You can see in the New Testament how Jesus, Paul, and others show how the Old Testament deconstructs the traditional Judaism of the time. They quoted Scripture to undercut sabbath observance, circumcision, temple worship with its sacrifices, dietary laws, and despising of non-Jewish peoples. These were the life-breath of Judaism’s identity in the first century. (Judaism has since evolved in some very positive directions, I hasten to point out.)
Thursday, July 24, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 8: Have I Lost My Faith?
In my way of seeing things for four decades of my life, I would have regarded my current self either as having lost my faith, or as never having had genuine faith in the first place, depending on whether I was in one of my Calvinistic seasons.
But I didn’t lose my sincere and deep faith. I followed through on it.
You can see in the New Testament how Jesus, Paul, and others show how the Old Testament deconstructs the traditional Judaism of the time. They quoted Scripture to undercut sabbath observance, circumcision, temple worship with its sacrifices, dietary laws, and despising of non-Jewish peoples. These were the life-breath of Judaism’s identity in the first century. (Judaism has since evolved in some very positive directions, I hasten to point out.)
Jesus was rejected by his own nation because he pointed out that their own Scriptures contained radical criticism of their religious teachings and practices.
I came to see that following Jesus doesn’t mean believing everything that others said he said or said about him. The most radical way to follow Jesus is to learn from his way of thinking.
When I did that, with help from numerous works by competent scholars, I saw that the New Testament deconstructs traditional Christianity just as the Old Testament deconstructed traditional Judaism.
Gerd Thiessen, in his book Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach, observes that faith believes something because the accepted authority (a church, the Bible, a person) says to. Science, on the other hand, believes something on the basis of confirmed evidence. When I was 18 and a new Evangelical convert, I was asked if I believed that Christ would return again to Earth. This was a new idea to me, so I asked if the Bible said so. I was shown a verse that affirmed it, so I replied, "Yes, I believe it."
But the New Testament challenges that way of thinking. It invites us by its example to think critically about what we are told on the basis of authority, and to ask if it really is so. It ultimately supports critical, scientific thinking rather than automatic submission to traditional authorities and their requirements.
I suspect that this may be one important reason that science and democracy and secular philosophy developed in countries that were heavily influenced by the Bible. It was the natural outgrowth of the mind and spirit and method of the New Testament. And this would be why Christian colleges and universities that are founded to train young persons in devout service to Christ tend to become secular over time.
You can see in the New Testament how Jesus, Paul, and others show how the Old Testament deconstructs the traditional Judaism of the time. They quoted Scripture to undercut sabbath observance, circumcision, temple worship with its sacrifices, dietary laws, and despising of non-Jewish peoples. These were the life-breath of Judaism’s identity in the first century. (Judaism has since evolved in some very positive directions, I hasten to point out.)
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 7: Resurrection
The central tenet of traditional Christian faith is the physical resurrection of the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. The idea is that the resurrection is a historical fact, and therefore gives an indisputable reason to believe everything else that is claimed for Jesus, especially that he was (is) the incarnation of the eternal God as a human being, that his death was the payment for the sins of humanity that was necessary for God to be able to forgive our sins without being unrighteous, that Jesus ascended to heaven to rule over the earth at the right hand of God, and that he will return again to establish his rule on a renewed earth. Jesus' resurrection is also the basis for the Christian expectation that all the dead will be resurrected, judged by God, and finally either admitted to eternal life in the coming new world or sent to hell to be punished forever for their sins with zero possibility of escape.
The entire body of traditional Christian teaching hinges on the resurrection. My early training as a fresh 18-year-old convert to Evangelicalism in college emphasized the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. As the apostle Paul himself wrote, "If Christ hasn’t been raised, then our preaching is useless and your faith is useless" (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Whenever I had doubts over the years, I always went back to the resurrection. Because it was true, everything taught by traditional Christianity was true. The resurrection was the proof of the totality. If the evidence for the resurrection did not hold up, traditional Christianity, by its own assertion, was useless.
