Posted by Eliza on: 12.14.2006 /
The topic of this class was justification. For me, the topic was mostly boring (sorry, but it’s true), and the way it was presented was sometimes annoying. I sighed out loud several times, despite efforts not to. It was hard to listen to a person telling a group of other people what awful sinners they are, and to see the group of people sit there and take it. It seemed demeaning, from my (admittedly non-Christian) point of view.
But there was an interesting twist in my experience of this lecture. (I suspect it was designed to have this effect; there’s the skeptic talking!) Near the end of class, the pastor turned it into an upbeat pitch for salvation…and I was surprised that I responded by internally nodding and mentally saying “yeah!” for a few minutes. (No, I haven’t converted.) More about that whole part of it later.
I’ve already written a bit about the first 30 minutes, the review of class #8, in comment #14 of the class #8 writeup. After that review, he started talking about the forgiveness of sins, reminding us (through question #1 in the text, and a few lines from scripture) about “original sin” and “actual sin” (covered in class #3). He added these points:
(a) We are saved by grace alone (because otherwise humans would claim credit & say, “I made a decision for Christ” — and that is pride/original sin).
(b) “Once you go down the path of using your human logic, you are in deep trouble. The only defense against the Devil and false teaching is God’s word.”
(c) The forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ is the teaching of the Bible — Christ and the crucifixion are the hub of a wagon wheel, and everything else in the Bible is the spokes, pointing to it. (I suspect most Jews would disagree heartily with this.)
We moved to question #2 from the class text, “Does God forgive sins?” The first citation was Psalms 130:4 (KJV?), “There is forgiveness with Thee.” I looked it up in the source text (aka the Bible); there’s no period there. The line continues (NIV), “therefore you are feared.” And the Psalm ends, “He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.” Again, imo, there’s some meaning there that the class text is leaving out, and I think even changing, to make its point. (That strikes me as misleading. Grrr.)
The second citation is Psalms 103:2,3 “Bless the Lord, O my soul…who forgives all your iniquity.” Again, it turns out that’s not the end of the sentence. The sentence actually ends in 103:5 (NIV) “who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Seems to me that’s quite a different message or promise than is being offered through the course.
I thought about raising my hand to point out that those lines do not actually end where the text says they do, and thus don’t they actually have a somewhat different meaning than the text implies?…but after a brief moment of inner reflection I decided not to go there (or, not to go there out loud).
The pastor added a third citation here: Psalms 19:12 (KJV), “Cleanse thou me from hidden faults”. Then he proceeded to start in on what ended up being a recurring theme for the evening, and I started in on sighing periodically and feeling pretty frustrated with the negative message of this class: “You are all a lot more sinful than you think. We are all a lot more sinful than we think.” Etc, etc, etc. Of course, I’m being rocky soil here, but from my non-Christian point of view, this is an unnecessarily negative view of humanity, especially when you’re saying it to actual people who are actually sitting and listening to you and looking up to you.
Question #4, “How can God, who is holy and righteous, and therefore must punish sin, forgive sin?” was addressed by citations from 2 Corinthians and 1 John. The answer given was “From this we learn: (a) God charged the sins of the whole world on the sinless Christ; (b) When Christ died on Good Friday, He paid in full for the sins of the whole world.” The pastor said that the resurrection was proof that everything else was true. He said, “it’s like God the Father putting his arm around God the Son and saying, “good job, Son.’”
OK, I still do not get that. I mean, I can repeat it. I can mark the right box if there’s a multiple choice test. But that still just does not make sense to me. The triune God loaded all of human sin on the sinless one-part-of-triune-God,-in-human-form, who then was sacrificed to pay for them all, then (the triune God? God the Father?) raised him back up to become part of the triune God again (was he really ever gone from it? I thought that couldn’t happen). I thought about asking a question here, but decided not to because everyone else in the class seems to accept this as naturally as breathing - in part I didn’t want to offend anyone, not on purpose anyway - and also because I missed the classes on Christ & they might have talked about it then.
A student asked how the pastor forgives people who have sinned. The pastor said it’s more important to have God forgive you than a person, and said we’ll talk more about forgiveness in a future class. A student asked how the pastor knows when someone is really repentant for their sins. He said only God can know that for sure. He said that when someone comes to see him who is crushed by with guilt by what they’ve done, he assures them of God’s forgiveness — he gives them Gospel. But if someone comes to see him who is unrepentant, that person needs to hear Law — he basically (it sounds) tells them what a sinner they are. (This made me think of the experiences Helen had trying to talk with the pastor of her former church. It sounds like was trying to give her a serving of Law at that meeting, though I don’t know if he would have used the same terminology & explanatory model as this pastor.)
This pastor reminded us that it doesn’t matter how awful a sin was — a sin is a sin is a sin. He said that even though all people’s sins were taken care of on the cross, you have to confess your sins, want forgiveness, and ask for forgiveness before you can receive forgiveness. He used an analogy of a pile of checks for $50. There’s one for everyone, and people are spreading the word that they’re available to everyone, but only people who come up and ask for them, and take them when they’re handed out, can cash them.
He said that the “new man” [after Christ?] does not have sin, but unfortunately has flesh so therefore does sin. He mentioned the “new man” several times. I had never heard this term before and interpreted it to mean, basically, “the current soul & future perfect body of a Christian who will have eternal life in the future but is currently stuffed into a mortal body, on earth, where things definitely aren’t perfect.” (Correct me if I have that wrong, please!)
Question #3, “How does God forgive our sins?” was followed by citations from Romans about justification. The pastor has mentioned before that in the New Testament, especially John, the word “truth” means “gospel.” (Is this the origin of the saying “the gospel truth”?) Regarding justification, the pastor said with a big smile, “God now looks at me just as if I’d never sinned [because of Christ]. I’d say that’s good news!”
The pastor was quite clear that “we” (well, not me) are saved by faith, not works. And he said some interesting things (I thought) about faith. (a) “Faith is the only way to receive a promise.” (b) “Technically speaking, faith doesn’t save us; Christ saves us. Just believing something doesn’t make it so.” (c) “It’s not your faith, it’s the object of your faith that saves you.” (d) The strength of a Christian’s faith doesn’t matter, but weak faith may not be maintained in the face of hardship (so that’s why he worries about members of his church who seems to be weakening in their faith).
Somewhere around here we got to a part of the text where it made the mistake of citing 1 John 2:2 (”He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world”). I call that a mistake because yours truly scanned just 1 & 2 sentences ahead to 1 John 2:3-4 (”We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”) Now, I read this and it sure seems like it says that actions, in particular following “his commands” is said to be important here, not just faith, or “knowing him.” So…I raised my hand and asked something like: But just 1-2 lines further, it says [& read aloud], doesn’t that say that faith alone is not enough?? The pastor said no, that’s not what it was saying…I can’t recreate his answer, but basically through faith we then want to do what He commands.
I also call the 1 John citation a mistake because it brought to my attention a lack of citations from James. So, being a bit bored by the discussion about sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, I peeked at James & located James 2:14-26, opening with the oft-cited (oft-except-in-this-class, that is) verse James 2:14 (”What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?”) and ending with James 2:26 (”As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”).
Near the end of class, the key points were all reiterated and stressed and it was made personal. Except for my parenthetical comments, the whole rest of this paragraph is things the pastor said: Jesus was sinless. Think of a sin you’ve committed, something you’re not proud of. You don’t have to share it. OK, are you thinking of one of your sins? Well, God punished Christ for that sin. You’re a “stinking sinner” (he pointed out he didn’t mean “stinking’ literally). It took that (he pointed to the cross drawn on the white board up front) to absolve your sins. (I don’t remember what verb he used there — I don’t think it was absolve.) In the gospel God is reaching out his hand and saying, “It’s OK! I love you! I forgive your sins!” The gift of justification is free to you, but it was very costly. (How was it so costly??? I still don’t get that part.) You don’t earn it by faith, you have to receive it, and faith is the only way. The person who doesn’t believe will be judged by all of their sins on Judgment Day (with the implication that true Christians will sail past the judging post).
Then he started repeating something over and over that seemed silly to me, but I have to say it got to me in a way nothing else in this class has. He started saying, “It’s a gift! It’s free! It’s a gift! It’s free!” over and over. (That’s what I wrote down, so it must be what he said. I actually thought I remembered it as, “It’s free! It’s easy! It’s free! It’s easy!”)
