Rephrased

So the Fanbase asked me a question about my last post.  Seems it caused some confusion.  This blog is usually a very raw vomiting of my thoughts such that I  rarely remember what I've written once it's posted.  But she is a dear friend and actually engages this rambling enough to think about it (which is saying something) so I went back over my post and am now trying to offer a fuller explanation, which will delve into the theological.

First, let me say that I wasn't making up the ideas I talked about in the last post.  I was merely rumbling them around in my own mind, much like a rat thoroughly inspects its treats before eating them.  The ideas themselves are all well established, centuries-old ideas that have been well treated in Christian record.  They are, in fact, some of the sharper dividing lines between certain large chunks of denominations.  All this to say, I'm not in any danger of moving beyond the lighted sphere of orthodoxy, in the sense that each side of the debate is considered orthodox to some major denominations.  Though if you've only been steeped in one side, the other will no doubt seem nearly heretical.

The funny thing is if you are a Christian, you probably know people whose denomination is on the other side of the fence and never knew there was a fence.  I know for a fact the Fanbase has regularly attended churches on both sides, and judging by her questions, didn't notice.  This is not a slight to the Fanbase.  I mean it only to say, I am struggling with some obscure points of doctrine that mean a lot to me, but won't really impact most people...which is why I hate theology as a discipline in the first place.  End of preface, now the meat.

The struggle for me is over the doctrines of penal substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness.  These things are endlessly discussed in theological texts, blogs, websites, etc.  So feel free to delve as deep down that rabbit hole as you want.  Here's a good place to start: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/inebriateme/2014/11/thoughts-against-penal-substitutionary-atonement/.  In very brief, the first is a teaching of what Jesus' dying and rising again accomplished and how.  The second is about how salvation works.

Penal substitution says that Jesus had to die to pay for our sins.  The theory, and I stress these are all theories since God didn't see fit to lay it out in long-winded grammar (though I will argue by the end that it is laid out in other ways).  Anyway, the theory says that God is both just and loving.  So he can't abide sin, but he has to forgive it.  To be just, he has to punish the guilty.  But that means killing all his children that he loves.  So God himself decides to take his own punishment for us.  So he sends the aspect of himself known as the Logos or Son to be a human so that he can be fully divine and fully human.  In this way he can 1. support the weight of all humanity's guilt for all sins for all time.  2. take the annihilating punishment of God the Father for us.  and 3. Survive it (the resurrection).  Therefore we as humans can now claim Christ's atonement as ours and are no longer guilty of our own sins, even the ones we haven't committed yet.  God's wrath is satisfied.

This is the doctrine I was steeped in as a kid.  I was trained in theology from a young age and taught to apologize (argue) the faith, since in that particular bent of the faith, it is the duty of every good Christian to be an educated debator for the faith who wins souls by the power of our divinely inspired compelling logic (groan).  But if I'm honest with myself, this doctrine raises so many questions and bad understandings of God.  Of course, I can give you all the answers to dodge the problems, but they are just that: dodges, not resolutions.  Which is probably why that group hasn't won the world in 2000 years time.

For one, how is it just to punish an innocent person?  For that matter, how is it just to let the guilty off because someone else stepped in?  How does that help the guilty get better?  How does that right the wrong they committed?  But worse than that, what does it teach about God?  He seems a twisted father that beats his children black and blue while thinking it's to make them improve.  Or worse yet, the father who beats another kid because his kid did something wrong.  He seems the very opposite of love, or at least schizophrenic about it.  It doesn't at all mesh with the countless verses about love, protection, forgiveness.  In fact, there are far more verses in both the old and new testament that are clearly about God's love and forgiveness and fatherhood than there are verses to support the penal sub model, and those that do could easily be interpreted in other ways.

Moving on.  The second doctrine of imputed righteousness says that Christ's substitutionary work is imputed, put on, the believer so that they are now viewed as righteous in God's sight, even though they are still going to commit sins.  It says that when God looks at a human, he sees the bad we've done, unless we have accepted Christ (done in different ways in various denominations) in which case God sees Christ...in other words, we have a big "PAID" stamp across us, so we're good.  Forgetting the mechanics of this, which are all purely speculation, it still raises many questions, such as why we would be left to continue committing sins?  Why wouldn't it stop?  Why wouldn't it be imputed in a way that it did stop?  It requires some sci-fi time-space disconnect to understand why "new creations" aren't really any newer than the old ones in any humanly discernible way.  I remember the huge let-down when I was baptized and didn't feel any different.  I know some people that kept getting baptized again and again because they felt so much the same they thought it just wasn't sticking, like they were dud dunks.  I felt the same about saying "the salvation prayer".

