The Questioning Christian

A response to an inquiring non-believer

Commenter Jason, who seems to be related to ee cummings <g>, asks some good questions this morning about a posting I did a few years ago: 

... as a non-believer (some call me atheist), this has been an intriguing article to stumble upon. frankly, i am at a loss as to understand how you can display such sound logic and skepticism, yet at the same time maintain a claim to be christian, or even religious at all. ...

... you say you are christian, which is to say that you do in fact have faith about certain metaphysical matters. how can you believe in a heaven or hell if the very source and support for that idea is something that you admit is not reliable? 

... please contact me. your position is very interesting and new to me, as such i believe i can learn quite a bit from you.

Jason, I'm very glad you wrote. I'll try to respond succinctly, and I'm grateful to you for providing the impetus to do so. 

Christian is as Christian does

I don't agree that, to call yourself a Christian, you have to "have faith about certain metaphysical matters."  That puts me at odds with a large number of people who think that, to be a Christian, you have to believe in, for example, original sin and salvation through Jesus' atoning death.  Personally, I'm not persuaded about these things (except to the extent that original sin is a metaphor for our inherent imperfection).  I reject the idea that this disqualifies me from being a Christian, or from being 'saved,' whatever that means.

I think the Jesus described in the New Testament had a very different view than do these latter-day Christians. Jesus the Jewish reformer seemed to want people simply to serve God and one another.  He stressed, correctly in my judgment (more about which below), the importance of the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law, which I would paraphrase along the following lines: 

Acknowledge the Creator and commit your whole being to serving 'his' purposes. In particular, seek the best for your neighbor just as you do for yourself; and keep in mind that 'your neighbor' is not just your kinsman or countryman, but anyone who crosses your path, even your people's hereditary enemy. 

In response to a question from an expert in Torah, Jesus is reported to have said, "do this and you will live [eternally]."  (Luke 10.25-37.) 

If we're to believe Jesus, it would seem that anyone who does these things may claim the title of "Christian," no matter what particular theological doctrines they happen to believe to be true.   

FOOTNOTE:  Some of my Christian friends will scoff that the preceding paragraph smacks of salvation by good works, which is anathema to many Protestants, instead of by faith. They argue that you cannot be 'saved' unless your faith is such that you truly "love the Lord."  My response is that people usually can't control whether they "love" someone as we understand the term, so Jesus must have meant that we should <em>serve</em> God and our neighbor.  Moreover, serving God and others by doing good works can cause a change of mind and heart — Greek: metanoia, usually translated as "repentance" — which can lead to precisely the faith that some Christians insist is a prerequisite to salvation. 

FOOTNOTE:  It's hard to believe (and we have no evidence) that God would punish someone for failing to believe the "right" things: so far as I can tell, what we happen to believe is something over which we have little or no volitional control.  Of course, we can indeed sometimes talk ourselves into believing that which we really want to believe, regardless whether it's true.

Motivation:  Reasons for doing what Jesus said to do

Of course we have to ask why we should seek to follow the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law. After all, as many have pointed out, these injunctions are by no means unique to Christianity; they come from Torah and are manifested in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

For many if not most Christians, the principal motivation is the claim that Jesus was God Incarnate, and therefore we should do what he said. I'm afraid that doesn't do it for me, nor has it ever for the majority of the world's population. Indeed, those of Jesus' followers who actually knew him in life didn't seem to think he was God.  So Jesus' alleged divinity would not appear to require that we follow his teachings.

My own motivation is largely pragmatic.  I've come to believe that, on the whole, following the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law is humanity's best bet for evolutionary success, and also for cosmic significance.  In particular:

1. To me the evidence makes it quite likely that there is a Creator; undoubtedly not precisely like the God described in the Bible (who really knows?), but probably not entirely unlike that.

2. At least locally, the universe hasn't devolved into chaos, but has evolved into the relatively highly organized form we have today. And there's not much doubt that this constitutes "progress" as we define it, because few if any people, at any time in history, would permanently trade places with a random  person who lived, say, 1,000 years previously.

3. The Great Commandment and Summary of the Law "just works."  People who stay real, who don't worship their own wishful thinking, but who instead live in the reality that the Creator wrought, are more likely to survive and reproduce.  And over the long term, altruistic cultures have proved more likely to survive and grow than narcissistic ones.

All this suggests that the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law summarize one of the fundamental mechanisms by which the Creator's universe is being caused to evolve.  They appear to be like laws of nature.  Doing the math, it seems entirely plausible that they were ordained by the Creator so that we would function as created co-creators in his continuing creation of the universe.

This possibility is supremely exciting to me.  It might be just a matter of egotism, of my personal liking to be "where the action is," perhaps like Jesus' disciples James and John (and their mother!) importuning him to name them his chief lieutenants . If that's the case, it is what it is.

I can't be sure I'm right about this, of course.  But every day we make bets, choosing particular ways to conduct our lives on the basis of uncertain information.  This particular bet seems like an eminently worthwhile one.

FOOTNOTE: For an account of how I arrived at the above beliefs, see this posting about Why I Still Call Myself a Christian, and an Episcopalian.