It was really weird, and totally unexpected, what happened next. I started feeling upbeat, enthusiastic, and excited inside. Some part of my brain was responding to the positive message being repeated over and over. The sensation actually lasted for maybe a few minutes. (Luckily, the repetition didn’t go on that long!) I’m not sure what burst the bubble for me, but it might have been when he said “There’s only one way to be certain: The Bible. Not thoughts or feelings” — yet I was aware that my response was a feeling, not a belief, since I still don’t accept the basis for the whole construct. And, my skeptical side suspects that the evening, especially that part of the evening, was designed to elicit something like this type of response - relief from the guilt of sin, and acceptance of the offered escape, that is. (Though I think it came across for my limbic system more like a bargain hunter hearing about an incredible sale.) The skeptic in me sees it as: tell people how sick they are, & how bad off they are, & how hopeless they are — then promise them you have the cure, and it’s the only cure. But, then, I’m pretty sure my view is far at one end of the range of interpretations on this whole topic…the stick-in-the-mud end!
At some point in here we went to question #11 in the text: “Can I, a believer in Christ, be real sure of the forgiveness of my sins and heaven?” The citations included Titus 1:2, “God, who cannot lie, promised eternal life.” (NEB) Notice how that’s from an unusual translation, and is presented as a full sentence. Actually, it’s a phrase from the middle of Paul’s opening sentence-paragraph in that letter, and in NIV that phrase reads, “…a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time….”
I am getting annoyed with the text presenting phrases as if they were complete sentences. It’s sloppy and, imo, misleading. What’s wrong with ellipses?
But the real question this brings up for me, a skeptic and atheist is this: how do we know God can’t lie? Is it because God’s Word says God can’t lie? I don’t meaning to be disrespectful &/or blasphemous, but it’s a real question: How do we know that ‘God can’t lie’ is a true statement? If God could lie, His Word could still contain that very same sentence, & none the wiser. (Of course, “trust, but verify” doesn’t really apply here - what would serve as verification?) OK, ’nuff on that (a longstanding question of mine).
The pastor closed the session with a prayer, which included mention that justification is “almost too good to be true, but it is [true].”
After class, a couple who seem to have a different view of the presence and role of the Holy Spirit asked the pastor about good works. It sounded like they believe the Holy Spirit works through Christians as they do good works, but the pastor believes the Holy Spirit brings faith, which is then likely to lead Christians to want to do good works (but the Holy Spirit isn’t working through them, and the good works are nice but not necessary).
I asked about James 2:14-26 (and one other passage that I don’t remember now), about faith alone v. faith plus works. You will not be surprised to learn that these sections were not news to the pastor. He acknowledged that there has long been debate about faith alone v. faith plus works, but had some handy explanations for what James “really meant.” As I recall — because I wasn’t taking notes while we talked - he said that James was saying “show me your faith” by deeds (James 2:18) because otherwise how would (early) Christians know who else was Christian? Hmmmmmm.
Thanks for reading my class report. The next class is #10, Holy Baptism.
Comment by: Helen
1 12/14/06 4:05 AM | Comment Link |What are you going to do if the teaching bothers you so much you can’t help sighing out loud? ;-)
I’m glad that this class has not succeeded in desensitizing you to what troubles you.
Figure that everyone else there has been desensitized, somehow.
Exactly. I have a hard time listening to it too. I guess for a long time I made myself accept it because I believed it was true and because I told myself, the ‘good news of salvation’ (the ‘free gift’ you mentioned later which even got an positive emotional reaction from you for a few minutes) outweighs the ‘bad news’ of human sin.
However, these days I don’t accept the framing of humanity as that bad. It makes no sense to me that in a world where we encourage one another to accept each other, Christians believe in a perfect person (God) who is so dogmatic and legalistic that ONLY perfection from human beings is good enough for him. And who is so inflexible that the only way around this is to have someone violently killed; and who has such a strange view of everything that he somehow considers this violent death makes everything ok. And whose attitude to each human being is, I can accept you only as long as I can associate this dead body on an instrument of cruel death with you.
Imagine having an appointment with someone and when you arrive he/she says “We need to watch this video to put me in the right frame of mind” And you watch a video together of someone being painfully killed. Then he/she says “Ahhhh, that’s better. Now, what did you want to see me about?”
It makes no sense to me anymore either.
As you mentioned in the last class write-up, Christian teachers teach Christians how to stop their “this doesn’t make sense” indicator doesn’t derailing their faith. The Christian teachers say “This isn’t SUPPOSED to make sense” and the Christians think “oh, ok” - and NOW when the “this doesn’t make sense” indicator goes off, it means “you’re on the right track!” It’s insidiously (imo) effective.
For those who haven’t seen this, Eliza is referring to the experience I wrote about in A Pastor Tries to Help Ir [Helen]. (For what it’s worth, that church had a team of pastors and this only the response of one of them, who wasn’t the senior one)
Yes, I think you’re right, Eliza. Thanks - I hadn’t thought of such a clear way of explaining it! :-)
That he perceived me as unrepentant was definitely an issue. I think this is further intensified in some of my interactions with Christians because Christians expect me, because of my Christian experience, to ‘know better’. The Bible backs up their approach in two ways: it says more will be expected of those who know more (i.e. me who has Christian experience) and it also instructs Christians to do their best to turn each other away from sin.
But as I said you’re absolutely right that I am in for it when I run into a Christian who decides I am unrepentant and it is their responsibility to try to bring me to repentance. Then they go after me with Law and it is not fun at all.
You described this so well. Words are powerful and the idea of a free gift IS very powerful. Perhaps this gives you insight into one reason why people are drawn to become Christians.
If a free gift is real and worthwhile then it makes sense to be drawn by the offer and to accept it. I respect that.
I agree. I think it’s unfortunate that this is considered acceptable in some Christian circles.
Also good catch on noticing how the text switched versions to support its case. So not only do some Christians take verse fragments out of context, they will choose which version works best, sometimes with verses/verse fragments where other versions don’t seem to work at all.
Basically yes. That and also because lying is a sin and God is defined as sinless. But who defines lying as sinful? God. So it all ends up being based on circular reasoning (imo).
So Holy Baptism is next….hmmmm; I don’t think you’re done sighing yet ;-)
Comment by: HereandNow
2 12/14/06 9:10 AM | Comment Link |Eliza,
This is one of the greatest things I’ve read in a long time. I wish that every Christian pastor who teaches and preaches that people are depraved and removed from God’s care because of sin could read this. All too often all they are aware of is the the perspective of the vast majority of people who agree and nod along. Also, usually, because they are so convinced they are right, they feel (or think) that that perspective is all they need to be mindful of.
While I admire you for holding your tongue at times, it is interesting to me that you aren’t able to ask some of the really great and important questions that come to mind while your in class because you don’t want to be disrespectful or disruptive. Shouldn’t a class that is introducing people to doctine of a church welcome and allow for all the tough question? One of the things that used to really get to me when I was a Christian was when people were so tied to their systematic theologies that they wouldn’t let the Bible challenge their theologies with the complicated inconsistencies like “grace alone” or “grace and works”. So many reformed and Lutheran people have subconciously pushed James out of the canon without ever having the integrity to admit so. So, this website is one of the few places I’ve seen where people can dare to be so disruptive as to ask questions about things that don’t mesh with reality.
One final thought about what you’ve written and what you experienced in this class relates to the prejudice against “feeling” in calls to repentance. I think (and FEEL) that this is one of the most abusive and damnable things that pastors do when they are trying to get people to “repent.” When I read the Bible and see the almost lunatic passion of people of faith it is clear to me that “feeling” is integral to the true expression of faith in biblical christianity. The damned practice of being driven by reason at the exclusion of passion is so contrary to who we are as human beings and is perhaps, one of the grossest violations of the quest for spiritual wholeness that many evangelical traditions practice (especially those traditions that are tied to a systematic theology).
Any way, thanks for posting such a great articulation of what it’s like for the skeptic/atheist/non-christian to be evangelized. I wish that I’d read it back when I practiced evangelism.
Comment by: Eliza
3 12/14/06 10:03 AM | Comment Link |HereandNow,
I’m glad you found the class review interesting! I see two limitations of my class reviews for current pastors/evangelicals to learn from (there may be more limitations!):
(1) I’m pointing out approaches that don’t sit well with me but not offering any suggestions (maybe clues, but not suggestions) for approaches that might be more effective at getting through to someone like me, and
(2) I probably don’t represent well the range of “unsaved” people out there. I probably score higher on the “skeptic” and “hard nut to crack” ;-) scales than many other of us lost folks.
Your comments on “feeling” make alot of sense to me. Doesn’t faith have to be connected with feeling, to some extent?
Comment by: JG
4 12/14/06 10:05 AM | Comment Link |Eliza,
Many thanks once again for your reports on these sessions.
I find this interesting:
on the one hand and (from HereandKnow)
This raises an interesting point in my mind. To what extent should REASON as opposed to FEELINGS direct our beliefs or non beliefs?