Not only these questions, but then come the aftermath questions.  Let's say we accept it for a second.  Now what?  Can I just go sin and know it's not going on the record anyway?  Already paid, like a cosmic gift card?  Or do I need to be careful to stay in the salvation?  Perhaps I could get uncovered as easily as I got covered and I'd never know it.  To deal with this, my particular group has ample proof-texts about assurance of salvation to convince us we can't lose it, even if we continue to be terribly bad people.  While others do stress a continuation in faith to keep the record clear.  And still others require a continual re-covering for the new sins.

At this point I should note that the two doctrines are not tied together.  There are denominations who accept one and not the other.

So this brings me to the point of my last post.  I have slowly grown to the point that I can't accept either of the two doctrines.  But what then?  When I try to read the Bible with fresh eyes, I can't hear anything but the old interpretations because I was SOOO steeped in what they mean to the group I was raised in.  So my heart says, "No, it can't be!" and my head says, "But it must!"  And that was what came out in my last post.

Fortunately, I am beginning to see what else is there.  It has taken years of information filtering into my brain, but now it is coming together so that it makes sense.  The trail was blazed by many things that Steve Miegs taught, though I don't know if he remembers them because he was so caught up in the moment when he spoke, I have no doubt he spoke from the Spirit.  C.S Lewis, then laid the real groundwork (I often refer to him as my teacher Jack in this blog) with his talk of halls and rooms and hell being locked from the inside.  The push down the road came from Wayne Jacobsen, who showed me I was not alone in modern times and that if my heart was sick at the system, it was not a flaw in me, but God's truest voice.  Also that what we call churches need not be the Church.  And the fog is clearing at the hands of George MacDonald (Uncle George), who wrote so so many things about this a full two centuries before I would read them.  It is Uncle George who is primarily showing me how to understand the world in this new view.

Of course there have been many others along the way, helping hands and points in the direction.  One of the dearest to me is Dan Dunn, who has never had a shadow of doubt that I was heading right, and never placed an ounce of pressure to do otherwise, even when it forces us to part ways for a time.  He is truly a Christ-like example for me in what it means to love people where they're at.

Which brings me to the summary of this long post.  So what now?  For me, I think we can leave the theology (study about God) and just get to know the real God.  There is only one way to do this.  That is to do what he says.  As Uncle George says, if anyone truly wants to see what Truth might reside in Jesus, he just has to try it out.  There's a reason Jesus didn't leave a theological treatise.  He didn't even write a single word of his own.  He simply DID his work.  So forget the teachings, the processes, the doctrines.  I don't care if you never understand the history or processes, or even call him Lord.  If you want to find out if he was who he said, simply open one of the Gospels and go do what you read him doing.  Simply start with whatever next comes your way.  In whatever way you can act like Jesus, do it and see what happens.  Then do it again and again until you understand.  If there's no value, you'll soon see.  Doing good can't hurt in any case.  But if there is value in it beyond the ordinary good deed, you might just have found the door to the universe.  Work it out and see for yourself.  If you get stuck, let's talk.  No guarantees I'll have an answer, but if God is there, shouldn't he help us find one?

I am convinced, this is the only true means of salvation and I'll go no further for now accept to say that it was proven for me in one simple sentence when a dear friend was downing Christians and then said to me, "but you and your wife are the most Christ-like people I've ever met.  You actually live it."  I almost cried right there on the street.  There could be no better compliment for me and no better proof amidst all my doubts.

Breathe

The Fan Base just complimented this blog, making me realize I haven't written anything for a while.  In reading back over recent posts I see that it is strangely prophetic of things happening now.  This should not be strange.  We're just blind to the winds, tides, currents of time and circumstance.

God has indeed been working miracles in my life recently.  We prayed that he would work his will and glory and he is.  I don't want to say more now.

I've also been learning some new things about how to relate to God and others.  One that I will repeat from Wayne Jacobsen, whom I've mentioned before.  I had never really examined the Prodigal Son story.  Sure we all know the typical lesson from it about the kid who squanders his wealth and ends up crawling home only to be welcomed.  But we leave out two main points of the story.  One is the father who acts like no human father we've ever known.  Who gives an inheritance before he's dead?  Who allows his son to squander himself and his resources?  We'd call him a bad parent who didn't control his kid through other means.  And then he isn't the least bit angry when the son returns.  Not even a scolding or knowing look.  This is a picture of how God loves us, and I wonder if my notions of parenting aren't wrong in light of it?

Then there's the other son who doesn't run away.  He is angry about the prodigal and the reception of him.  He says he has slaved away for the father and got nothing for it.  I used to identify with this son.  I did the right things.  I followed the rules, and I was supposed to be so selfless as to not be miffed at the bad kid getting the party?  I thought it was a flaw in me.  But if we look at the response of the father a little differently it makes so much more sense.  This son wasn't doing right either.  The father says you are with me every day and can have these things any time.  But that son hadn't because he'd been so busy trying to be good...to run things for the father.  The Father is basically saying the son could have had that calf and the party any time.  He just hadn't.  It reminds me of that stupid pizza commercial from years ago where the scout master wants to pay for the free pizza in the buy-one-get-one.  He and the clerk go at it that he'll keep getting extra free pizzas that way because a free one comes with every payment.  Just shut up and take the free pizza!  You can't work it off.  God doesn't need our help.