Whenever I had doubts over the years, I always went back to the resurrection. Because it was true, everything taught by traditional Christianity was true. The resurrection was the proof of the totality. If the evidence for the resurrection did not hold up, traditional Christianity, by its own assertion, was useless.
In the end, the evidence did not stand up. As I studied the widely divergent accounts of the resurrection in the four gospels, another way of understanding them became clear to me. These documents were the product of creative human efforts to make sense of the inexplicable death of Jesus by crucifixion at the hands of Roman occupiers. How could this man, the one they had come to believe was the Jewish Messiah, the ruler anointed (appointed) by God to destroy those very pagan oppressors and their evil rule over Israel, possibly be killed by them?
Belief in the idea of the resurrection of Jesus enabled his followers to interpret his death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and to transfer to the future his conquering of the evil pagan powers on earth through whom Satan worked.
Belief in the idea of the resurrection of Jesus enabled his followers to interpret his death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and to transfer to the future his conquering of the evil pagan powers on earth through whom Satan worked.
At first, Jesus' followers were sure that his future victorious return would occur within a generation. That did not happen, nor has it happened since. There is no reason to believe that it ever will:
- The gospels do not record actual words of Jesus written down on the spot by secretaries, but recollections (memories) of his words shaped by decades of storytelling. Paula Fredriksen’s and Dale Allison's books on Jesus, the gospels, and the resurrection were especially helpful to me here, among many others.
- The idea of Christ reigning at the right hand of God in heaven is based on the Bible's ancient imaginative vision of the universe as a flat earth supported by pillars. Under it was hell, and above it was the hard dome of the sky. On top of the dome was a the throne of God (nicely illustrated in Inspiration and Incarnation, page 54, by Peter Enns).
A deep apprehension came over me with these thoughts. It felt as though my whole world was coming apart.
But it wasn't. It was just my idea of the world that was coming apart. Reality was what it had always been. There was all the more reason to hope, to live wisely and responsibly, to make the most of the one life I have to live, not only for my own sake and for others, but also for the sake of generations to come.
In fact, my earlier faith was not useless. The resurrection stories are a picture of how, in the real world, failure can be transformed into something that energizes and mobilizes for a greater good. The humans whose minds conceived of the resurrection were the fruit of a long and amazing process of evolution that brought into being human consciousness and its desire for purpose and meaning and the overcoming of evil and destruction. Jesus' life and teaching inspired this in his followers, as did his way of dying.
Therefore I am still a Christian in the sense that I embrace the core values that I see in the New Testament witness to Jesus and in his followers -
- a love for truth and genuine understanding of myself, of others, and of the universe and its story
- love for people as people beyond traditional tribal loyalties and hostilities
- making every effort to grow and develop as a whole human being to the end of my days
- working for reconciliation, wherever needed, based on these core values
- a sense of responsibility for doing good to others, relieving suffering and its causes, and making the world a better place, and so contributing to its renewal.
Part 8 to come: Have I lost my faith?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 6: A Parable of Huts
I imagine living in a lovely, well-constructed thatch hut. Everything I need is right there. It's a simple and good lifestyle. It is connected by covered passageways to many other similar huts. The inhabitants of all these huts are constantly coming and going. There are windows. As I peer through them, I see that the world outside is a filthy mess. The people who live outside are evil, and the surroundings are chaos. They are confused and deluded, and need help. My friends from my network of huts and I speak often of how lucky (blessed) we are to be in our huts and not out in that horrific world.
There is a door to the exterior in my hut, hitherto unused. I decide one day to go out to help the poor, misguided people outside. There is indeed dirt and messiness out there, but the place doesn't look very much at all like what I had been seeing through my hut's windows. I saw many acts of kindness, and many of the people were easier and more enjoyable to be with that those in my network of huts.
I go toward them and introduce myself. As I begin to tell them the good news of how excellent life is in our home, one of them silently points over my shoulder to my dwelling. When I follow his finger, I am surprised to see that my hut doesn't look all that great. It actually looks kind of rundown and unkempt.