I would argue it should be both. Our beliefs or non beliefs should sit comfortably both with our reason and our feelings and we shouldn’t abandon either.
Comment by: Helen
5 12/14/06 10:08 AM | Comment Link |HereandNow wrote:
HereandNow, I think Eliza mentioned in the first class write up that the class teacher placed limits on the type of questions he wanted asked during the class. But she is free to ask whatever she wants after class. Is that right, Eliza?
Thanks. This site isn’t perfect but I’d like it to be a place where people can ask the ‘tough questions’.
Comment by: Helen
6 12/14/06 10:14 AM | Comment Link |JG wrote:
I think they tend to work together since we are integrated beings, affected by both reason and our feelings.
My guess is that no-one bases their beliefs entirely upon ‘reason’; that there are always factors involving emotion coming into play such as memories, associations, current feelings.
Comment by: Eliza
7 12/14/06 10:35 AM | Comment Link |Helen,
Thanks for your comments. We seem to be on a similar wavelength about this topic. Can I bring you to my next class, so I don’t feel so alone among the students? ;-) (Maybe I can just imagine that you’re there.)
But seriously, I am thinking of bringing one of Brian McLaren’s books with me to the next class, so I can even just glance at the cover when I feel like sighing, as a reminder that many Christians have different approaches to the same beliefs. Less negative, more positive. I’m thinking A Generous Orthodoxy might be helpful companion for me in this class!
HereandNow, the brochure that came in the mail (part of my first writeup of this class, when I was wondering whether to sign up) said that the class would be a good place for people with questions. When I spoke with the pastor (he called me, after I emailed the church administrator to say I was interested but was an atheist) he said that the class was really intended to introduce people to Lutheran beliefs, not to delve into those questions, & definitely not to be a debate. He has been very available after class for questions - mine and others - and in that setting it’s more of a discussion, a back-and-forth conversation, than it is when I ask a question in class. In class, the answer tends to be “no, it doesn’t mean that” or “no, it does make perfect sense” (or, to the pregnant woman in class #8, “you need to give up trying to make it make sense, it is the way it is.” In class, he really is pressed for time to get through the text, and the additional comments he adds (and acts out) and his interactions with the class, which really do add to the appeal. The text itself is so dry!
I think, too, that some of my questions about “but doesn’t it say [whatever] there, not [whatever else]?” don’t work well during class, because they really require looking at the Bible verse and the text and comparing them. After class, he tends to say, “Oh, I see what you’re saying” (and then give his interpretation of how to make sense of it, with disclaimers that others believe differently, etc, which is fine). Of course, the other possibility that came to mind is that he doesn’t want to open the “alternate interpretation” can of worms during class, in front of the other students. I don’t know about that.
Comment by: Eliza
8 12/14/06 10:50 AM | Comment Link |Side comments:
(1) I was chatting with the vicar a week ago (he’s in seminary, doing an internship in this church) & he said one of his projects is revising the brochure for this class. I didn’t ask how it was being changed, but it’s possible they’re planning to present the class differently - more accurately - in their mass mailing.
(2) I have no idea how other people in the class responded to the “free/gift” mantra. (Noone said anything, or raised their arms, or said “A-men, brother!”, or fainted.) I was interested that the woman sitting next to me at this class, who had a Lutheran women’s magazine (closed) in front of her, did not open the text or a Bible, did not write anything down, did not say anything - she just looked at the pastor for the entire 2 hrs. I was intrigued - I can’t do that, I would phase out & stop listening. There I was sitting next to her, flipping through 2 Bibles (different translations, one theirs and one mine), taking 9 pages of notes (ok, the pages are small), shifting in my seat, raising my hand, putting it down, sighing loudly, etc etc. I hope I didn’t distract her too much!!
(3) The pregnant woman I’ve mentioned before, who asks more questions than any other student, again asked a number of questions this time. (Even though the pastor made several comments in her general direction last time, about not questioning so much.) I went up to her afterwards and thanked her for her questions, told her I found them very interesting. She thanked me, and said she thought they were too philosophical some times and maybe people didn’t appreciate them. I told her, no, they’re great, they’re very thought-provoking, and she seemed to like that. As a total aside, it did strike me that she didn’t take the opportunity to tell me she liked my questions! :-)
Comment by: Helen
9 12/14/06 11:41 AM | Comment Link |Eliza wrote:
I know it’s disconcerting when someone doesn’t reciprocate. There could be so many reasons why she didn’t that have nothing to do with you. But I’m sorry that when you reached out in friendship to her, as it were, she didn’t reach back in any overt way.
Eliza if I were in Seattle (and didn’t have string ensemble rehearsals Thursday evening) I’d be happy to go to class with you! I’m not sure I’d advise taking a ‘heretical’ book visibly to class. Maybe take a picture of Brian McLaren in your pocket instead ;-)
What I liked about the book discussion I went to on Monday is that it wasn’t an environment where a series of unprovable assertions were made that everyone listening was supposed to just accept as ‘truth’. What the Bible texts say is demonstrable and so is what Catholics believe. And those were the sorts of things being discussed.
Comment by: Karen
10 12/14/06 11:42 AM | Comment Link |This pounding in of our inherent sinfulness and continual “falling short” was absolutely toxic for me as a Christian, because I believed it thoroughly and felt like a terrible failure - even though I accepted the idea that I was saved by Christ’s sacrifice. This low self-esteem I had really contributed to the midlife crisis I went through. I was just commenting on this to Julie, in fact, and I said it still hurts me when I see Christians beating themselves up for just being human.
It was truly a huge revelation to me when I left Christianity behind and realized, “Hey, I’m not such a bad person after all!” It sounds silly now (of course I’m not a bad person!), but that realization was SO freeing to me.
Wow. That’s so interesting, Eliza, that even someone as skeptical as you are had this reaction in an innocuous setting like this meeting. You’re right that he was hitting on the central message of evangelism. I think that emotional response you felt illustrates something important that might go a long way toward helping you understand why people accept beliefs that seem (to skeptics) to be so unsupported.
Imagine yourself (or someone far less skeptical than you are), hearing this same message not in (what I assume is) a badly-lighted sunday school room with a local pastor and a dozen other folks, but in a huge stadium, or in a beautiful sanctuary, featuring dramatic lighting, staging and music, surrounded by emotional believers and the message coming from an internationally renowned evangelist like Billy Graham or Greg Laurie.
It’s probably not hard for you to understand now how the emotional feelings are magnified terrifically in that setting, and why the message evokes such a powerful response from so many people. (ObDisclaimer: These comments are coming from my skeptical viewpoint, and conflict mightily with the Christian explanation that the response is due to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.)
Comment by: Helen
11 12/14/06 11:58 AM | Comment Link |Karen, my guess is that some simple experiments (if they could be done ethically) would demonstrate that the Holy Spirit seems to prompt people more actively in environments where there is a lot of emotional manipulation going on ;-)
Comment by: Eliza
12 12/14/06 12:07 PM | Comment Link |Helen, I saw this as more of a possible observation that my questions may be so far out of the ROAA, actually the ROAQ (Range of Acceptable Answers, Range of Accetable Questions) that even the other student who asks questions that challenge the ROAQ in this class may not find them interesting. Though that’s reading way too much into her response. I think she may be wondering if she shouldn’t ask questions, and maybe kind of worried about her questions. I wanted to encourage her to keep asking them in class, though the pastor may not appreciate anyone “egging her on”!
Karen, it’s a little bit easier for me to understand that now, except that I didn’t interpret my feelings as “spiritual” at all - if I had, that would have given me a much better sense of people’s experiences. (I don’t know if other people feel something like what I felt, or something that feels…I don’t know, grander, more like a connection or a communication?) Also, it was kind of weird (for me) that noone else in the class gave any indication that they were feeling anything different than in the prior half hour. Were they feeling no different? Were they feeling different, but used to it? Were they feeling different, but members of a Germanic denomination so therefore the ROAA is that you don’t show what you feel? (My mother is German, my in-laws are from German stock - I think I can say this from something like an “inside view” of Germans, so I don’t think this is just an unfounded cultural assumption about “those people”.)
Comment by: Eliza
13 12/14/06 12:37 PM | Comment Link |Karen wrote:
Karen, what a powerful effect the repeated message has - I’m so sorry it led to such problems for you, and glad that you were able to see things from a new perspective that’s been less toxic for you.
It has sounded to me like you, Helen, and Julie were in similar kinds of churches (but I could be wrong on this) - aren’t there some denominations in which the sin message isn’t pounded in so deeply and so often? Or, does that defeat “the point” - the main message of the Bible, as the pastor teaching my class would say?
