Josh poses the question on the hell rant: Which is more outrageous: A God lets everyone do as they please or a God that judges those who disobey?"
I'd have to say the God who judges. People to a large degree do what they want. Christian do what they want by doing what they think God wants them to do, often with hilarious results. The judging those who disobey part is where God and I part ways. I find it mean and petty to offer billions of people thousands of relions and then punish those who were arbitrarily born into a "wrong" culture or religion.
I find I have a little more tolerance for converts; Barack Obama as an adult studied the religions and came up with Protestant Christianity.
Those who believe exactly as thei parents did give me a harder time. How could they be any more right than a person raised Buddhist or Muslim or Orthodox Jew?
That to me is the height of arrogance, and any God who supported that is not only outrageous, but downright cruel and unworthy of admiration, let alone worship.
3 comments:
I agree that we are all inevitably rooted in the culture and tradition we are born into. There is no way around that. Still, what gives someone, like Barack Obama, the ability to consider God in a way that is not simply a reenactment of family beliefs? As a self proclaimed ‘recovering evangelical’ you have demonstrated this ability to make choices even though you were born into a very particular belief system. Everyone, whether they believe as their parents did or not, makes a truth claim of some sort. Indeed, the American pluralist makes a truth claim by suggesting that there is no truth claim to make. (And, as I said in my original comment, I don’t believe this truth claim, to be one that acknowledges the God of the bible, is bound up in the American, ultra-conservative, manifestation of the church. So someone born in Morocco 100 years ago, doesn’t have where a button down shirt and khakis to church to believe in Jesus. And in fact can believe in the God of the bible without any of the cultural cues we’re used too. You get the point I’m trying to make right? )
So, why is it arrogance to say that the truth I believe is the truth? Isn’t this exactly what is suggested in saying, “no one is more right than the other and ever culture’s beliefs are equally valid?” This is a claim on the truth as well. I suppose this is where I come to my hope for a God that judges. Not because I believe I have a get out of jail free card, but because if there is a God of judgment then there is a God of love. Put in other words, how can a God that does not care what we do be a God of love at the same time?
This all becomes disgusting and irredeemable when the judgment of God is hijacked as a weapon in culture wars. You know this all too well. But the church should never be close to such a position. An excerpt from a Christian Romanian playwright I admire:
“The church is not the club of those who would not kill Jesus. Our instinctive identification, as Christians, is always with the disciples and not with the betrayer. But no one betrays Jesus but the church. A non-Christian doesn't betray Jesus. A non-believer doesn't. It's not possible. Logically, it's not possible. Who betrays Jesus? The church betrays Him. The church is Judas.”
So, for what its worth (and I know this is not the main point of the conversation) the Christian claim of a God of judgment understands first that it is under that judgment and that belief in Jesus is not a ticket to an exclusive club but a deeper understanding of that judgment. So, there is no line to draw in the sand except God’s claim on his own glory. But in that again is where a God of judgment becomes “mean and petty.” God’s judgment has to be of far greater worth and importance than my own.
This getting to be a bit long. Sorry I’ll cut it here, but that’s some of my response.
Thoughts?
Okay, what you fail to disavow is the idea that anyone who has failed to accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior is going to eternal damnation and endless excruciating torture for ever and ever, amen.
There's no getting around the concept that my son, the undifferentiated bundle of 12 cells, the 6th century Namibian and some guy in Uzbekistan who never heard of a Bible, never mind Jesus, salvation and grace is appropriately sentenced to hell and all it entails.
Alternately, it's easy to imagine a white Southern KKK member leaning on Jesus as his personal savior, while defending his attacks on black folk as consistent with the Biblical imperative, "Slaves, obey your masters."
I just have a problem with a god who, capable of inventing any universe from scratch, made such a vindictive one.
Hi Guys,
I though I would also write, as I cannot turn down a good debate/argument/discourse/rant.
Is this about truth or what is good?
Truth can be very crushing. It is absolute and embodies a power that is both good and then not so good, life giving and destructive.
For example, tectonic plates, and continental shifts. It's true they shift and move. It's a truth that is necessary to have life on this planet. If the tectonic plates did not move around, we could not survive on the spinning mineral ball. But continental shifting is the cause of many tragedies. Earthquakes, Tidal waves, Tsunamis, death and destruction, mishap and disaster.
So I used the continental plates as an example cause it has nothing to do with doctrine, and theology, ....or does it?!
We only know what we experience, and what we can study from this world. Our great philosophers, prophets, and poets studied the natural world, saw how it actually worked, and then commented. (Yeah, there is a lot to be said here, sorry, large over reaching brushstrokes early in the morning.).
So I wanted to relate it to a story Jesus told about the Goats and the Lambs. I am sure you al are familiar with this story. Didn't cake have a cute little song that said, sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell?
Well, what strikes me as the most intersting point of that story is not how some people who CLAIMED to know God, use god's name, preach in god's name,etc. etc., were turned away, but HOW THOSE WHO DID NOT KNOW, DID NOT KNOW THEY WERE SERVING GOD, WERE ACCEPTED WITH OPEN ARMS!
We all know what to do!
Let's just get together and start talking about creative ways to do it, and dream!
Feed those who are hungry.
Cloth those who are naked.
Visit those in jail.
Protect the widow and orphan.
Love at all costs.
This is across the board human truth.
I <3 U
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