I turn back to check it out more closely. To my surprise, the windows through which I had been looking for years were opaque. I couldn't see through them into my hut! I ran back inside, and there they were, as transparent as ever, showing me all that transpired on the outside. I ran back out, and what my eyes saw in the daylight bore little resemblance to the films magically appearing in the interior windows. My perception of the outside world had been seriously distorted since I had settled in the hut.
I began to explore the outside world. There were many other networks of huts. Some had closed doors and opaque windows just like mine. But others had transparent windows and open doors, some more than one! The passages connecting them were often just open paths. I was warmly welcomed in many of these and made to feel at home.
I wanted to stay out there exploring the places and the people and learning from them and sharing things that I had learned. There were some scary realities (and confused people, and bad ones) out there, but I preferred to see and deal with them rather than return to the illusory safety and comfort of my own hut. It no longer fit. It was no longer comfortable or reassuring. There was something better outside. Something truer. Something real.
Monday, July 14, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 5
I remarked in Part 2 that the Bible doesn't give one clear teaching on any subject, including God. It speaks with many voices over many centuries and in many different situations. But it isn't exactly a hodgepodge. Just as it portrays development in many of its leading characters - Abraham, Joseph, and David come to mind, as well as Jesus, as we saw in Part 4 - there is a certain development in the Bible itself, along with occasional backslidings into legalism. In the New Testament, for example, later epistles such as Ephesians and Colossians emit rays of such universal light as "Christ is all, and in all," even as the Book of Revelation backslides into themes of vengeance.
Moreover, I saw in my own experience and in that of others that experiencing the realities of life changes how we interpret the Bible. Christians who have gay friends and family members, for example, tend to become more open to equal rights and respect for gay people. Their care for people they love overrides what some Bible passages present as absolute rules. But this is okay, since we have already seen that parts of the Bible itself happily override what other passages say is absolute and eternal!
Think of it: Who said that the Bible is the final word on any matter? Where did they get that idea? It was not from the Bible itself, for the Bible as we know it did not exist until 2-3 centuries after the documents it contains were written.
If anything, the Bible teaches by example that development and growth are human and good. And it demonstrates that there is a real danger of reverting to legalistic ways when we are deeply anxious.
As I came to realize this, the dividing up of behaviors into "sin" and "not sin" seemed overly simplistic to me. So did the idea of dividing the human race into two groups, the righteous and the unrighteous, in heaven and hell respectively, after death. We are all people in process, and the line between good and evil or, rather, between life-giving and destructive, runs right through the heart of each of us.
As a newly converted Evangelical Christian in college, I was taught that the verb "to sin" means "to miss the mark," or target, and that the target is perfection. But the English "to perfect" refers to a growth process, as does the Greek. So I have begun to think of my target in life not as never committing a sin by disobeying God, but as growing continuously in love and understanding. Maturity is then not measured by obedience to an external authority, but by the depth, accuracy, and completeness of a person's understanding what makes for life and love and truth, and their making choices that further those aims.
I am aware, of course, of verses and arguments that can be marshalled against what I have written here. For many years I used them myself. But they have lost all plausibility for me, for the reasons given so far and because of what I think of as the parable of the huts, which I will share next time.
Moreover, I saw in my own experience and in that of others that experiencing the realities of life changes how we interpret the Bible. Christians who have gay friends and family members, for example, tend to become more open to equal rights and respect for gay people. Their care for people they love overrides what some Bible passages present as absolute rules. But this is okay, since we have already seen that parts of the Bible itself happily override what other passages say is absolute and eternal!
Think of it: Who said that the Bible is the final word on any matter? Where did they get that idea? It was not from the Bible itself, for the Bible as we know it did not exist until 2-3 centuries after the documents it contains were written.
If anything, the Bible teaches by example that development and growth are human and good. And it demonstrates that there is a real danger of reverting to legalistic ways when we are deeply anxious.
As I came to realize this, the dividing up of behaviors into "sin" and "not sin" seemed overly simplistic to me. So did the idea of dividing the human race into two groups, the righteous and the unrighteous, in heaven and hell respectively, after death. We are all people in process, and the line between good and evil or, rather, between life-giving and destructive, runs right through the heart of each of us.