Comment by: HereandNow
14 12/14/06 1:39 PM | Comment Link |I think that the church isn’t the only thing to blame in this kind of thing. Sometimes self loathing is so deeply entrenched in the self, that we take things out of context. I was at a conference once, where a speaker was talking about how beautiful we all are to God because we are God’s workmanship. I remember having an incredibly difficult time allowing that to be true even though it made perfect sense intellectually. My church never really beat people with the “ugly sinner” card, they rather preached how loving God was. But I think that I was drawn to Christianity because I loathed myself (i.e., was never good enough, righteous enough, fill-in-the-blank enough and found in Christ’s forgiveness a solution to that (the problem is that even after conversion, I never stopped the self loathing, so, what a mess that created). Still, at least in some instances (I don’t want to come even close to sounding like I’m speaking for anyone but myself, and a few who have confided similar reflections to me) it is we who let shame fuel our hunger for repentance and forgiveness. Then, as we grow and realize that we’re not as ugly as we once thought, the churches that once fed us so richly, are serving up unsatisfactory helpings of judgement and condemnation–but for awhile, that message fed us. Leaving all that behind seems to be an important part of growth of the self.
Comment by: benjamin ady
15 12/14/06 2:09 PM | Comment Link |Eliza–thankyou again for your lucid description. … Perhaps I shall come next week, and bring a copy of Mclaren’s book as a gift for the class teacher. I noticed something that caught my eye. I went to see the dead sea scrolls at pacific science center a few weeks ago, and his name is up on this big plaque on the wall with the names of various people from the seattle area who were on a comittee which sort of helped make sure that this exhibit and it’s process of coming to seattle wasn’t offensive to anyone–you know a christian leader, a muslim leader, a jewish leader, an academic leader–you know the kind of thing I mean..
Does this strike you as a bit out there? What I’ve learned about forgiveness is that god forgiving me doesn’t really do that much for me, whereas *people* forgiving me has been life altering in the most brilliant possible way. In fact, … I would argue that it’s utterly impossible both experentially and theologically to receive god’s forgiveness apart from receiving others’ forgiveness.
Comment by: Helen
16 12/14/06 2:11 PM | Comment Link |I think you’re right - it’s not ‘pounded in’ so hard in all churches.
It would be interesting to study whether Jesus himself ‘pounded it in’ the way your class teacher did.
I think Rev Lueking ascribes to it; I’ve found myself reacting against it (internally) when he’s made reference to it. Although his style is not to ‘pound’ anything in.
Comment by: Stephan
17 12/14/06 2:12 PM | Comment Link |My wife has helped me come to a new understanding of some of this. The fact is, yes, we all sin. But, my wife asserts, God created us knowing we had that ability to sin and did not stop us. In a way, He is to blame. Jesus taking our punishment was His was of taking responsibility for creating us in the first place.
It helps me to not beat myself up quite so much and to accept that God has it covered.
Comment by: Rachel
18 12/14/06 5:42 PM | Comment Link |Eliza, one of the things I appreciated about “A Generous Orthodoxy” was McLaren’s description of the different theories of atonement that have been part of Christian understanding. “Your” pastor clearly holds to the substitutionary theory. It really annoys me how he (and so many other pastors) only teach or present the particular understanding that they embrace and pretend that other interpretations don’t even exist. I guess it’s not particularly surprising but it still irritates me.
At the OTM conference, Brian McLaren gave a talk entitled “Eschatology Always Wins.” He told about hearing a recording of a fundamentalist pastor preaching on the book of Revelation. In this sermon, the pastor gave a graphic description of Jesus coming back to earth at the end of time, riding a white horse and slaughtering unbelievers. The pastor said with great intensity, “And he will come with his sword, slashing to the left and slashing to the right and the ground will be covered with the blood of the unbelievers!” Brian read us the text that the sermon was based on and it said that Jesus will come back on a white horse with a sword coming out of his mouth. Then Brian said, “Hmmmm, do you think that was a clue that the passage was intended to be read metaphorically?” He went on to point out that some people, through their interpretation of Scripture, are basically asserting that “even God can’t fix the world without using violence.”
Later Nancy Murphy gave a presentation on domestic violence and asked us to think about why so many Christian communities seem to ignore or even justify it. After her talk, I went up to Brian McLaren and said that that question had made me think about his talk and that I think the answer goes back to his idea “eschatology always wins.” I said that if people really believe that Jesus will come back “slashing to the left and slashing to the right,” then that means that violence is justified, or even good, under certain circumstances. Brian nodded and became very animated and said that it also tied in with our understanding of the atonement. He said he believes that there will be a great debate in the church over that issue in the coming years because our theories of atonement shape our view about so many things.
Comment by: Rachel
19 12/14/06 5:45 PM | Comment Link |Hmmmm…it sounds like by “questions,” he means questions about what Lutherans believe, with the pastor being viewed as the expert who can tell you what Lutherans believe, which is of course The Truth.
Comment by: Rachel
20 12/14/06 5:56 PM | Comment Link |Karen, I can relate - a lot of my Christian life was like that. And it seems so sad and ironic when most of Jesus’ interactions with people were him communicating love and worth to them after others had made them feel like trash. And of course the only people Jesus got mad at were the prideful religious types who made the other people feel like trash. sigh.
Comment by: Eliza
21 12/14/06 8:59 PM | Comment Link |Stephan wrote:
Stephan - this view makes more sense to me than the view presented in my class. And seems more…humane. More consistent with a loving God.
Comment by: Eliza
22 12/14/06 9:08 PM | Comment Link |Rachel, interesting comments from the conference - thanks! I had to miss the conference due to work. :-(
I keep forgetting about Revelation, because it just seems weird to me so I forget to read it (other than a chapter, then I go to something else). Good point that if people are using that image of Jesus, instead of the image of the healer and teacher from the gospels, then violence could seem quite righteous, directed against unrepentant sinner(s) - which could potentially include all sorts of people. Scary.
Comment by: joe
23 12/15/06 5:49 AM | Comment Link |Hi Eliza,
I just wanted to pick up a couple of points, hope you don’t mind.
You were asking how we know that God can’t lie. One might also easily ask whether you could have a definition of a lie (or any other sin) outwith of God (him-being-creator-of-everything-an-all) . If you’re the creator of the universe and you get to decide on right and wrong, you could easily sway the whole thrust of ethics in your direction - couldn’t you?
Well, I’d say that God is Good - and that goodness goes beyond any definition involving God (everyones minds numbed yet?). And that isn’t just because the bible says so, the bible being a description of what God is like, not a chain to tie him to.
And my reasoning is basically this: If there is a God who is not good, he is not worth knowing. A god like the Classical gods who pick up and put down people on a whim is not worth serving. Either God is good or the universe is meaningless whether or not God exists.
Second, I’d like to point out that you’ve been subjected to an explanation of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. There are, in my opinion more useful, explanations which do not involve contorted visions of cosmic child abuse. OK, I’d better not get onto that particular hobbyhorse or this post will be enormous, but just so you know, there are better explanations.
I guess you’ve already worked out that your pastor is engaged in a form of spiritual join-the-dots where you ask the right questions, get the right answers and hey presto you’re a proper christian.
Comment by: Helen
24 12/15/06 7:07 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Joe. I love how you put this:
Have you run across any online resources that explain the different Atonement theories well? If so please post the link for anyone who wants to read more about this topic.
Comment by: joe
25 12/15/06 7:25 AM | Comment Link |Helen - I have, but has been already pointed out, this is terribly dull.
Google ‘theories of the atonement’ and you’ll find more information that you could possibly need.
Comment by: Julie Marie
26 12/15/06 12:04 PM | Comment Link |Here’s my big problem with this: as Christian we are taught that forgiveness is unilateral, and it is our duty to forgive wether the transgressor acknowledges their offense or not. Why would God hold us to a higher standard than he holds himself?
Comment by: Karen
27 12/15/06 12:16 PM | Comment Link |Wow, that’s intriguing Rachel, thanks for the summary on that. It’ll be interesting to see whether that indeed becomes one of the major issues in church debate in future.
Yep. We definitely have had a lot of similar things in the kind of teaching we got, huh? ;-) The thing is, I always heard the right words about being saved and covered by the blood of Christ, and so forth. But it seemed like the other part - sin-sin-sin - got emphasized and talked about a whole lot more than the good stuff.
Comment by: Karen
28 12/15/06 12:26 PM | Comment Link |You didn’t interpret those feelings as being “spiritual” but you probably could have. Particularly if you’d expressed what you were feeling and the pastor told you, “See - that feeling you feel right now is the holy spirit filling your heart!” This is typically what I heard evangelical preachers telling people who had just “gotten saved” at a Christian concert or revival meeting.