FOOTNOTE:  Some of my Christian friends criticize me for relying on "private judgment" in reaching the conclusions above. Ultimately, I believe, it's I who am responsible for use of whatever gifts of discernment and judgment have been entrusted to me.  (Cf. the Parable of the Talents.) Prudent stewardship of those gifts will often entail choosing to rely on the judgment of others smarter or more knowledgeable than I. But in the end, "the buck stops here"; I'm the one who is accountable for my stewardship.

Faithfulness

I also admire Jesus because he was faithful to his people and to God's calling as he understood it. 

True, some of his early followers believed he was the long-awaited Anointed One, a man designated by God to become the warrior-king who would soon return to rescue Israel from oppression and usher in the Kingdom of God. The New Testament claims that Jesus himself believed this (although personally I'm skeptical about that). None of this happened, of course.

But that error is pretty inconsequential, as long as we're willing to face the facts, and not insist on living in a fantasy world.  Jesus was human; being wrong on that point takes away nothing from his faithful pursuit of his duty as he saw it, even unto death.

* * *

Thanks again for writing, Jason, and please do so again. You might read some of the postings listed in the right-hand column, if you haven't done so already.

A Christian's creed should be about life commitment, not belief

The creed of a follower of Jesus should proclaim, not what we happen to believe to be true at the moment (which can and should be provisional, always subject to change as new evidence and insights are revealed to us), but how we commit to living our lives. Here's my attempt at such a creed, inspired by a similar effort by the MadPriest and by the Soldier's Creed. I merely paraphrase Jesus' core teachings, as indicated in the right-hand column below:

We are followers of Jesus. Always and everywhere, to the best of our ability:
we will put God first, and seek the best for others as we do for ourselves;	Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.
we will face up to our mistakes and our misdeeds;	Repent - when you see that you're going in the wrong direction, make a change (that's roughly the meaning of the Greek word metanoia, commonly translated as repentance). And when you sin against your neighbor, fix it.
we will live as if, in God's good time, all things will be well.	Don't fret about the future; instead, trust that things will turn out OK.

The real Christianity: Devotion to God and care for one another

Bishop Samuel Johnson Howard of Florida, a self-described conservative, tells of a conversation he had (linked here) with another conservative bishop at the recent House of Bishops meeting. The other bishop had not taken communion with his fellow bishops since 2003 because of theological differences. But at the HoB meeting, the other bishop was at the communion rail every day. Bishop Howard asked him why, and was moved by his answer:

... An old friend of mine who, like I, is a conservative, traditional bishop, had chosen to refrain from taking communion with the House since 2003. He did this quietly and without show; he simply felt he could not take communion with his fellow bishops because of the theological difficulties which have been with us in recent years. But during this meeting—at the very time one might suppose those theological difficulties would be most evident—my friend was at the communion rail every single day. Last week marked the first time that I have been privileged to receive communion with this old friend as a fellow bishop. It was a profound experience. 

I asked my friend how his change of heart had come about, what it was that had brought him back to communion with the House of Bishops. He spoke to me of illness in his family and of turbulence in his vocational life. And he told me of how it was that as he stood in the need of prayer, it was the more liberal members of the House of Bishops who had called him and reached out to him. As my friend spoke, I heard a message of deeper and richer communion: communion formed not by agreement on all theological issues but by a common life of devotion to God and of care for one another.  [Emphasis added]

My dear friends, Communion is not about having the "right answer" for every theological question. It is, as I have preached and taught across our diocese, about loving the Lord with everything that we have and everything that we are, and it is about doing the right thing by others. It is about loving others in the way we ourselves wish to be loved. This is the very summary of all the law and the prophets which Jesus has given to us. And it is in that command, and in the perfect communion of love offered us by Christ, that our church and, indeed, our world, find ultimate and permanent hope.  [Italics in original]

Devotion to God and care for one another: that, my friends, is the real Christianity.

(Via TitusOneNine)

Evangelism: Clear Soup First, Steak Dinner Later

A hiker emerges from the wilderness.  He's rail-thin, having survived for weeks on what he could forage.  Well-meaning greeters urge him to share in the rich, delicious meal they themselves are enjoying:  sixteen-ounce steaks with sauteed mushrooms and onions; baked potatoes with butter and sour cream; and chocolate sundaes with whipped cream.  The hiker tries a bite or two.  Accustomed to leaner fare, his stomach rebels.

The hiker would have been better served if his greeters had recognized his condition and started him out on just a little clear soup.  But the greeters insisted on giving him what they liked, instead of what he needed.  He turns away from the table, no better off than he was before.

Unfortunately, some Christian evangelists are like the well-meaning greeters.  They offer non-believers a rich meal of theological doctrines — delicious to those accustomed to them, but hard to digest for those who aren't, especially those brought up in the West's culture of rationality.  They are puzzled when many non-believers, like the hiker, turn away from the table after a bite or two.

For many of these non-believers, we'd serve them better if we offered to start them off with the equivalent of clear soup, instead of the complete steak dinner that some of us might like.  (Cf. 1 Cor. 3.2:  "I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.")