As a newly converted Evangelical Christian in college, I was taught that the verb "to sin" means "to miss the mark," or target, and that the target is perfection. But the English "to perfect" refers to a growth process, as does the Greek. So I have begun to think of my target in life not as never committing a sin by disobeying God, but as growing continuously in love and understanding. Maturity is then not measured by obedience to an external authority, but by the depth, accuracy, and completeness of a person's understanding what makes for life and love and truth, and their making choices that further those aims.
I am aware, of course, of verses and arguments that can be marshalled against what I have written here. For many years I used them myself. But they have lost all plausibility for me, for the reasons given so far and because of what I think of as the parable of the huts, which I will share next time.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 4
Jesus Changes His Mind
Matthew 15:21-28 recounts a story of Jesus taking a side-trip to the cities of Tyre and Sidon. There a woman of Canaanite origin approached Jesus and called out for him to have mercy on her demon-tormented daughter. He doesn’t answer her at all, and says to his disciples that he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” When she persists, he says, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
What’s going on here? That’s what I wondered when I spoke on this passage a year or so ago. In college I had heard of a pastor who said that Jesus had sinned in his way of treating this woman who asked him to help her. I know, of course, that some interpreters try to soften Jesus’ calling her a dog, saying it was a term of warm affection. I wasn’t convinced, though I understood why they needed to interpret things in that way.
What eventually came to mind was this: The adult Jesus may well have never have had occasion interact more than superficially with a Canaanite person before this moment. His initial response to her was the usual Israelite reaction to one of the apparently sub-human enemies that Joshua and the ancient nation were supposed to have exterminated because of the magnitude of their idolatry and sinfulness. Jesus was simply responding to this encounter according to the culturally transmitted cues he had picked up as a child. He reacted automatically to the situation as any other person raised in that culture would react.
But then something really surprising happens. The Canaanite woman stands her ground yet again, saying that dogs have a right to the crumbs that fall from the table. Talk about chutzpah!
Now Jesus seems to begin to see and hear her as a real person, not a stereotype. He stops, looks at her, and speaks directly to her for the first time. At this moment, Jesus is stepping outside his culture’s prescribed mindset and behavior toward a Canaanite and begins to perceive and respond to her as a fellow human being. Her assurance and confidence in his ability and willingness helps to break the stereotype Jesus had been taught. The wall goes down, and there is healing as well as reconciliation.
This story portrays Jesus growing as a person. He is growing out of, and beyond, what he was taught, directly and indirectly, as a child. And it is a face to face encounter that gives him the occasion to do so.
I concluded that the “sinned” or “didn’t sin” framework of the above-mentioned pastor regarding this story misses the point. As a human being, Jesus needed to continue to grow in maturity throughout his life, as the New Testament itself recognizes (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 5:8).
This reinforced a question for me: Is it possible that continued growth and development over the course of our lifetime in a more useful framework for evaluating ourselves and others than that of sin and righteousness?
(To be continued)
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 3
I continue to respond to my Minnesota friend Dan's interest in how I got to where I am today spiritually.
Simply aiming to follow Jesus deconstructed many of the Christian teachings (such as hell) that I had received. Given the difficulty of finding a unified message in the Bible itself (as I recounted in the previous post), I focused on the person of Jesus as the lens through which I would read the rest of Scripture. John 14:9 gave me a reason for this. Jesus is quoted there as saying, "Those who have seen me have seen the Father."
I ran into trouble pretty quickly in the Old Testament book of Joshua, which tells the story of Israel's conquest of the Promised Land from its Canaanite inhabitants. There the people of God are told by God to slaughter all the men, women, children, and farm animals of the Canaanites. So I said to myself, if someone who has seen Jesus has seen God, and since Jesus therefore shows us what God is really like, it should make sense to imagine Jesus telling the Israelites to commit Joshua's mass slaughter. It doesn't work. Again, Jesus' message and life are all about loving the undeserving, even one's enemies.
