Archive for the 'religion' Category

Thinking outside the box

Published
by
Ken
on February 16, 2007
in c.s. Lewis, carl jung, christianity, huston smith, j.r.r. tolkien, myth and religion
. 0 Comments

There is an alternative to the “Christianity is right” versus “Christianity is wrong” scuffle. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, etc. can be other than literal realities or literal horse pucky. The alternative is that they are myth. Now, I’m not being pejorative with my use of the word “myth” which is greatly under-rated and almost entirely misunderstood in today’s world of science.

I found what C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien said about myth here:

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were “lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver.”

“No,” Tolkien replied. “They are not lies.” Far from being lies they were the best way — sometimes the only way — of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbor, whereas materialistic “progress” leads only to the abyss and the power of evil.

In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung said:

For it is not that “God” is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man.

And in Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith said:

Science provides a useful analogy here. The entire scientific worldview has been spun from a relatively few crucial experiments, which can be likened to the numbered dots in children’s puzzles that (when they are connected by a line that is drawn through them sequentially) produces the outline of a giraffe or whatever. Myths are like the lines traditional peoples collectively and largely unconsciously draw to connect the “dots” of the direct disclosers that their visionaries report.

If number is the language of science, myth is the language of religion. It does not map literally onto the commonsense world — biblical literalists’ mistake is to think that is does …

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Beliefs that Work

Published
by
Ken
on February 14, 2007
in belief, christianity, god, jesus, religion and religious pluralism
. 0 Comments

Why do we believe what we believe? I think that it’s because the beliefs we choose to believe are the ones that “work” for us. That is, there is something about the belief that attracts us. The belief makes “sense” to us. The promised results of believing are manifested. This is also the exact way that I word my main reason for leaving the Fundamentalist Christianity in which I was raised from the womb: it just didn’t “work” for me.

Christianity does work for some people — my parents, for example. They see God’s hand everywhere and feel God’s presence. They live “by the grace of God” through all their physical problems. They are not disillusioned by God’s “testing” them with yet another difficulty. And many people are converted to Christianity because it just makes sense — people like Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias. It just plain works for them. And that’s great. More power to them. But just because it works for you doesn’t mean that it will work for me no matter how hard I try.

I have seasonal allergies. I’ve had them my whole life and everywhere I’ve lived. Some years it’s not too bad and other years it is bad. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through is to overdose on allergy medicine, crank the AC to arctic conditions, sit down with my head tilted slightly back and go to sleep. When I’m in this condition, the worst thing possible is to be around someone who does not have any allergies. They just don’t understand what I’m feeling and can’t believe that all I want to do is sleep all day and all they want to do is go outside and do something. They just can’t sympathize or empathize. That’s how it is with Christians for whom Christianity really works. “If it works for me then it’ll work for anyone” … “You just have to hang in there” … “You can’t blame God or the church or your family” “God will see you through” … and on and on.

This is one reason I don’t think that Christianity can be the one and only true religion. It is unrealistic to force every person from every culture to believe the exact same thing and have those beliefs be alive and meaningful. Why do you think there are different cultures to begin with? The anti-pluralist Christians who say that everyone must be a Christian (and especially their flavor Christian) are a lot like Captain James T. Kirk who zooms around the universe telling everyone he meets that their brand of society and government is wrong and they need to be a democracy — just like his society. Democracy just doesn’t work for everyone the same way. And neither does religion.

For proof, I show you ol’ J.C. himself. Now many Christians will say that Jesus did not break from Judaism but only fulfilled the Old Testament and the prophecies. But it seems pretty clear to me that the Old Testament concept of God was not “working” for the Jews anymore. The Old Testament concept of God was not helping them cope with their current situation with the Romans. They needed something different. And that’s exactly what Jesus brought them. A new concept of God — the same God, so to speak, but a different way of approaching him and a different way of worshiping him. Something new that “worked” for them. So, if Jesus brought something new to a people for whom the old religions were not working, then how can you possibly think that 2000 years later the same Christianity should be expected to work for us?

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More on The Blasphemy Challenge

Published
by
Ken
on February 13, 2007
in atheism, belief, christian fundamentalism, christianity, fundamentalism and religion
. 0 Comments

After an anonymous commenter (apparently he or she is not afraid of the Holy Spirit but is afraid if me) called me a moron in response to my post about the The Blasphemy Challenge I decided to do a little more investigating. Yes, I admit that I did not read very much on TBC’s website (tsk tsk). But I went back and viewed their very brief FAQ. Here are some more comments …

Why do you care?

