I don’t know much about playing cards – I grew up thinking it was sinful. At church the other day a friend said “Well you play your cards close to your chest – I watched one of your videos; you’re a universalist”. He was not happy – clearly I had let the team down badly. Looks like I give church a miss for a while.
Seems like that’s not the only team I have let down. Another person accused me of having a ‘low view of sin’. I had to ask what it meant. “You speak as though sin doesn’t matter, and it does; it separates us from God”. I thanked her, but I think she would have preferred an argument. I am over arguments; or trying to convince people.
Discussion yes, but arguments no. I have never been so settled in my theology, my view of life, and overall contentment. It is as though all the big nagging questions have resolved into a beautiful coherent whole. That’s as good as it gets, so I don’t need to have everyone agree with me.
At least I have the Pope on my side. For it seems he let the team down too. Talking to a group of young people last week he said we are all children of God, that God is for everyone, and that ultimately all roads lead to him. Oh brother, the outrage! I hope the young people agree with him, even if the Christians don’t.
I should point out, I make a distinction between Christians and followers of Jesus, for I have come to believe they are not necessarily the same thing. Followers of Jesus started the movement, they believed in him, and took what he said to heart, then got on with living how he told them to. I don’t know if they had a high view or low view of sin but we can be sure they would have agreed with the Pope.
Something else happened last week, and the response from the Christians disturbed me. Thousands of pagers blew up; thousands of horrific injuries and several killed. In that intergenerational conflict, the Christians clearly side with the Israelis because, as they see it, God is on their side and want the Jews to win using any means possible. They have long discarded that quaint but naïve notion of loving enemies, and picking sides in that complex situation is easy for them. They called it ‘masterstroke’ for justice. And, having dismissed the Pope’s statement about ‘we are all children of God’ as old man drivel, they found a smug sense of satisfaction in the killings.
It could be old man drivel, but it’s probably inevitable that believing in the ultimate restoration of all things and a low view of sin go together. Strange bedfellows; troublesome offspring. At least for most Christians. And I think it is their high view of sin that leads them to think this way. They can spot sinners a mile off and feel free to pass judgement thinking God has favourites. This allows them to be outraged at the Pope, and gleeful about the carnage. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?
Perhaps their high view of sin needs examination. Sin is understood as ‘missing the mark’ but I think it is helpful to go a bit deeper. Sin is to believe a lie about yourself. The Greek word for sin is ‘hamartia’, from ha, negative or without, and ‘meros’, portion or form, thus to be something other than who you were meant to be. An inauthentic, disorienting and distorted identity. So, to repent, meaning to change our mind about who we are to a child made in the image of the creator, frees us from this error and opens up a new horizon of possibilities. It may look like a ‘low view of sin’, mainly because sin has been made into something far more pervasive and powerful, than it actually is. So powerful it makes Jesus’ sacrifice, resurrection and triumph over sin and death seem inadequate.
Sin being viewed as something we are born into, and something that defines each of us as sinners, it is therefore something we need ‘saving’ from. Hence the idea of salvation, from the Greek word ‘soteria’ meaning deliverance from harm made possible by the expressed belief in Jesus. If one doesn’t do this, according to this high view of sin, one suffers the punishment of hell, which actually is worse than death because one suffers forever. So much sin the fires never go out. Sounds extreme but there you go.
However, the word ‘soteria’ also means ‘deliverance from sickness or disease, so if one takes the deeper notion of sin being a distortion of identity, that needs healing not punishment. The early church understood this. The story of Jesus and his triumph over sin and death meant they were delivered from an error in thinking and assured of an afterlife. Their new identity as followers of Jesus freed them to live better lives; ones characterized by their getting along with others, even people who didn’t like them.
What started out as the greatest force for good in people’s lives was changed under Constantine and church leaders keen to curry his favour. The church leaders’ capacity to define who was and who wasn’t a sinner was not questioned and life became a constant battle of good versus evil, the church against sinners, leading to the followers of Jesus being persecuted and massacred – by Christians. They cast sin to play a leading role in the grand drama of life. A role that has hijacked the narrative that Jesus proclaimed and promoted, to one better suited to the Roman Empire to begin with, and empires of various stripes ever since.
My thinking on this topic has been influenced by exploring the early church beyond the biblical narrative. One thing I have had some difficulty coming to terms with is the way Paul is viewed by others at the time, both him as a person with little respect for those who didn’t share his views, and his writings that were seen to pay little regard for what Jesus actually said. Many critics propose that Paul laid the groundwork for the eventual rise of the Christian church and the demise of the Jesus followers. Simple life belief and practice was slowly overshadowed by complex (for the illiterate people of the time anyway) ideas of sin, atonement, salvation, and judgment. Ideas that led to the notion that sin makes God angry and turn away from us, that we are all sinners, born that way, so we have to deal with it the best way we can. Mostly, as it turns out, by grasping lengthy theories rather than embracing the notion we are all God’s children and that everything will be made right in the end. A notion that enables ordinary people to live like family rather than tribes.
I have seen what it looks like when people live like tribes instead of family, and it is not pretty. In my various mis-guided missionary-type wanderings I have spent time in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, regarded as the most extensively evangelized country on the planet, and yet still lawless, corrupt and virtually ungovernable. Similarly, I have been in indigenous communities that have had a mission presence going back a century or more, now characterized by violence, abuse and despair.
It seems to me that when nurses, teachers, police and missionaries have to live in razor-wire compounds to serve in each of these communities, it is a pretty clear sign the central tenet of Jesus’ teaching of getting along with each other has never taken hold. And I would suggest had they been presented with a gospel that changed how they saw themselves and the way they treated each other, things could have been different.
There you have it. I have shown my hand. No ace up my sleeve, for this isn’t about winning or losing. I don’t know much about playing cards, but I do know my preference is for hearts over clubs. I think the Pope would go for that too.