In an earlier part of my life, I might have replied to this that God's plan had different stages, and that the slaughter of the Canaanites was God's just judgment on their sins. I would have added that in the same way, God justly condemns to eternal hell those who do not repent and believe. (Yes, writing that now evokes a strong cringe factor.) And that Jesus himself warned people against hell.
That might have worked as a way to retain the link between Jesus, unconditional love, and God. But I couldn't figure out why God couldn't forgive his enemies unless they repented. Didn't that make him just like "the pagans" (Matthew 5:43-48)?
To make things yet more difficult, I was struck one day by Saint Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 13:8 - "Love never ends/fails/perishes." Traditional teaching is that God loves you until you die. At that point, his "righteous wrath" takes over and sends you to endless torment with no possible relief or escape. But then God's love does indeed end/fail/perish.
Following Jesus' example and teaching led me to conclude that there is no hell, despite other passages that teach that there is.
In returning to the U.S. from 20+ years in France, I saw that Evangelicalism had changed. The movement that had been focused on saving souls from hell was now almost entirely silent on that score. Politics and "taking America back for Christ" and "restoring God's moral absolutes" was now the dominant theme. Thus it seemed to me that I wasn't the only one that found hell hard to believe. That was the only way to explain why people's "eternal destiny" could be sacrificed on the altar of today's politics. Deep down, Evangelicals didn’t really believe in hell either.
More next time on Jesus' unplanned meeting with one of the descendants of those Canaanites that Israel was supposed to destroy....
Simply aiming to follow Jesus deconstructed many of the Christian teachings (such as hell) that I had received. Given the difficulty of finding a unified message in the Bible itself (as I recounted in the previous post), I focused on the person of Jesus as the lens through which I would read the rest of Scripture. John 14:9 gave me a reason for this. Jesus is quoted there as saying, "Those who have seen me have seen the Father."
I ran into trouble pretty quickly in the Old Testament book of Joshua, which tells the story of Israel's conquest of the Promised Land from its Canaanite inhabitants. There the people of God are told by God to slaughter all the men, women, children, and farm animals of the Canaanites. So I said to myself, if someone who has seen Jesus has seen God, and since Jesus therefore shows us what God is really like, it should make sense to imagine Jesus telling the Israelites to commit Joshua's mass slaughter. It doesn't work. Again, Jesus' message and life are all about loving the undeserving, even one's enemies.
In an earlier part of my life, I might have replied to this that God's plan had different stages, and that the slaughter of the Canaanites was God's just judgment on their sins. I would have added that in the same way, God justly condemns to eternal hell those who do not repent and believe. (Yes, writing that now evokes a strong cringe factor.) And that Jesus himself warned people against hell.
That might have worked as a way to retain the link between Jesus, unconditional love, and God. But I couldn't figure out why God couldn't forgive his enemies unless they repented. Didn't that make him just like "the pagans" (Matthew 5:43-48)?
To make things yet more difficult, I was struck one day by Saint Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 13:8 - "Love never ends/fails/perishes." Traditional teaching is that God loves you until you die. At that point, his "righteous wrath" takes over and sends you to endless torment with no possible relief or escape. But then God's love does indeed end/fail/perish.
Following Jesus' example and teaching led me to conclude that there is no hell, despite other passages that teach that there is.
In returning to the U.S. from 20+ years in France, I saw that Evangelicalism had changed. The movement that had been focused on saving souls from hell was now almost entirely silent on that score. Politics and "taking America back for Christ" and "restoring God's moral absolutes" was now the dominant theme. Thus it seemed to me that I wasn't the only one that found hell hard to believe. That was the only way to explain why people's "eternal destiny" could be sacrificed on the altar of today's politics. Deep down, Evangelicals didn’t really believe in hell either.
More next time on Jesus' unplanned meeting with one of the descendants of those Canaanites that Israel was supposed to destroy....
Monday, July 7, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 2
From the comments on Facebook, I see that this is going to be a bit of a delicate exercise! So I reiterate that my only aim is to tell my own story, not to debate. The ending of the story may please a few people, but will likely disappoint many others. Whatever you may think of my journey, I am still your friend in real life, and hope you will be mine.
