomes The Really Good News . . .”
When Willow Creek Community Church was celebrating their 20th anniversary, I was a regular attendee. At a celebratory anniversary service, Bill Hybels, the head pastor, shared the story of how WCCC came into being. One of the main driving forces behind the founder’s efforts was the idea that so many people were facing an afterlife of eternal torment because they had not come to faith in Jesus Christ. I remember him talking about all night prayer sessions in which this issue brought people to tears and God was begged to allow everyone to hear and be open to his message of saving grace. And despite all the stereotypes about wishy-washy, doctrine-free mega-churches, every single service at WCCC included a plea to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior lest one spend eternity suffering complete separation from God in hell. Other non-denominational Evangelical churches I have attended also included this message in each and every service they held. It’s on their website. It’s part of their statement of belief. Members are told of their responsibility to spread this message to those around them – even if it makes them uncomfortable and unpopular. After all, a person’s eternity is at stake.
Now, if the doctrine of eternal hell were true, one would expect that the early church would put this message front and center in the evangelization efforts as well. Surely those closest to the events, who had access to the apostles or those taught directly by the apostles would recognize how important it was to let people know that they were facing an eternity of torment if they did not convert to Christianity. Surely these people who weren’t at the mercy of translations but were learning the faith in their native tongues would have responded to this teaching as strongly as we do today. And yet, this is simply not the case. In fact, any discussion of the afterlife in very early church writings are surprisingly hard to come by. Continue reading “From Greek to Latin and Grace to Condemnation”
We’ve all heard that we need God’s forgiveness, but rarely do you hear people speak of our need to forgive God. More’s the shame because anyone who has ever had or will ever have a real relationship with God will at some point struggle with the necessity of forgiving Him. It may not be theologically sound, but it’s true nonetheless.
We are hurting people. I don’t know anyone who isn’t. Or wasn’t. This world is filled with wonder and joy, but it’s also hard. People die when they shouldn’t. We’re born to parents who have no business being allowed in the same room with children. There are terrible, painful illnesses that cannot be cured. We are told to forgive, but who do we need to forgive when the floods come? Who do we offer absolution to when our best efforts do nothing to improve our lot in life? Continue reading “Forgiving God*”
There’s a long tradition in Christian circles of painting vivid images of hell in order to scare people into acting right, believing the right things and buying books. In fact, some people claim that the popularity of early colonial pastors who gave particularly vivid or gruesome hell and brimstone sermons was due to attendees coming seeking a good scare and some entertainment. The colonial version of horror movies, they say. Believe it or not, to this day those people who stand on street corners telling everyone that they are going to hell occasionally get someone to believe them and pledge their lives to Christ. In fact, so great is the human desire to avoid hell, I’m going to use it as my own excuse for procrastinating this blog post all day long. After all, today is the day that we actually talk about hell.
So, what the hell is hell anyhow? Aside from having your mother in law come to visit, that is. Well, there are 4 words that have been translated as “hell” in the bible. The Hebrew sheol and the Greek hades, Gehenna and tartarus. Going back to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures used between 200 BC and 300 AD), we see that sheol is always translated as “hades”, so for our purposes we will consider these two words to be synonyms. Both sheol and hades are simply the place of the dead. In Greek mythology, everyone – good and bad – went to hades when they died. Mostly it was thought that the breath of a person continued to exist in hades but had no consciousness.
This idea that in the grave there was no conciousness is also reflected in verses using sheol such as Psalm 6:5 – “For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave (sheol)?” and Isaiah 38:18 – “For the grave (sheol) cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.”
Psalm 89:48 speaks of sheol as the destination of all men rather than the domain of the wicked: “Who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave (sheol)?” In Genesis 37:35 Jacob refuses to be comforted over the loss of his son Joseph saying, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave (sheol). ” Repeatedly in the Psalms, the psalmist credits God with saving him from the depths of Sheol (ex Ps 18:5, 30:3). In fact, in Psalm 139, the psalmist says that God himself is in sheol: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.”
Modern translations translate sheol either directly – using the word Sheol – or use the word grave. The King James Version translated sheol as hell when it was spoken of in reference to the wicked and as grave in other places. Here’s a list of all the bible verses containing sheol. Since most modern translations do not translate the word sheol as hell, the word and notion of hell have pretty much disappeared from the Old Testament. Continue reading “What the Hell?”