I don’t know about other people, but my spiritual experiences and those I heard about from Christians I knew tended to be these kinds of emotional “highs” - feeling flooded with joy or peace typically during worship or prayer - rather than any specific external communication like a voice from heaven or something like that.
It could be any of those. I’m surprised you didn’t at least see people nodding or murmuring some kind of assent when the pastor was talking. Maybe they didn’t react because the setting and the denomination isn’t very conducive to responses from the audience. I know for sure if you’d been in an historically black or charismatic church, you would’ve heard a few “Amens!” or “Yes, Lords!” from the crowd. :-)
Comment by: benjamin ady
29 12/15/06 3:25 PM | Comment Link |Julie, you said
It seems to me like this teaching can be taken the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is the “forgive and forget” thing. Just cut off the reality of the pain of the crime, and pretend everything is okay so you don’t have to feel or think or talk.
The hard way is, I think, … the way god actually does love and forgive people. It’s a sneaky, powerful, dizzying, terrifying, overwhelming, unavoidable love/forgiveness that refuses to be told off, put off, or avoided. It hates the crime of the perpetrator so much, and yet loves *life* so much, that it is interested in using the power granted by the fact of the crime to see the perpetrator utterly transformed–to see the perpetrator come to hate the crime as much as the crime demands to be hated, and *also* to see the perpetrator become able to accept love and forgiveness and life in all its terrifying reality.
Comment by: Paul
30 12/15/06 5:55 PM | Comment Link |Thank you Eliza
Comment by: Duh-sciple Tim
31 12/16/06 10:41 AM | Comment Link |I really appreciate the honest, open discussion here!
I’m reading that many don’t like the “I’m awful, I’m sinful, I’m depraved” bad news mantra. The message is being experienced as wounding, hurtful, damaging, sick.
And… as I look at the world… there is…
global warming
massive, unnecessary starvation
WMDs
terrorists
genocide in Sudan
HIV-AIDS
a no-sinless options mess in Iraq
domestic violence
corporate corruption
sex scandals in the church
the poor left behind in Katrina
racism
religiously sanctioned violence
[Reminds me of that 60s song- when will they ever learn? when will they ever learn?]
So… what I’m wondering:
What language do we use to account for these conditions in our world? Is there a place for “sin, evil, depravity” language? Does humanity need to be shocked into recognizing its desperate situation? How do “atonement theories” deal with these realities?
A question I’ve asked myself: If I was in Nazi Germany would I have recognized and done something about the Holocaust? Given that I’m not particularly heroic and prone to take care of myself first when the chips are down, my best guess and honest, tragic answer is “no.” This is in spite of the fact that I know better and should have learned from history. What vocabulary is available for getting at this reality?
Your friendly neighborhood duh-sciple, Tim
Comment by: Helen
32 12/16/06 11:00 AM | Comment Link |Tim, I don’t have a problem saying that people can and do do sick, hurtful, wrong, evil things sometimes.
What I have a problem with is language like utterly depraved. To me that inappropriately dismisses all the good things people do.
It seems really odd to me that humans can look at one another and make judgments that some of what we do is good and some isn’t - yet God supposedly, according to what some Christians teach, can only see bad, bad, bad, Jesus. How come we have more complex eyesight than God?
Why didn’t Jesus go around telling everyone “you are utterly depraved” if that’s what God wants us to be telling them?
Comment by: JG
33 12/16/06 11:13 AM | Comment Link |Tim,
I agree with you. As always, I feel it is a question of maintaining the right balance.
When too much emphasis is given to “sin” and God’s attitude to sin, the message of God’s love becomes distorted.
But when too much emphasis is given to God’s love alone you end up with an image of God as an indulgent but impotent grandfatherly sort of figure who just pats us on the head and lets us do whatever we like - even when it involves harming othe rpeople.
An explanation that I find helpful is to use the analogy of parents/children and school results. An ideal parent is one who accepts and loves their children whatever results they get even if they score 0%. But a parent who helps and encourages their children to achieve 100%.
For me, being a Christian is not about “being good” or claiming to be good. Rather it is about acknowledging that we don’t achieve 100%. Instead of claiming that other people are to blame for all the problems in the world it is about acknowledging that we all play our part.
A child would be reluctant to admit failure or shortcomings to a parent who would judge them for such failure. But knowledge and experience of God’s love and support for us gives us freedom to come to this place of acknowlegment of our failings.
IMO there is no basis for a Christian to claim they are any better - as a person - than anyone else.
I believe over time, a person should change and be committed to MTWABP as a result of being a Christian, not because they need to, to earn God’s approval or to “make the grade” but rather as a natural response to God’s acceptance of us.
Comment by: Helen
34 12/16/06 11:26 AM | Comment Link |For what it’s worth, I see this as an attitude someone who isn’t a Christian might have also.
Comment by: JG
35 12/16/06 11:37 AM | Comment Link |I agree - indeed you have the whole range of people from those who think they are God’s gift to the world to those who are overwhelmed with a sense of failure and/or guilt.
And, because “the church” is not all that it should be and is made up of ordinary people at various stages, you will also encounter that range of people within the church as well.
Comment by: Duh-sciple Tim
36 12/16/06 1:26 PM | Comment Link |Helen,
I completely agree that we need more complex eyesight! Let me know what you think of my attempt at “complex eyesight” below.
The movie “Hotel Rwanda”- unspeakable, barbaric evil- hacking 1 million people to death one by one with machetes- all based on fictious tribal identities and manufactured hatred. Yet in the very same movie we see incredible generosity, courage, and grace. On the one hand, I see the demonic (the only language I can grasp to name such evil) in this movie. On the other hand, I see incredible goodness, one man standing against the madness, risking his life to save others.
The movie “Inconvenient Truth”- ridiculous stupidity, poisoning the planet, producing species extinctions, endangering the future of our children and grandchildren. My name for that? Sinning against the planet, against other species, against ourselves, against our offspring. Nevertheless, that does not mean that there is no goodness in humanity. Life is more mysterious than that.
One last movie- “Akelaah and the Bee”- here we see the story of an 11-year old girl, Akelaah, surrounded by adults who just don’t get it- in the climax of hte movie she sees another contestant being shamed by his father- in an act of self-sacrifice she spells a word wrong, on purpose, in order to protect the shamed boy from his old man- just one example of Akelaah’s beautiful spirit shining through despite the despair that pervades her community. Here we see a child reflect the “image of God”.
Yes, Jesus in the Gospels exhibits complex eyesight. He names both the sinfulness and the beauty of the people he encounters. In Luke’s Gospel, an upstanding member of the community fails to offer Jesus proper hospitality, perhaps reflecting the host’s exaggerated sense of importance. Meanwhile, a “sinful woman” offers Jesus a “shameful” display of affection. Both/and!
So we are both “sinful” and made in the “image of God”. I would not want to lose the language to describing either of these realities. And because I see that the sinful part is real, especially after viewing the first two movies mentioned above, I peronally need hope that we can be freed from the stupidity, arrogance, and evil that often run wild in our world.
Peace, Tim
P.S. I hope that what I’ve offered is more complex and more real than just trying to make people feel bad. My purpose is that an amazing Sanity would find us- affirming our goodness/preciousness- healing our sickness. And sorry for writing so much!!!
Comment by: Helen
37 12/16/06 3:13 PM | Comment Link |Tim I like your “complex eyesight” - thanks!
Thanks for your response JG.
Comment by: Rachel
38 12/16/06 3:41 PM | Comment Link |Revelation IS weird to us readers today who are completely unfamiliar with the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature. But to John’s original audience, who were familiar with this type of literature, the meaning would have surely have been much more clear.
Comment by: Gregg Lamm
39 12/16/06 4:19 PM | Comment Link |Eliza,
I’m fairly new to this site and to this interesting conversation — but I’m glad my friend Dave pointed me your way.
While reading your words and the words of others, my mind keeps being drawn back to a story by Martin Bell, an Episcopalian priest and a DJ (a creative bi-vocational gig to be sure). The story is called “Barrington Bunny” … and given that Christmas is almost here, it seems like a good time to share Bell’s story, which in its own simple way speaks to much of what is being talked-through here.
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BARRINGTON BUNNY
by Martin Bell (”The Way Of The Wolf” | 1970 | Seabury Press)
Once upon a time, in a large forest, there lived a very furry bunny. He had one lop ear, a tiny black nose, and unusually shiny eyes. His name was Barrington. Barrington was not really a very handsome bunny. He was brown and speckled, and his ears didn’t stand up right. But he could hop, and he was, as I have said, very furry.