The more I studied the Bible, the more I discovered that it did not say what I had been told it said. The work of Evangelical New Testament scholar N.T. (Tom) Wright played a key role here. For example, he shows that the gospel is not the widely used four steps to God (Billy Graham) or four spiritual laws (Campus Crusade, now renamed Cru), but is rather the message that Jesus is Lord. Wright shows that what Paul means by "justification" is not what evangelical theology claims it means.
Moreover, I began to admit that the Bible, and even just the New Testament, does not have just one teaching on any given subject, but many. At one point I counted thirty-some books on Amazon with titles such as four (or five, or three) views of hell, heaven, God's foreknowledge, the Rapture, the resurrection, the meaning of Jesus' death, homosexuality, divorce, etc. In all these books, several differing viewpoints were advocated by authors claiming the Bible as absolute truth and the final authority. But they could not agree on what it said.
What to make of this? Was God incapable of communicating clearly? It became apparent to me that what Evangelicals do is pick out those passages that they agree with and use them to explain away other passages which appeal to advocates of other positions. Historian Mark Noll, in his The Civil War as Theological Crisis shows how both North and South appealed to the Bible to support their position on slavery. The credibility of the Bible to resolve vitally important ethical issues was seriously undermined.
In fact, every reader of the Bible brings to it their own preconceived lenses of concepts and values, and reads the Bible through them. The result is that we cannot see what is actually there in the text if it doesn’t fit with the mental scheme we received from pastors, teachers and authors.
Evangelical Christians often say that without the Bible there would be no moral absolutes. That may be true, but there are none with the Bible either. Even one of the ten commandments, the one about consecrating the seventh day as the Sabbath day of rest, turned out not to be absolute, since Christians generally worship not on the seventh day but on the first. And the rite of circumcision, which preceded the law of Moses and was given to Abraham as an eternal covenant, was tossed out as worthless (Galatians 6:15) in the New Testament. I would like to say that the Bible teaches love as an absolute. But I cannot, for the Book of Revelation describes God, and even Jesus, as taking vengeance on their enemies, whereas in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says to love our enemies.
Here is how I reasoned: If God gave us the Bible and all its details, what is God trying to tell us through all these details and many, many additional challenges the Bible gives us?
My conclusion is that the Bible is calling us to think for ourselves. Just as Adam and Eve in the Genesis story were given no instruction manual on how to cultivate the garden, but had to figure it out for themselves, so we have to figure out for ourselves - together - how to live a good life. That is in fact what I had always been doing as an Evangelical, but without being aware of it. I just assumed that what I had been taught about the Bible was correct, and that those who disagreed were simply rejecting its authority.
Next time, how following Jesus led me to completely rethink the Christianity I had been taught, and that I myself had taught to others as a pastor and missionary.
The more I studied the Bible, the more I discovered that it did not say what I had been told it said. The work of Evangelical New Testament scholar N.T. (Tom) Wright played a key role here. For example, he shows that the gospel is not the widely used four steps to God (Billy Graham) or four spiritual laws (Campus Crusade, now renamed Cru), but is rather the message that Jesus is Lord. Wright shows that what Paul means by "justification" is not what evangelical theology claims it means.
Moreover, I began to admit that the Bible, and even just the New Testament, does not have just one teaching on any given subject, but many. At one point I counted thirty-some books on Amazon with titles such as four (or five, or three) views of hell, heaven, God's foreknowledge, the Rapture, the resurrection, the meaning of Jesus' death, homosexuality, divorce, etc. In all these books, several differing viewpoints were advocated by authors claiming the Bible as absolute truth and the final authority. But they could not agree on what it said.
What to make of this? Was God incapable of communicating clearly? It became apparent to me that what Evangelicals do is pick out those passages that they agree with and use them to explain away other passages which appeal to advocates of other positions. Historian Mark Noll, in his The Civil War as Theological Crisis shows how both North and South appealed to the Bible to support their position on slavery. The credibility of the Bible to resolve vitally important ethical issues was seriously undermined.