Just the Thing:  Jesus's Core Teachings

As it happens, we have just the "soup" to give them:  Jesus's simple, empirically-defensible, core teachings about how we should live our day-to-day lives in relation to God.  I can't do justice to those teachings in a summary.  Even so, I would be so bold as to paraphrase a selection of those teachings — all of which can be supported with citations to the Gospels —  along the following lines:

There's Nothing Wrong with "Rotary Club Theology"

Regular readers know of my view that anyone who follows the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law is a Christian, be s/he Episcopalian, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jew, Muslim, Hindu . . . .   Some have derided this view as mere Rotary Club theology. 

I don’t know much about the Rotary Club.  They apparently emphasize service to others and a high ethical standard, as exemplified by their Four-Way Test of the things we think, say, or do.  An April 12 Wall Street Journal editorial ($) notes the Rotary Club’s pivotal role in essentially wiping out polio from the world:

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine. Poliomyelitis, also know as infantile paralysis, used to be one of childhood's most feared diseases. . . .  Today polio has disappeared from the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific and is nearly gone from the rest of the world.

A too-little known part of this feat is the role played by Rotary, the international businessman's club, which 20 years ago adopted the goal of wiping out the disease. Rotary understood that medical breakthroughs are worthless unless people aren't afraid to immunize their children and efficient delivery systems exist to get the vaccine to them. And so it mobilized its members in 30,100 clubs in 166 countries to make it happen.

*  *  * 

An economist of our acquaintance calls Rotary's effort the most successful private health-care initiative ever. A vaccine-company CEO recently volunteered to us that the work of Rotary and the Gates Foundation, both private groups, has been more effective than any government in promoting vaccines to save lives. It's become fashionable in some quarters to deride civic volunteerism, but Rotary's unsung polio effort deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

If that’s “Rotary Club theology,” we could do worse — and often do. 

The Difference Between Christians and Jews

The Great Commandment and Summary of the Law say:  Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself — and your neighbor is whoever happens to cross your path. 

Jesus said that if we observe these, we will gain eternal life.[1]

But these commandments come straight from the Hebrew Scriptures, aka the Old Testament. 

Craig, a correspondent on the TitusOneNine blog, asked:  What, then, is the difference between a Christian and a Jew?   

Under Jesus’ definition, there’s no material difference between a good Christian and a good Jew. (That makes sense; after all, Jesus and his original followers were Jews.)

It was only after Jesus' death that his later followers and his Jewish compatriots excluded each other from fellowship. 

If Jesus had still been around, I don’t think he would have put up with that.

---

Notes

[1] Luke 10.25-37 tells how Jesus explained the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus [tells the parable of the Good Samaritan]. * * *

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” [Editorial comment: I wonder if a better translation might be “The one who practiced acts of mercy toward him.”]

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Let Small Groups Celebrate Their Own Eucharists

A major controversy in the Anglican Church of Australia is whether lay people and deacons should be allowed to celebrate Holy Communion a.k.a. the Eucharist. That's long been a big no-no in the Anglican, Roman, and Orthodox Churches: Only ordained priests and bishops can be eucharistic celebrants (sometimes called presiding at or administering the Eucharist).

In the Diocese of Sydney, some congregations apparently have been experimenting with letting lay people celebrate the Eucharist, without a priest. The diocesan synod recently dropped a proposed rule that would have explicitly allowed such lay administration, as it's sometimes called. But the diocese's standing committee said it would not discipline any deaons or lay people who did administer Communion. See this news article for more details.

I was curious about what the New Testament has to say on the subject of lay administration (even though I'm definitely not one of those who says Scripture contains definitive answers to all theological questions). Are only priests (which includes bishops) allowed to celebrate the Eucharist? Or can any old Christian do so?

Standards

In its recruiting efforts, the U.S. Marine Corps deliberately invokes some of the most demanding standards in the world. It touts the resulting solidarity and exclusivity of those who manage to measure up. You've probably heard their slogan: “The few. The proud. The Marines.” Other services sometimes have to struggle to achieve their recruitment goals. The Marines consistently meet or exceed theirs. And almost uniformly, current and former Marines are fiercely proud of their service. "Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

It's sometimes said that the same is true for religions.

What If the Resurrection Didn't Happen?

Some have suggested that if the orthodox version of the resurrection isn’t literally true, then Christianity is necessarily a fraud. I think that’s an example of what John Wilkins (the Salty Vicar) aptly describes as a false dichotomy. [Correction: false dichotomy dilemna.]

Life As We Know It

From Dennis Overbye, "All of a Sudden, the Neighborhood Looks a Lot Friendlier," in today's NY Times:

... Cosmologists have found to their astonishment that life and the universe are strangely and deeply connected. Life As We Know It seems to depend on the miraculous and improbable juggling of the numerical values of a few atomic and astronomical constants - like the relative masses of elementary particles or the strength of the "dark energy" accelerating the universe outward. Twiddle these control knobs on nature's console a little bit and the galaxies evaporate before stars and life have a chance to evolve, or atoms fall apart.