In a way, winter is fun for bunnies. After all, it gives them an opportunity to hop in the snow and then turn around to see where they have hopped. So, in a way, winter was fun for Barrington.
But in another way, winter made Barrington sad. For, you see, winter marked the time when all of the animal families got together in their cozy homes to celebrate Christmas. He could hop, and he was very furry. But as far as Barrington knew, he was the only bunny in the forest. When Christmas Eve finally came, Barrington did not feel like going home all by himself. So he decided he would hop for a while in the clearing in the center of the forest.
Hop. Hop. Hippity-hop. Barrington made tracks in the fresh snow. Hop. Hop. Hippity-hop. Then he cocked his head and looked back at the wonderful designs he had made.
“Bunnies,” he thought to himself, “can hop. And they are very warm, too, because of how furry they are.” (But Barrington didn’t really know whether or not this was true of all bunnies, since he had never met another bunny.)
When it got too dark to see the tracks he was making, Barrington made up his mind to go home. On his way, however, he passed a large oak tree. High in the branches, there was a great deal of excited chattering going on. Barrington looked up. It was a squirrel family! What a marvelous time they seemed to be having.
“Hello, up there,” called Barrington.
“Hello, down there,” came the reply.
“Having a Christmas party?” asked Barrington.
“Oh, yes!” answered the squirrels. “It’s Christmas Eve. Everybody is having a Christmas party!”
“May I come to your party?” said Barrington softly.
“Are you a squirrel?”
“No.”
“What are you, then?”
“A bunny.”
“A bunny?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how can you come to the party if you’re a bunny? Bunnies can’t climb trees.”
“That’s true,” said Barrington thoughtfully. “But I can hop, and I’m very furry and warm.”
“We’re sorry,” called the squirrels. “We don’t know anything about hopping and being furry, but we do know that in order to come to our house, you have to be able to climb trees.”
“Oh, well,” said Barrington. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” chattered the squirrels.
And the unfortunate bunny hopped off toward his tiny house. It was beginning to snow when Barrington reached the river. Near the river-bank was a wonderfully constructed house of sticks and mud. Inside there was singing.
“It’s the beavers,” thought Barrington. “Maybe they will let me come to their party.” And so he knocked on the door.
“Who’s out there?” called a voice.
“Barrington Bunny,” he replied. There was a long pause and then a shiny beaver head broke the water.
“Hello, Barrington,” said the beaver.
“May I come to your Christmas Party?” asked Barrington.
The beaver thought for a while, and then he said, “I suppose so. Do you know how to swim?”
“No,” said Barrington, “but I can hop, and I am very furry and warm.”
“Sorry,” said the beaver. “I don’t know anything about hopping and being furry, but I do know that in order to come to our house, you have to be able to swim.”
“Oh, well,” Barrington muttered, his eyes filling with tears. “I suppose that’s true … Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” called the beaver. And he disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
Even being as furry as he was, Barrington was beginning to get cold. And the snow was falling so hard that his tiny, bunny eyes could scarcely see what was ahead of him. He was almost home, however, when he heard the excited squeaking of field mice beneath the ground. “It’s a party,” thought Barrington. And suddenly he blurted out through his tears, “Hello, field mice. This is Barrington Bunny. May I come to your party?”
But the wind was howling so loudly and Barrington was sobbing so much that no one heard him. And when there was no response at all, Barrington just sat down in the snow and began to cry with all his might.
“Bunnies,” he thought, “aren’t any good to anyone. What good is it to be furry and to be able to hop if you don’t have any family on Christmas Eve?” Barrington cried and cried. When he stopped crying, he began to bite on his bunny’s foot, but he did not move from where he was sitting in the snow.
Suddenly, Barrington was aware that he was not alone. He looked up and strained his shiny eyes to see who was there. To his surprise, he saw a great silver wolf. The wolf was large and strong, and his eyes flashed fire. He was the most beautiful animal Barrington had ever seen.
For a long time, the silver wolf didn’t say anything at all. He just stood there and looked at Barrington with those terrible eyes.
Then slowly and deliberately the wolf spoke. Barrington,” he asked in a gentle voice, “why are you sitting in the snow?”
“Because it’s Christmas Eve,” said Barrington, “and I don’t have any family, and bunnies aren’t any good to anyone.”
“Bunnies are, too, good,” said the wolf. “Bunnies can hop, and they are very warm.”
“What good is that?” Barrington sniffed.
“It is very good indeed,” the wolf went on, “because it is a gift that bunnies are given, a free gift with no strings attached. And every gift that is given to anyone is given for a reason. Someday you will see why it is good to hop and to be warm and furry.”
“But it’s Christmas,” moaned Barrington, “and I’m all alone. I don’t have any family at all.”
“Of course you do,” replied the great silver wolf. “All of the animals in the forest are your family.” And then the wolf disappeared. He simply wasn’t there. Barrington had only blinked his eyes, and when he looked — the wolf was gone.
“All of the animals in the forest are my family,” thought Barrington. ” It’t good to be a bunny. Bunnies can hop. That’s a gift.” And then he said it again. “A gift. A free gift.”
On into the night, Barrington worked. First he found the best stick that he could. (And that was difficult because of the snow.) Then hop. Hop. Hippity-hop. To beaver’s house. He left the stick just outside the door. With a note on it that read: “Here is a good stick for your house. It is a gift. A free gift. No strings attached. Signed, a member of your family.”
“It is a good thing that I can hop,” he thought, “because the snow is very deep.” Then Barrington dug and dug. Soon he had gathered together enough dead leaves and grass to make the squirrels’ nest warmer. Hop. Hop. Hippity-hop. He laid the grass and leaves just under the large oak tree and attached this message: “A gift. A free gift. From a member of your family.”
It was late when Barrington finally started home. And what make things worse was that he knew a blizzard was beginning. Hop. Hop. Hippity-hop. Soon poor Barrington was lost. The wind howled furiously, and it was very, very cold. “It certainly is cold,” he said out loud. “It’s a good thing I’m so furry. But if I don’t find my way home pretty soon, even I might freeze!”
“Squeak. Squeak….”
And then he saw it … a baby field mouse lost in the snow. And the little mouse was crying. “Hello, little mouse,” Barrington called. “Don’t cry. I’ll be right there.” Hippity-hop, and Barrington was beside the tiny mouse.
“I’m lost,” sobbed the little fellow. “I’ll never find my way home, and I know I’m going to freeze.”
“You won’t freeze,” said Barrington. “I’m a bunny, and bunnies are very furry and warm. You stay right where you are, and I’ll cover you up.”
Barrington lay on top of the little mouse and hugged him tight. The tiny fellow felt himself surrounded by warm fur. He cried for a while, but soon, snug and warm, he fell asleep.
Barrington had only two thoughts that long, cold night. First he thought, “It’s good to be a bunny. Bunnies are very furry and warm.” And then, when he felt the heart of the tiny mouse beneath him beating regularly, he thought, “All of the animals in the forest are my family.”
Next morning, the field mice found their little boy, asleep in the snow, warm and snug beneath the furry carcass of a dead bunny. Their relief and excitement were so great that they didn’t even think to question where the bunny had come from.
And as for the beavers and the squirrels, they still wonder which member of their family left the little gifts for them that Christmas Eve.
After the field mice had left, Barrington’s frozen body simply lay in the snow. There was no sound except that of the howling wind. And no one anywhere in the forest noticed the great silver wolf who came to stand beside that brown, lop-eared carcass.
But the wolf did come. And he stood there. Without moving or saying a word. All Christmas Day. Until it was night.
And then he disappeared into the forest.
Edited by Helen to add: Excerpted from: The Way of the Wolf by Martin Bell, copyright 1970, published by Ballantine Books, New York, N.Y. Used by permission.
Martin Bell’s official website is here: Barrington Bunny.
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Godspeed to all of us who are finding our way in the snow.
read.think.pray.live.
Gregg Lamm
http://www.stayingthecourse.blogspot.com
Comment by: joe
40 12/18/06 2:27 AM | Comment Link |I sincerely doubt that, Rachel. Certain bits of Revelation probably only make sense when you are taking strong (and probably illegal) medication.
Mind you, there is some interesting stuff which often gets ignored. For example, of the seven churches mentioned, only one survives. And that is the one that was the weakest-and-crappiest at the time. All the other fantastic, woo-hoo, goodness-me-we’re-GOOD churches died within the first few centuries. So there is hope for the rest of us.
Comment by: joe
41 12/18/06 2:39 AM | Comment Link |Regarding the totally deprived thing, I think those who use it are talking about two different things - both of which are erroneous in my opinion.