It isn’t just adult Christians who are indoctrinated with the frightening ideology of Christian belief. In fact, most Christians are indoctrinated as children. These children are told that they must believe the following: That 2000 years ago a man died, stayed dead three days, rose from the dead and then flew into the air above the clouds– and right now this man is with them as their invisible companion and savior from Hell, if only they will submit to him. If this bizarre theory were not religious in nature, teaching it to children would probably be considered child abuse.

Personally, I don’t see anything frightening at all about what TBC’s FAQ says Christian children must believe. And this is not all that bizarre when you look at any religious belief. It’s also not at all bizarre when you compare it to the fairy tales and myths that are routinely believed by children. Things like “Santa Claus is watching you to see if you are naughty or nice” and “he knows when you are sleeping”. That is closer to child abuse than the Christian tenets listed above. TBC is missing the whole point — in my opinion. It’s not the Christianity that is the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism.

How will The Blasphemy Challenge help?

Religious dogma has one chief means of support: Our unwillingness to criticize it in public. If we talked about religion the same way we talk about science, history or other fields involving truth claims, dogma would wither in the light. The Blasphemy Challenge, by addressing a truth claim of Christianity, is intended to provoke this sort of conversation.

A couple points here. First, how is asking people to blaspheme “addressing a truth claim?” The only way to determine that the “truth claim” is false is to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen. The only way to demonstrate that the expected outcome does not happen is to wait until all the people who blasphemed are dead and see if they ended up in Hell or not. But, anyone who blasphemed who was not a Christian would be in Hell anyway so there would still be no proof that it was the blasphemy that put them there. So, the only real test would be to have a Christian blaspheme and then see if that peson ended up in Hell. But I doubt that a true believer would want to blaspheme unless, of course, they would be willing to lose their eternal soul in the hopes of saving others. So, clearly this experiment is far from scientifically valid. If only the Bible said that anyone who blasphemes would be immediatley struck by lightning. Now that would be a verifiable result. But, alas, that is not the case.

Second, I think people have been criticizing religious dogma a lot longer than TBC gives them credit. But criticism is very different in the scientific community and in the religious community. If anyone has ever criticized a Christian Fundamentalist you know what I’m talking about. They do not take criticism well and usually it just makes them cling to their beliefs with more tenacity and close their ears and minds more tightly. Pissing off the Fundamentalists is not the way to get them to talk to you. I will guarantee that no “conversation” will be provoked by this.

Is it true that you are targeting young people with this campaign?

Yes. As young people are the most vulnerable to religious indoctrination, we feel it is important to reach them with the concept of challenging the doctrine they are told to unquestioningly believe.

In my opinion, Brian Flemming is as fanatical about being not Fundamentalist as the Fundamentalists are about being Fundamentalist. (Again, I saw the movie and these are my opinions. And these are opinions from someone who was in a situation very very similiar to Flemming’s.) Just because you don’t like Fundamentalism is no reason to trash all religious beliefs. If you don’t like Fundamentalism, then attack Fundamentalism! Don’t attack religion in general.

The FAQ talks about “religious indoctrination” and battling this by “challenging the doctrine” that Fundamentalists preach. But TBC is not about challenging any doctrine. TBC takes one idea out of an entire religion — an idea that it’s impossible to prove is wrong — and tries to base a new “anti-religion” on it. This is “religious indoctrination” of a different kind but it’s still indoctrination. “Don’t believe anything!” is as bad as “Only believe this!”.

Isn’t this just “fundamentalist atheism”?

That is a remarkably stupid question. The Rational Response Squad encourages people to inquire, argue, reason and doubt — not to believe something because they are told to. Free inquiry is the opposite of fundamentalism. The Blasphemy Challenge may be activist in nature, but it is hardly fundamentalist.

Again, I saw the movie and in my opinion the movie was very fundamentalist atheist. I got the impression that the movie was all about throwing out Christianity in its entirety and not about questioning your beliefs. TBC talks about free inquiry but also seems to say that you can’t believe the Christian dogma even if you want to. I’ll give my opinion one more time: It’s not Christianity that’s the enemy — it’s the Fundamentalism. Yet I see TBC attacking Christianity.