In fact, every reader of the Bible brings to it their own preconceived lenses of concepts and values, and reads the Bible through them. The result is that we cannot see what is actually there in the text if it doesn’t fit with the mental scheme we received from pastors, teachers and authors.
Evangelical Christians often say that without the Bible there would be no moral absolutes. That may be true, but there are none with the Bible either. Even one of the ten commandments, the one about consecrating the seventh day as the Sabbath day of rest, turned out not to be absolute, since Christians generally worship not on the seventh day but on the first. And the rite of circumcision, which preceded the law of Moses and was given to Abraham as an eternal covenant, was tossed out as worthless (Galatians 6:15) in the New Testament. I would like to say that the Bible teaches love as an absolute. But I cannot, for the Book of Revelation describes God, and even Jesus, as taking vengeance on their enemies, whereas in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says to love our enemies.
Here is how I reasoned: If God gave us the Bible and all its details, what is God trying to tell us through all these details and many, many additional challenges the Bible gives us?
My conclusion is that the Bible is calling us to think for ourselves. Just as Adam and Eve in the Genesis story were given no instruction manual on how to cultivate the garden, but had to figure it out for themselves, so we have to figure out for ourselves - together - how to live a good life. That is in fact what I had always been doing as an Evangelical, but without being aware of it. I just assumed that what I had been taught about the Bible was correct, and that those who disagreed were simply rejecting its authority.
Next time, how following Jesus led me to completely rethink the Christianity I had been taught, and that I myself had taught to others as a pastor and missionary.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
How I Changed My Mind - 1
In response to a request from my longtime Minnesota friend Dan, I shall attempt to relate as succinctly as possible how I mutated or evolved from the convinced, sold-out Evangelical Christian I was when Dan knew me in the late 70s and early 80s to a very different perspective today. Like Dan, I was sad when I saw someone else change in a similar way, for I felt they were making the worst possible mistake and going down a path that would lead to destruction. It was inconceivable to me why anyone would choose to go that way.
This simplest and best explanation I can provide is that I read the Bible. Not carelessly, but carefully and attentively. One of my seminary profs had repeatedly emphasized the importance of noting "the phenomena [details] of the text." So I learned Greek and Hebrew as well as I could so as to be able to evaluate the interpretations of others and provide teaching and preaching that would be as truthful, and therefore helpful, as possible.
Somewhere along the way I realized that there is a difference between the reality of God on the one hand, and my idea of God on the other. This is self-evident, since there is also a gap between the reality of any human being, such as my wife, and my idea of that person. And I can spend my entire life trying to match my understanding of Jean (my spouse) or of God to the reality of each, and yet only partially succeed.
As with God and people, so with the Bible. I had a certain idea of the Bible in those days. I believed it was the true and correct one, and I based my life on it - my career, my family life, everything. But there was, in fact, a gap between my idea of the Bible and its reality. The more closely I studied and taught it over the years, the more I discovered that lay outside my concept of the Bible. This made me uncomfortable! So I worked all the harder to make sense out of what was becoming increasingly perplexing.
(To be continued)
This simplest and best explanation I can provide is that I read the Bible. Not carelessly, but carefully and attentively. One of my seminary profs had repeatedly emphasized the importance of noting "the phenomena [details] of the text." So I learned Greek and Hebrew as well as I could so as to be able to evaluate the interpretations of others and provide teaching and preaching that would be as truthful, and therefore helpful, as possible.
Somewhere along the way I realized that there is a difference between the reality of God on the one hand, and my idea of God on the other. This is self-evident, since there is also a gap between the reality of any human being, such as my wife, and my idea of that person. And I can spend my entire life trying to match my understanding of Jean (my spouse) or of God to the reality of each, and yet only partially succeed.
As with God and people, so with the Bible. I had a certain idea of the Bible in those days. I believed it was the true and correct one, and I based my life on it - my career, my family life, everything. But there was, in fact, a gap between my idea of the Bible and its reality. The more closely I studied and taught it over the years, the more I discovered that lay outside my concept of the Bible. This made me uncomfortable! So I worked all the harder to make sense out of what was becoming increasingly perplexing.
(To be continued)
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