One the one hand, people are saying that man is unable to do anything good without God. Which is clearly either a) not true or b) God working through the ungodly.
On the other hand, they might be meaning to say that yes, people can do good stuff, but it is never sufficient for a holy God - and one can never earn your eternal salvation. I just don’t like that turn of phrase. You might have guessed I’m not a calvinist.
God isn’t up there with a rolling pin waiting for us to do something wrong so he can joyfully whack us, grinning manically and saying ‘ah-ha, gotcha. I knew you were bad really. Of to hell with you in a handcart’.
He is the father celebrating every stumbling step of an infant. He is the fan, jumping out of his seat at every won play. He is literally willing us to succeed, to recognise our brokenness and to seek healing. To look for things beyond ourselves and our petty pathetic self-centredness, to be more than a skin bag of bones.
This is the hidden message of Jesus: you are worth more than this.
Comment by: Eliza
42 12/18/06 11:32 AM | Comment Link |Gregg Lamm, welcome to CatE. Thanks for your comments. I am not sure, though, that I understand the message of the Barrington bunny story. Is the wolf God = the Father, and Barrington bunny = Jesus? Or….some other connection with this discussion?
Comment by: Stephan
43 12/18/06 12:19 PM | Comment Link |I think it should have ended with the wolf eating the bunny and commenting on how warm and tasty they are, and that they are certainly good for something (filling a wolf’s tummy).
It would be a more realistic ending, but where’s the spiritual lesson in that?
Comment by: Eliza
44 12/18/06 12:21 PM | Comment Link |Tim,
I agree that we all have capacity for good and bad, and manifest different “goodness” and “badness” at different times and in different situations - some are more good more of the time, and some are more bad (worse?) more of the time - and we all certainly can fail to stop bad people and bad actions, especially when they come about slowly. (This is like the frog in the pot of water - it realizes something is up when it’s tossed into a pot of boiling water, but put it in a pot of cold water & then turn the burner on, and it acts like everything is hunky dory. Or so I’ve heard.)
But that strikes me as different from what I hear in this class - that we all sin throughout each day, in our thoughts and in our minor actions, by being mad at someone who cuts in front of us or by failing to hold the door for someone. The pastor hasn’t said this, but the message is that we are bad people, because of original sin. I’m interested that he has talked about God forgiving people’s sins (these minor sins as well as “worse” sins) but he hasn’t yet talked about MTWABP. His church has projects to try to help others, and MTWABP, but in their way of thinking the deeds really have no bearing on salvation - that’s determined by faith and beliefs. Interestingly, that seems to mean that we could each be awful, evil, hurtful people all of our lives, as long as we truthfully and fully accept Jesus Christ as our savior on our deathbeds. (Not that he’d want it that way…but he has basically said that would be all it took to be saved.)
I’m trying to come up with a word for that outlook. How about “cross-focused”? Not the same as cross-eyed, but seems to have about the same degree of focus on the quality of life of the earth and its beings.
Comment by: Helen
45 12/18/06 1:54 PM | Comment Link |Stephan, I didn’t really get why the wolf didn’t eat the bunny either!
Comment by: joe
46 12/18/06 3:51 PM | Comment Link |Ditto. Thought it was a rather daft story to be frank.
Comment by: Karen
47 12/18/06 4:44 PM | Comment Link |That’s right. That’s the standard fundamentalist doctrine. Ever hear believers rejoicing over “deathbed conversions” of murderers or [urban legend alert] Charles Darwin? The teaching is that it doesn’t matter what you’ve DONE in this life, only whether you accept Jesus or not, in order to be saved.
Comment by: JG
48 12/18/06 5:34 PM | Comment Link |I wouldn’t express it that way or consider it “fundamentalist” in the way that word seems to be intended.
Let’s put it another way. Say you became estranged from one of your children. Would there ever come a point where you would say to your own child, that’s it, no matter how repentant you are, no matter how willing you are to change, I want nothing more to do with you?
Hopefully not. Neither would God.
But does this mean you are not bothered what your child does? Does this mean it is fair to say your child can do what he or she likes no matter how dreadful, knowing they can always come back to you and be forgiven? I don’t think it works like that.
Comment by: Rachel
49 12/18/06 7:28 PM | Comment Link |he-he! You have a point there, Joe! But I’m still convinced that John’s original audience would have understood his meaning. I subscribe to the understanding that Revelation was (and is) a type of resistance literature, designed to give a word of hope and encouragement to an oppressed people as they struggled to resist evil and stay true to their faith. I believe that Revelation contains some coded messages that would have been easily understandable to a 1st century reader.
Comment by: benjamin ady
50 12/18/06 8:58 PM | Comment Link |JG–but actually this (rather … empty) transactional approach is very fundamentalist. How meaningful is it if a father and son are estranged their whole lives, and hate each other, and live really horrible lives, and hurt people, and … so forth, and then at the end, just before one of them dies, they *say* the whole “I’m so sorry, I forgive you, etc. etc.”. It really doesn’t mean that much. It could be very emotional, and there could be lots of words, … and it might be healing at some level, but it doesn’t wipe out the reality of their years and years of actions and words. I really dislike that whole transactional approach to forgiveness and to relationship. I rather like process based approaches better.
Comment by: Gregg Lamm
51 12/19/06 1:14 AM | Comment Link |Friends,
I knew I was taking a risk posting this story. You don’t know me. And I don’t know you. Yada, yada, yada.
“Knowledge of someone’s heart and mind” is most often the filter we use when listening to what others say, write and/or post onto blogs and elsewhere. You don’t know my heart and mind — and I thought that by reading the 39+ posts here that I had a bit of a glimpse into who y’all are. And then I took a risk and made posted the story.
Assigning names to the characters of an allegorical story is too closely akin to assigning both motives and outcomes to how the story can, or should speak to us. So I won’t bite.
But what I will say is that none of fully knows the power of our contributions to the lives of others. God is using this email string and the other interviews and strings I’ve read involving Eliza’s experiences to speak to me about who God is, who I am, and how God’s desire to see us connected is more passionately alive and real than any other alternate reality I choose to entertain or live into.
The (dare I say) “awakening” (or maybe it was more of a “spiritual warming”) Eliza experienced in her class the other night is interesting to me — especially in light of how she describes it — because the words she uses to capture her experience for us, and the comments made by others in response to Eliza’s words — these are all “good gifts”, “free gifts” that God is using to shape my own thoughts and beliefs.
If having theological conversations was the only way to learn truth, then hey, count me out. But if using story, multi-dimensional art, and even an occasional limerick as avenues for truth and conversation to travel can be normative and not just daft, then count me in.
Our experiences aren’t more important than truth. They’re the vehicles truth ride in. T.S. Eliot wrote, “We had the experience, we missed the meaning.” In looking for some of the meaning behind what I was reading in this blog, my heart and mind were drawn to Martin Bell’s story. Will it make sense to everyone? No, and neither with algebra. In fact, I got several D’s in it. And my life isn’t turning out all that bad — despite what my High School math teacher predicted. Different experiences, different meanings … different conversations, different connections … different paths, but often the same lessons learned. Good night and Godspeed.
Gregg Lamm
http://www.stayingthecourse.blogspot.com
Comment by: Helen
52 12/19/06 4:25 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Gregg. I appreciate you joining the conversation here and I’ve reposted the wolf story here:
Gregg’s wolf story
(I know you didn’t write it - I meant ‘yours’ in the sense you posted it here)
I’d like discussion of the wolf story and/or the value of using story to convey meaning/truth to take place on there.
I was fascinated to see that you described Eliza’s feelings as an “awakening” or “spiritual warming”:
How do you know she was being ’spiritually warmed’ or ’spiritually awakened’ (by God, I assume you meant) rather than simply having an emotional reaction to the concept of being given a free gift? Or are those two things exactly the same?
Why did all the effect of this warming/awakening disappear after a few minutes? Was it because Eliza ’suppressed the truth’, not wanting to be open to God’s truth? Will it come back again, do you think? Is this few minutes’ experience a sign that Eliza is at some point going to renounce her atheism after all?
Comment by: joe
53 12/19/06 4:36 AM | Comment Link |I’m not answering for Gregg, but I’d describe what Eliza experienced as spiritual as well - although I would hesitate to call it an awakening.
Using an-old-and-tired analogue, I think the spiritual walk is a bit like a walk in the hills. Sometimes it is a strain and you wonder why you bother. Sometimes the mist comes down and you can’t see you hand in front of your face. But sometimes the mist clears, and you find yourself at a peak where you can see for miles. And then your spirit soars.
Or a bit like seeing something in 3d that you’d only ever seen in 2d.
