Comment on Comment

Dave's comments posted here in response to my "heaven can wait" posting serve to show the vast gulf between world views here. In their presentations here at Louisville Seminary, McLaren and Borg both made strong Biblical cases for a service-oriented "God's will be done on earth" perspective, based on a faith-relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Dave makes his case from a propositional-doctrinal position, quite possibly based on the modernist apology for faith found in a set of doctrines known as fundamentalism. I appreciate Dave's comment because it makes me work hard, and not yet very satisfactorily, to find common ground between our divergent perspectives. I assume Dave is a faithful person with a different take on Christian life than mine. I hope Dave would be able to grant that my take is also worthy of respect.

Making Heaven Wait

This year's Festival of Theology at Louisville Seminary, featuring Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren and Marcus Borg, stirred up lots of good thoughts and feelings, and prompted many fine reflections.

One reflection came in the intersection of one of Brian McClaren's concepts and a newspaper article printed in the New York Times last week.

Brian was critiquing the American cultural religious notion that the main point of Christian faith is to get each person to heaven. In two power point slides, he made his point graphically (see www.slideshare.net/brianmclaren/christian-faith-as-a-way-of-life). In the first, slide # 13, faith is imagined as "self enhancement in this life and the next" with a tiny circle representing the world, a middle side circle representing the church, and a huge circle representing the self on its way to heaven. His preferred image is showed in slide 14, with concentric circles. An arrow from heaven shows God's investment in the self and the church, with the smallest circle being the self, the next size the church, both of which moving into and serving and transforming the world, making God's "kingdom come, on earth as in heaven."

The article in the Times (I've lost the date and citation) reported a study that showed that the "very religious" are the most likely to request extraordinary procedures in hospitals and emergency rooms, postponing death even at the cost of comfort and dignity. When I saw the headline, I said to myself, "That's just crazy!" After I thought about it awhile, I realized the connection. The devoted Christians come from that "self oriented" perspective which wants what "I" want, not what heaven wants, so I can selfishly hold on to life, even with the promise of "heaven" waiting for me.

The contrast between the self-oriented faith and the service-to-the-world oriented faith could not be more stark. I'd rather be putting God's will to work here and now, not making heaven wait for justice and equity and peace, than making heaven wait while I get everything that's coming to me!