Judgement House update
I knew this was a possibility when I wrote my post about Judgement House: the lead pastor at El Toro Baptist Church somehow stumbled upon my blog and commented. Feel free to go to the comments and check out his very gentle and helpful words.
As I wrote the original post, I was careful to make sure it passed the “true Christian test,” i.e. I didn’t want to say “You all are horrible Christians and I am going to tell you so because that’s what good Christians do; we judge each other with mean spirited sarcasm!” So when I saw that Pastor Mike has commented, my first reaction was relief that I had been careful with my words in that post. And I was also relieved as I read his words, which were written with a similar tone of respect.
For every one of my hypothetical accusations of them being a fire and brimstone, exclusivist, anger-preaching church that conveniently opposes anything different from themselves (like people of other faiths, gays, etc.), he could have met with an insistence that I am a typical liberal Christian who is destroying the meaning of Christianity because I embrace worldly and popular views of God and that I refuse to be obedient to the true message of God, picking and choosing the passages of the Bible that meet my own compass-less standard.
I’ve heard the arguments on both sides and I can say that none of these arguments should come out of a Christian’s mouth. We can disagree, but there is no hope for the world if Christians treat even their own kind with such venom and intentional misunderstanding. So thank you God for moving Pastor Mike and me beyond accusations and towards communication.
I wrestled with actually going to Judgement House but decided that while it would have given me a better perspective, I still fundamentally would disagree with the goal.
As Pastor Mike wrote, we do have an awesome God. God has been reaching out to all humanity over the millennia. Our faith traditions, including the Hebrew faith from which we came as early Christians, are all each culture's small human way to put into words the love God has for them and vice versa.
I realize that the early church prayed and decided that the point of Jesus primarily was to be the sacrificial lamb for our sins (atonement theory). But I wonder if the opposing viewpoints in the early Christian movement were more accurate: that Jesus came to clarify what God is like and how to be more like Him and have a relationship with Him. And Jesus defined that as having a relationship with each other.
A Hindu friend of mine who sometimes comments on my blog (Franz) told me that there is a part of his tradition where the devout people worship the worshippers, in addition to worshipping the divine. Because when you pray to God for help, it comes in the form of other humans. This resonated so distinctly with what Jesus tells us about being "in us" and caring for him by the "least of these."
This is just one example of hundreds where major faith traditions have subtle and not so subtle similarities. I can only deduce from these "coincidences" and from seeing God work in the lives of people from other faiths that although they don't worship God in the name of Jesus, it is in fact the same God and will be acceptable to Him. Our own tradition states that there is only one God. Muslims say that there is no god but God. Hindus have several gods because God is so big and multi-faceted that seeing Him in one incarnation is impossible. Christians express this in the Trinity. But when I pray to the Holy Spirit on a daily basis, I am not praying to some entity other that Jesus. Couldn’t we stop limiting God and allow for the possibility that a Navajo honoring the Great Spirit is doing the same thing?
Obviously this is deeper and more complicated that a blog post can address. Pastor Mike, I know you read the Bible differently than I do in general. How to reconcile the difficult Bible passages with the over-arching message of love and salvation is a topic for another day. But just know that I haven't arrived at this place by ignoring the unpopular passages of the Bible. It is through looking at the way the Bible was written, and looking at each passage's purpose and context that I have realized that the Bible points to God. The Bible is not God. Paul spoke of Jesus. Paul and his words are not Jesus. And worshipping the Bible instead of Jesus' message of radical love is idolatry.
There are several passages in scripture where Jesus talks about throwing the wicked into a burning furnace. But he is not speaking of eternal damnation. He is using the symbol of a furnace to be a purifying mechanism for the wicked people and for the wickedness in all of us. Fire and furnaces are symbols in the Old Testament of affliction and testing, but not as punishment. The purpose of the fire is to refine. Look at how fire and furnace was used in Jewish scripture:
Deut. 4:20: But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.
Psalm 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times.
Proverbs 17:3 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the LORD tests the hearts.
Isaiah 31:9 He shall cross over to his stronghold for fear, And his princes shall be afraid of the banner," Says the LORD, Whose fire is in Zion And whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
I went to a home group Bible study today where we meditated on Jesus’ teachings of the greatest commandment, as written in Mark 12:28-34:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
We are not far from His kingdom when we understand that God is one. That we are to love Him. That we are to love others, and love ourselves. I am glad that Pastor Mike and his church are motivated by Christ to do something to bring the gospel to others. The gospel I bring to the world is that the kingdom of heaven is here, in us. That God forever glorified the human existence by entering it as Jesus. That we all have that potential in us.