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What does it mean to “believe”?

Published
by
Ken
on February 13, 2007
in belief, christianity and religion
. 0 Comments

I was thinking today about the creed I am writing on my What I Believe page and while I was jotting down some notes about God and Jesus and whatnot, the thought hit me: “So what?” I’m writing down all these ideas that are somewhat Christian but include ideas from other religions and I say that I’m trying to figure out what I believe but so far they are just ideas … thoughts. I don’t really believe these things because I don’t see them impacting my life. And I think that is the criteria for real belief — John 3:16 style belief.

If I really, truly believe something then that belief will be evident in what I do in my day to day life. If I really, truly believe in the sanctity of marriage then I will not have an affair no matter what opportunities present themselves. If I really, truly believe that by eating right and exercising daily I will feel better, look better, and live longer then I will eat right and exercise daily.

But I can “think” or “know” something without it impacting my life — and this is not, in my opinion, John 3:16 style belief. For example, I do not actually eat as well as I could (although I don’t eat poorly) and I don’t actually exercise very often even though I sometimes wish I had more energy and was a little thinner. So I can think or know that exercise has benefits but I really don’t believe it; otherwise I’d be on the cross trainer instead if sitting on my ass writing this.

So you say that you believe in God and Jesus and yada yada yada. But how does this belief impact your life? What do you do — every day — because of this belief? You say you believe in the virgin birth and in Jesus’ resurrection and that the Bible is the Word of God. But unless this belief affects the way you live your life every day, it’s merely intellectual knowledge like knowing the capital of Montana is Helena.

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The Blasphemy Challenge

Published
by
Ken
on February 12, 2007
in atheism, christian fundamentalism, christianity, fundamentalism and religion
. 3 Comments

I stumbled upon The Blasphemy Challenge tonight. I saw the movie The God Who Wasn’t There and felt it was very … juvenile. Now I don’t mean this in a condescending way. What I mean is that Brian Flemming is in the same place that I was 20 years ago. I, too, was raised Fundamentalist Christian and made a break from it. And after my break I thought everything that even smelled Christian was hogwash, naive, and just plain stupid. But in that 20 years “away from it all,” I’ve grown to see that I was not rebelling against God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I was rebelling against Fundamentalism. And there is a huge difference. I will never rejoin the ranks of the Fundamentalists but I am no longer anti-everything-religious. I hope that Flemming and everyone who participates in the Blasphemy Challenge grow up to see the difference.

And as far as the Blasphemy Challenge goes … what’s the point? If these people are so sure God doesn’t exist then it’s pointless to do this. They might as well be denying The Great Pumpkin.

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The problem is “organized” religion … or is it?

Published
by
Ken
on February 1, 2007
in religion
. 2 Comments

I’ve actually heard people, well one person that I can remember, say this out loud — “The problem is organized religion”. And I sort of think the same way. But only sort of. I am currently not “affiliated” with any religion. Aside from the Kansas City Friends of Jung, I’m not a member of any church, temple, synagogue, congregation, gathering, meeting, club, circle, group, or troop. And I really don’t see myself participating in any “organized” religion in the near future.

The problem is that I also don’t participate in any religion. Period. And that’s something I need to change.

If we are going to condemn “organized” religion as the root of all evil then unorganized religion must be the holy grail. If “organized” religion is causing physical and psycological harm to the world then there must be another form or type of religion that is good. Otherwise we would leave off the “organized” adjective and just say “religion”.

Is it really the “organized” part that we don’t like or is it really the “organizers”? Or is it the dogma? Is it really possible to have a religion that is not “organized”? Weren’t the apostles “organized” in the early Christian church? What would a non-organized religion look like? I mean, it seems to me that Wiccans, Pagans, Animists, etc. are really all rather organized. They have books and meetings and levels, don’t they? Is it really just power-hungry, money-hungry authority figures that we abhor? Are there no power-hungry Wiccans?

Maybe I just don’t understand the definition of “organized” when it comes to religion.

So, I’m asking everyone who is against “organized” religion — and not just “religion” — to let me in on their secrets and explain their good-for-me religion. What spiritual practices to you do? How do you worship? Do you worship alone or in a small, unorganized group? How did you find your religion? What do you call your God? What happens after you die?