It’s Hell Week! And no, there’s no burpies or hazing involved. Unless you consider discussions of ancient Greek a form of hazing. But don’t worry, I’ll make it easy. The only thing going down here are old ideas about hell that we are well rid of.
Our first Hell Week installment showed that nowhere in the bible does it actually say that hell or punishment or torment is eternal. It’s for an “age” – an undefined, but limited period of time. Today we’re going start by looking at just what the nature of this “punishment” is anyways – including examining more closely the issue of fire and the lake of fire. So, let’s go back to where we left off yesterday: aionian kolasin. This is the phrase Jesus used in Matthew 25:46 when speaking of judgment: “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment (aionian kolasin), but the righteous into eternal life (aionian zoen).” *
Yesterday, I quoted the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus who said of both the Pharisees and the Essenes that they taught adialeiptos timoria for the wicked in the after life. Adialeiptos indicates everlasting or unceasing – as opposed to aionian which as we discussed yesterday denotes a limited period of time. Should we then understand that Jesus is saying that the wicked will be sent away until they have suffered enough to pay off their debt for their wickedness? A sort of tit-for-tat, sin for suffering exchange between God and sinners? Not at all. It is significant that both the Pharisees and Essenes speak of timoria while Jesus uses the word kolasin. According to Aristotle (Rhetoric 1.10.17): “kolasis is corrective, timoria alone is the satisfaction of the inflictor.” We see these words used just this way in other Greek texts of the day – timoria indicates vengeful punishment. Kolasis always indicates correction or chastisement. They are similar in that they both deal in some way with a form of punishment, but clearly not interchangeable. Timoria is for the benefit of the one who inflicts it – generally in repayment for some wrong done. Kolasis is ultimately for the benefit of the one being chastised. So, when Jesus says that the wicked with be sent to aionian kolasis, he is saying that they will be sent for correction, not simply for punishment and suffering. God’s purposes are always redemptive.
Let’s pretend that you are a bible translator and you are working on creating an English translation of the bible from ancient (kione/biblical) Greek texts. And let’s say that there is one word – a noun – with a clear, agreed upon meaning. Every time you come across this word, all you have to do is substitute the English version of the word into the text and it works just fine. There’s just one hitch: if you do this your translation will be accurate and faithful to the ancient manuscripts but it will practically erase a long-held church teaching. Do you go with what the text says and use that one word in your translation? Or do you come up with a dozen or more other ways to translate that word in ways that leave the church teaching undisturbed?
This isn’t a hypothetical issue here. There really is a koine Greek noun which has one agreed upon meaning, yet has been translated dozens of different ways – presumably because translating it directly would almost totally remove the teaching of eternal hell from the bible. The word is aoin. It is the root word for the English word eon. The one word that can be used to translate it is “age”. It simply implies an undefined period of time. It has been used variously to describe everything from a few days to the span of a life to time longer than we can imagine. But like eon, it always indicates a period of time with a beginning and end. (Here’s a list of quotes from various biblical scholars saying the same thing. Here’s the wikipedia entry on the word aion. For an examination of how the word was used in ancient times by extra-biblical authors, go here. Or go here and scroll down to the section titled “The Greek Classics” about a quarter of the way down the page.) Continue reading “A Word With One Meaning or 30?”
Allow me to take you back to the halcyon days of the early aughts. Wikipedia was new. Destiny’s Child was still together. The first Lord of the Rings movie was coming out. And I was re-reading the Old Testament. I think a lot of people have had the experience of re-reading something like the bible and realizing that you didn’t absorb any of it the first time through. This was exactly what was happening to me. As I read the bible again, I was a bit overwhelmed by a lot of the mucky stuff in it. The guy who sacrificed his daughter to fulfill a pledge. Lot offering his virgin daughters to a mob. Samson killing everyone and cutting off their foreskins. The cannibalism. The commands to kill men, women, children, babes-in-arms.
I think it was after reading the story of Jael who put a spike through the head of a man in her tent that I put the book down and asked God that timeless question: “WTF?” And I actually got an answer: “I work it all out.” I remember praying about it and when I was told that God works it all out, it carried with it a sense of totality. Everything gets worked out. Everything. And I was still thinking, “WTFudge?” I felt like a shark with a beach ball – I just couldn’t grab hold of the idea. It was too much.
Part of the problem was that at the time I was a pretty standard Evangelical. Which means that I was inordinately concerned with who is saved and who is going to hell. Continue reading “Hell Week – Back to the Beginning”
The Upside Down World 