As I wrote the original post, I was careful to make sure it passed the “true Christian test,” i.e. I didn’t want to say “You all are horrible Christians and I am going to tell you so because that’s what good Christians do; we judge each other with mean spirited sarcasm!” So when I saw that Pastor Mike has commented, my first reaction was relief that I had been careful with my words in that post. And I was also relieved as I read his words, which were written with a similar tone of respect.
For every one of my hypothetical accusations of them being a fire and brimstone, exclusivist, anger-preaching church that conveniently opposes anything different from themselves (like people of other faiths, gays, etc.), he could have met with an insistence that I am a typical liberal Christian who is destroying the meaning of Christianity because I embrace worldly and popular views of God and that I refuse to be obedient to the true message of God, picking and choosing the passages of the Bible that meet my own compass-less standard.
I’ve heard the arguments on both sides and I can say that none of these arguments should come out of a Christian’s mouth. We can disagree, but there is no hope for the world if Christians treat even their own kind with such venom and intentional misunderstanding. So thank you God for moving Pastor Mike and me beyond accusations and towards communication.
I wrestled with actually going to Judgement House but decided that while it would have given me a better perspective, I still fundamentally would disagree with the goal.
As Pastor Mike wrote, we do have an awesome God. God has been reaching out to all humanity over the millennia. Our faith traditions, including the Hebrew faith from which we came as early Christians, are all each culture's small human way to put into words the love God has for them and vice versa.
I realize that the early church prayed and decided that the point of Jesus primarily was to be the sacrificial lamb for our sins (atonement theory). But I wonder if the opposing viewpoints in the early Christian movement were more accurate: that Jesus came to clarify what God is like and how to be more like Him and have a relationship with Him. And Jesus defined that as having a relationship with each other.
A Hindu friend of mine who sometimes comments on my blog (Franz) told me that there is a part of his tradition where the devout people worship the worshippers, in addition to worshipping the divine. Because when you pray to God for help, it comes in the form of other humans. This resonated so distinctly with what Jesus tells us about being "in us" and caring for him by the "least of these."
This is just one example of hundreds where major faith traditions have subtle and not so subtle similarities. I can only deduce from these "coincidences" and from seeing God work in the lives of people from other faiths that although they don't worship God in the name of Jesus, it is in fact the same God and will be acceptable to Him. Our own tradition states that there is only one God. Muslims say that there is no god but God. Hindus have several gods because God is so big and multi-faceted that seeing Him in one incarnation is impossible. Christians express this in the Trinity. But when I pray to the Holy Spirit on a daily basis, I am not praying to some entity other that Jesus. Couldn’t we stop limiting God and allow for the possibility that a Navajo honoring the Great Spirit is doing the same thing?
Obviously this is deeper and more complicated that a blog post can address. Pastor Mike, I know you read the Bible differently than I do in general. How to reconcile the difficult Bible passages with the over-arching message of love and salvation is a topic for another day. But just know that I haven't arrived at this place by ignoring the unpopular passages of the Bible. It is through looking at the way the Bible was written, and looking at each passage's purpose and context that I have realized that the Bible points to God. The Bible is not God. Paul spoke of Jesus. Paul and his words are not Jesus. And worshipping the Bible instead of Jesus' message of radical love is idolatry.
There are several passages in scripture where Jesus talks about throwing the wicked into a burning furnace. But he is not speaking of eternal damnation. He is using the symbol of a furnace to be a purifying mechanism for the wicked people and for the wickedness in all of us. Fire and furnaces are symbols in the Old Testament of affliction and testing, but not as punishment. The purpose of the fire is to refine. Look at how fire and furnace was used in Jewish scripture:
Deut. 4:20: But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.
Psalm 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times.
Proverbs 17:3 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the LORD tests the hearts.
Isaiah 31:9 He shall cross over to his stronghold for fear, And his princes shall be afraid of the banner," Says the LORD, Whose fire is in Zion And whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
I went to a home group Bible study today where we meditated on Jesus’ teachings of the greatest commandment, as written in Mark 12:28-34:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
We are not far from His kingdom when we understand that God is one. That we are to love Him. That we are to love others, and love ourselves. I am glad that Pastor Mike and his church are motivated by Christ to do something to bring the gospel to others. The gospel I bring to the world is that the kingdom of heaven is here, in us. That God forever glorified the human existence by entering it as Jesus. That we all have that potential in us.
posted by Sarah at 3:35 PM
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