These are serious questions and I am petitioning serious answers. One of my goals for 2007 is to start some kind of spiritual practice. I don’t think it will be going to church but it has got to be something. I’ve been bad-mouthing other people’s religious beliefs far too long without having any of my own.

It’s time to starting doing … something.

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You call sitting for three days and nights under a tree being sincere???

Published
by
Ken
on January 31, 2007
in bible, christian fundamentalism, faith, god, hell, jesus, josh mcdowell and religion
. 0 Comments

Ok, where was I? Oh, that’s right … in the middle of a magic trick. How do you let God be 100% just and at the same time don’t let him condemn people who could never have heard about Jesus? Easy as pie. Simply say along with Josh McDowell: “No one will be condemned for not ever hearing of Jesus Christ” [Answers to Tough Questions, p. 121]. Cool! So, everyone who doesn’t hear will be in heaven, right? Uh … no. In the next sentence, McDowell says, “That person will be condemned for violating his own moral standard.” Hmmm. I have two problems with this.

First, “his own moral standard?” I thought everything depended on violating God’s Law. Or not believing in Jesus Christ. What does a person’s moral standard have to do with anything? Talk about a sliding scale. So, a totally immoral person will get into Heaven while a very moral — although not infallible — person won’t?

Second, even though this sounds like “they” have a chance this is really only another rationalization. If everyone is a sinner at birth then, by definition, no one will be able to live up to any moral standard worthy of being called a moral standard.

So far, “they” don’t have much of a chance. But, a few pages earlier McDowell says,

“Although the Scriptures never explicitly teach that someone who has never heard of Jesus can be saved, we do believe it infers this. We do believe that every person will have an opportunity to repent, and that God will not exclude anyone because he happened to be born at the wrong place and at the wrong time.” (Emphasis mine)

Ah, despite the inference status of this statement, this does sound a little more optimistic. If everyone has an opportunity to repent, then those in Hell really do make the choice. Does he quote chapter and verse to back up this belief? Well, the next sentence quotes John 7:17

If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.

I didn’t really get what the New American Standard Bible (quoted above) was trying to say so I looked at a couple other versions and here is the New International Version:

If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

All the other more “common language” versions seemed to agree that Jesus was talking about someone who is hearing or has heard the teachings of Jesus. And I don’t see how anyone could hear his teachings without hearing about Jesus. So, how does this back up the inference? It sounds to me like just another rationalization to make Christians feel good about their all-loving God.

Even though there is no teaching to back up this inference, there is an example in Acts 10 which may set some precedent for it. Cornelius was a very religious man who prayed to God and asked God to reveal himself to him. God sent an angel and told Cornelius to send for the Apostle Peter who came and preached Jesus Christ and Cornelius was saved. This is all very good, but if people were constantly knocking on Christians’ doors saying “God told so-and-so to send for you. Please come preach Jesus to him,” don’t you think we’d hear about it?

But this doesn’t stop some Christians from continuing to believe it. They are so sure that if anyone is sincere enough that God will reveal himself to her so she can be saved. This means that Siddhartha Gautama (aka The Buddha), for example, was not sincere enough in his search. The seven years he spent learning from every different type of teacher he could find was not sincere enough. Being close to death from starvation and sitting for three days and three nights (sound a little familiar??) under a bodhi tree was not sincere enough. Obviously not because God would have sent someone to preach to him if he was sincere.

Kind of makes you wonder if anyone has a chance.

But now I want to return to a thought I mentioned in the last post. If the fate of all the souls in the world depend on hearing about Jesus, doesn’t this put the fate of all these souls on the hands of every Christian? Obviously yes, but you’ll have to stay tuned to see what else I have to say about it …

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But it says “faith comes from hearing” …

Published
by
Ken
on January 29, 2007
in bible, christian fundamentalism, christianity, god, hell, jesus, judging others, religion and st. paul
. 5 Comments

In part two of this series, I talked about Romans 1:18-21 where Paul claims that everyone can know God from nature. But this doesn’t seem to be quite enough because, as I said in part one, you need to get from God to The Jesus of The Bible in order to be saved. And, despite a valient attempt by the Greeks with Dionysus, it seems darn near impossible to do this — at least to the Christian’s satisfaction. And indeed it must be because Paul writes in Romans 10:13-17

… for “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So where does that leave the billions of people who, because of where and when they were born, have never heard the name of Jesus? And doesn’t this put the fate of all these souls on the hands of every Christian? Well, yes, but …