I wouldn’t presume to be able to answer which direction Eliza is going in, nor attempt to answer why the experience only lasted a few minutes. But at the very least she now has a bit of an understanding of the nature of spirituality.
Comment by: JG
54 12/19/06 4:49 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, you appear to be responding to the concept as expressed by Eliza and Karen (reflecting what they have heard eg in Eliza’s class) rather than to the question I posed:
And you also appear to have missed the rider I attached:
I’m saying that I don’t see forgiveness and reconciliation as nasty fundamentalist principles. Hollow empty gestures do more harm than good. But when it is genuine then it is very powerful. A good example of these principles in operation is in South Africa with the truth and reconciliation hearings. Obviously South Africa still has many problems but I believe a bloodbath was avoided by people’s willingness to wipe the slate clean - even where terrible things had been done.
Terrible things are done around the world. Demonising or “hating” the people that do them is not the answer. Willingness to embrace and forgive I believe is the answer.
Comment by: Helen
55 12/19/06 5:07 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for your response about Eliza’s ‘awakening’, joe. I’m interested in your thoughts on it as well as Gregg’s so I appreciate you jumping in!
JG, I think in practice it’s not always easy to decide when to embrace and forgive and when to take a stand and protest and denounce. After reading recent discussions related to that issue, I’m convinced we will never all agree where that line should be drawn.
I’ve seen something a number of times which really bothers me about ‘embrace and forgive’ advocates. When they run into someone who disagrees with where they draw the ‘embrace and forgive’ line they get really nasty towards that other person and do not embrace and forgive them.
I love the ‘embrace and forgive’ concept, but I would rather hang out with ‘protest and denounce’ people who recognize their own inconsistencies than ‘embrace and forgive’ people who don’t see the inconsistency in them turning nastily on those who don’t draw the ‘embrace and forgive’ line where they do.
I see a lot more damage done in Christian community by unrecognized, unacknowledged inconsistency than by shortcomings which are seen and admitted to.
I think that’s why - coming back to ’sin’ - I find it so hard to listen to ‘totally depraved’ language. Because the person saying it seems to see MY sin much better than his/hers. That’s not fair; that’s not a level playing field.
Comment by: joe
56 12/19/06 5:42 AM | Comment Link |Hi Helen,
Regarding the depravity thing, I think one of the underlying points is that nobody is any better than anyone else - hence total depravity. On the other hand, most people would suggest that a Christian was slightly better than an unchristian.
In my experience, there is little difference between the sinfulness of christians and unchristians. The only real difference is that christians recognise their failures and at least attempt to address them - of course, many unchristians do that too.
Regarding your above comment regarding forgiveness, I’d offer this snippet. (I know it is a bit of a tangent, but it gives a slightly different perspective)
It is absolutely right to get mad at injustice. Forgiveness is a choice that is underused, but it should never be mistaken for soggyness and being walked over.
Comment by: Helen
57 12/19/06 6:59 AM | Comment Link |I agree - thanks Joe.
In your other comments I like that you said many people who aren’t Christians recognize their failures and attempt to address them too - since that’s been my experience also.
I would be more ok with totally depraved if, as at least one commenter alluded to. we paired “totally depraved” with “totally made in the image of God” - which is straight from the Bible. It’s the one-sideness of saying “totally depraved” by itself which bothers me.
And thanks for the link.
Comment by: JG
58 12/19/06 7:34 AM | Comment Link |Helen,
I’m not sure about linking this thread with the issues over when it is right to protest etc.
My understanding was this particular part of the thread was looking at the important issue raised by Eliza:
My point is that the power to forgive and release someone from their past is very real and powerful and is a force for good that helps MTWABP. I’m focusing on the concept of God’s forgiveness (the subject being discussed in Eliza’s class) and using human examples to illustrate my point.
I think often an important part of the process is forgiving ourselves. This is one reason why I am unhappy with those who like to focus on sin, total depravity etc etc. As you say it is very one sided though I think the other side of the coin is God’s love and forgiveness.
Many claim to be highlighting “truth” but if you take a truth and take it out of context or highlight it and fail to balance it with other truths then you get something that is very distorted - and untrue. A good example of this is what we both experienced on a certain other site.
Comment by: Helen
59 12/19/06 8:58 AM | Comment Link |JG, I see what you mean about not bringing too many things in here.
On the other hand, to me these things should all be linked. If we claim that God’s forgiveness is a good thing then we should be willing to forgive one another; and if we exhort others to forgive then again we should be willing to forgive those who are disagreeing with us, right here, right now.
To me the only way to convincingly say “God forgives and it has meaning that he does, and it is good that he does” is to role-model forgiveness. Those who preach forgiveness sometimes role model it but unfortunately, in my experience of the last several years, they do not always do so.
Comment by: Eliza
60 12/19/06 9:01 AM | Comment Link |Going back to my experience in this class: Greg Lamm wrote,
and joe wrote:
Well, having been the one who experienced it, I feel pretty strongly that this was not a spiritual “warming”. It was a response to emotional manipulation by the pastor. It was brought about by the contrast between 1+ hour of lecture on sin, sin, how awful we are, sin - and a minute of him beaming and saying “it’s free!!! it’s easy!!!” (that’s the way I heard it). It was like a really pleasant suprise, a welcome light at the end of a dark tunnel. It was a primitive “hurray he’s done harping on sin” response, “hurray there’s good news after all” but the good news was supposed to be a 50% off sale.
I did not sense anything of what I would call a “spiritual” feeling, though of course I can’t say that what I call spiritual is the same thing that others call spiritual. I feel much more “spiritual” when I look at a full moon (as on Tues Dec 5 this month) or at a beautiful colorful sunset (as on Mon Dec 18) or climb a mountain and look around at God’s creation, or at least the panoramic view (as in late August this year). I also get a hint of that feeling of awe when I’m in a beautiful church, but in that case I interpret the setting as having been designed to elicit that type of feeling.
Those were not at all the feelings I had for a few minutes in this class. Those felt more…crass, maybe? I just can’t call my experience in class spiritual.
Comment by: joe
61 12/19/06 9:19 AM | Comment Link |OK, fair enough.
Although one might also class spirituality induced by sunsets, mountain climbing and church buildings as cultural conditioning or manipulation…
Comment by: HereandNow
62 12/19/06 9:22 AM | Comment Link |Eliza wrote:
Eliza, I had a friend a few years back whose grandfather was a preacher in a little church in some holler in northern Georgia. When he would preach revivals at his church he’d have a deacon turn the heat up high when he got to talking about hell. While that’s not what happened in your situation, I can’t say I’ve ever met a pastor or preacher who didn’t find some verbal/linguistic way to “turn the heat up” when they were trying to drive home the huge mess that sin creates in peoples lives. While I no longer agree with a doctrine that says a personal God condemns unrepentant sinners, I’m glad that for those who hold the conviction tightly, it is an emotionally charged thing for them. However, I wish that folks would get better at expressing the emotional heat of things without being manipulative, i.e., lining up the emotional impact in a way that pushes for some sort of decision.
Comment by: JG
63 12/19/06 9:27 AM | Comment Link |Helen, on this I agree with you save for one point. I think there are two types of forgiveness.
First there is forgiveness and reconciliation. Something has happened. It is in the past. The person responsible says sorry (and means it), the other person chooses to forgive and not hold it against that person. The slate is wiped clean. In those circumstances there is no justification whatsoever IMO for a Christian withholding forgiveness.
It is one thing to give say you forgive but if it is said through gritted teeth with the intention of having nothing more to do with that person, IMO that is not forgiveness.
Secondly there is the situation where there is no apology, no acknowledgment of having done wrong and perhaps where the wrong is ongoing. In those circumstances I think issues relating to forgiveness are much harder and much more complicated.
I believe there is a place for unilateral forgiveness and that can be the key to bringing about geneuine reconciliation.
But to my mind, forgiveness without reconciliation is hollow, like an empty shell.
I would add that reconciliation does not need to involve agreement as to the issues. Rather, it is an agreement not to let an issue get in the way of relationship. It is about having a healthy respect for different viewpoints.
If someone doesn’t value or respect you, it is often best just to walk away. That doesn’t mean you are not willing to forgive, it just means you don’t intend to let that person continue to abuse you.
Comment by: Helen
64 12/19/06 10:22 AM | Comment Link |I think I agree with everything you said, JG. Fwiw, even if forgiveness without reconciliation is hollow it’s all that’s possible if the other person doesn’t see that they did anything wrong.
I agree. I think there needs t be a mental ‘walking away’ as well as a physical one. If we walk away and are still thinking about how angry we are we haven’t really walked away at all.
Comment by: Helen
65 12/19/06 10:27 AM |