I now believe this story represents God and his relation to those who are far from him and those who are closer.  Both miss the point.  One takes the good things he's been given and squanders them to his own destruction and fears to return because of the judgement he deserves.  The other works to earn his keep even though the entire wealth has been at his disposal the whole time.  But the father wants only to love and give to his children.

So then, how do we reconcile the Old Testament Vengeful God image?  I don't know.  I don't think it can be systematized.  Wayne suggests that it might be a case of mistaken motives.  Rather than reading everything as obey or else, perhaps it is saying, in me, you'll be able to...  In other words, it's more like in me, you will honor your father and mother, you will not be jealous, etc.  and wrath is a way of purifying sin from within us.  It's not a new idea.  The view of sin as disease needing cure has been around a long time.  It fits so well when you start applying it.  Even Jack's idea of hell being locked from the inside is built along these lines.  I don't want to get into the theology of it.  That is to miss the point.

The point is this:  God does all the work.  We can't change ourselves, save ourselves, or do anything to get rid of that which destroys us.  But God loves us and wants us to love him freely.  The rules are for two purposes: 1. show us what is destroying us by defining how we fail, and 2. warn us of how certain things will destroy us.  The true power of Christianity, which is as otherworldly and crazy sounding now as it was 2000 years ago is that we don't have to do anything.  Just open myself to the reality, the mere possibility even, and breathe.  Let that love become real to me.  Then I'll begin to love him back.  And that's what he wants.  Not obedience, not sacrifice, the love of his children.  He delights in us and in raising us.  I want to live like this.

Two Sides, One Coin

Grace is a central issue of Christianity. Volumes have been written on it. I don't want to repeat or synthesize any of that. This blog is about contemplations, engagement of ideas. I recently read an article on grace in a blog by Wayne Jacobsen where he addresses a question about modern use of grace as license to sin. His answer went, as usual, exactly where I would have gone, but perhaps in a more refined and knowledgeable fashion than I would have managed. In short, he says that apart from a relationship with Jesus all else is human effort and will not work in the end.

Some claim grace is a stamped pass to heaven and thereby ignore the relationship and ignore a call to be holy and become like God. They use grace as license to continue in their own will and sinful desires. Others claim grace only opens the door but it is up to us to do an endless variation of things that all amount to earning our salvation in some fashion or other. Even the Evangelical alter call is in this group, but that's another story. There are many variations along the spectrum in both directions.

So how are we to find the right balance? This is where Wayne's words struck me most. Anywhere on the spectrum, and truly even trying to find a place on it at all, results in a constant tension between legalism and licentiousness. The whole process is just more human effort.

Like the old War Games moral...the only winning move is not to play. It is only in a relationship of trust (that is what the word faith actually means, just simple trust) that the two sides can make sense and we can get off of that tightrope.

I am given unbelievable grace for all time...that is, I have been forgiven for things for which I am justly guilty. And I must work out my salvation with fear and trembling, not being overconfident. Both are true and make sense in an actual personal relationship. Everyone would agree that if someone bought you out of a mess with no obligation to do so, we should be grateful and would owe that person. Even if they said forget it, we would seek to repay in some way at some point, never forgetting that favor. And if they did ask, we'd do what we could, right? To do otherwise would just be wrong. If that person asked us to hang out with them, we'd probably accept, even if it wasn't the scene we were used to. This is a shallow example of how grace and works are reconciled in a relationship. Of course it will fall apart if we pursue it too much, just as all human metaphors do, but the point is clear enough I think.

So sad that so many people quickly trade that relationship for system and process. Giving more won't make God love you more. It won't make you more blessed. It won't fix your life any more than continuing in all the same old destructive habits will. Sure some things are better than others, but the good in them comes from their connection to the spirit and truth in them, not the acts themselves. They are still curved roads in a curved world all bound in the same circle, to borrow some elven mythology. But you can't hang out with God, listen to him for any length of time, without changing who you are.

Perhaps this is why it's so hard for settled people to go to him and so much easier for the broken. The broken feel they have nothing to lose. While those who feel comfortable could be making a mistake and who knows what he'll ask of them? How beautiful to be forced to let ourselves go to find true freedom. To be forced to trust. Again, this seems an unacceptable condition in a system, but in a personal relationship the benefactor has every right to stipulate the terms of his aid. We do it every day...judging someone's worthiness to receive, to win, to befriend.