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!
2 comments:
I believe there are significant problems with both Brian McLaren's observation and the one expressed here.
Brian McLaren's observation about the "cultural notion of getting each person to heaven is part of a larger straw-man argument which blatantly and misguidedly attacks the most devout believers - and the same is true in suggested reason for the connection between them and extraordinary life-preservation.
Both are pointing to the same solution as the age-old social gospel of liberalism theology. Conservative evangelicals are concerned about lost condition of the individual because of the sin that separates him from God. The goal is to have them united with Christ through forgiveness and cleansing found in and through His sacrifice alone. Getting to heaven is simply a part of that salvation - as is a transformed society. Only individual souls can be saved, not an impersonal society or world. Then and only then are people able to even begin thinking about living like kingdom citizens who love the Lord and their neighbor.
However, Mr. McLaren has distinctly denounced the idea of a sacrificial, substitutionary atonement, as well as the biblical consequence of the eternal wrath of God upon those who are separated from Him by their sin.
With this theology there is no personal salvation and there will be no transformed world.
Dave
Sorry for a second post here, but I meant to comment on the issue of "extraordinary life preservation" and the devout.
It is almost certainly true that the most devout (unless only apparently-devout, but actually hypocrites) if they were truly self-focused and individualistic in their faith, then their greater desire would be to go to heaven "which would be far better" as Paul writes. However, just as Paul, the most committed Christians would instead choose to remain here to extend their ministry potential to family, friends and the lost in general to the utmost.
The logic of the "aha" connection described in your post is, well, illogical. It is a forced conclusion in much the same way that market analysts have a ready answer to explain a market advance or decline. No matter which way it goes, they draw disconnected conclusions. If the report had shown the opposite, then the "aha" connection would have been, "well, it's because they are self-centered and want to be outta here."
Dave
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