Some Christians have no qualms about sending billions of people to Hell. A professor of New Testament, Ethics, and Philosophy at a Baptist Theological Seminary with whom I had a brief email exchange a few years ago told me straight out: “God may do with us just as he pleases.” He was referring to Romans 9 where in verses 20-23 Paul says

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory

Paul seems to be saying that God created some people knowing full well they’d end up in Hell. But, what the hell, He’s God, right? Of course, this opens up the whole predestination v free-will issue which I am not going to delve into right now. My point is that some Christians are fine with a Hell kind of like Monaco and a Heaven kind of like Greenland. (Hint … Manoco is the most densely populated country and Greenland is the least populated country.) Of course, aside from the guaranteed 50-acre lot in Heaven, the other advantage to this viewpoint is that it’s more or less out of your hands — your evangelical hands, that is. If God created some people knowing they’d end up in Heaven, they’re gonna get there, right? Whether I tell them about Jesus or not, they are gonna get there. And those who were created to be kindling, no matter how much you preach to them they are beyond hope.

Fair enough, but what about the Maya people who lived before even Columbus sailed the ocean blue? Can God, a God of Love, really condemn them all? My seminary pen-pal says yes. God can create entire civilizations knowing that they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in … hell. He is, after all, a God that is 100% just (apparently just trumps love) and those Mayas just didn’t get it right and didn’t say the right prayers and didn’t believe the right thing. They must be punished in accordance with God’s Law. Ignorantia juris non excusat, afterall. Quite a cavalier attitude for someone who had the luck to be born in the right place at the right time!

All this “God is 100% just” talk is just fine except that God, apparently, does have the ability to go against his nature. There is a loophole in the Law. Apparently, God doesn’t send little babies to Hell. Whew! That’s a relief. That would be just downright cruel and unusual. I mean, those cute little babies don’t deserve eternal damnation just because they are unable to hear about Jesus Christ and are unable to make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. Who cares that the Bible says they take part in the “total depravity of man” and are stained by “original sin” and are “conceived in sin”. They don’t deserve Hell!

But, aren’t the Maya of the 9th century, for example, in the same boat? Aren’t they unable to make a conscious decision about … about … what’s his name? Exactly. They never heard!

But don’t give up. There are other Christians who, perhaps like you, don’t sit well with God sending all those wrong-place-wrong-timers to Hell. How do they get around it? Do they let God chill out a bit and offer some free passes? No. They still insist that God be 100% just but they don’t want people condemned who never had the chance to hear. So what do they do? A little presto-chango … a little abracadabro … and a lot of stay tuned …

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The Bible and Society — which conforms to which?

Published
by
Ken
on January 28, 2007
in bible, christianity, god, religion and truth
. 0 Comments

Maybe it is the influence of my Fundamentalist, “Give me that Old-Time Religion” upbringing but I sometimes think about the role of the Bible in our lives. Should the Bible (in it’s complete entirety) dictate the way we live or should our current society (including attitudes, social norms, etc.) allow us to label parts of the Bible as irrelevant and thus redefine how we interpret the Bible. In other words: Should we change religion or should religion change us?

And I started thinking about this anew after finding this link on Reiter’s Block to a post on Faith and Theology titled Twelve propositions on same-sex relationships and the church. In this post is the following statement on hermeneutics, the science of interpretation:

For here is a fundamental hermeneutical axiom: “If Biblical texts on any social or moral topic are to be understood as God’s word for us today, two conditions at least must be satisfied. There must be a resemblance between the ancient and modern social situation or institution or practice or attitude sufficient for us to be able to say that in some sense the text is talking about the same thing that we recognise today. And we must be able to demonstrate an underlying principle at work in the text which is consonant with biblical faith taken as a whole, and not contradicted by any subsequent experience or understanding” (Walter Houston).

Now, I know nothing about Walter Houston except that it appears he is an Oxford man whose research interests are “the social-scientific interprtation of the Hebrew Bible, with regard to the topics of social class, economics, and culture; its ethics, especially social ethics; and its hermeneutics.” And this is the first thing that really, really bothers me. This guy is doing university-level research on how to interpret the Bible. And he’s bringing into his research more research on ancient social situations, institutions, attitudes, etc. How the heck am I supposed to have devotions now? How am I supposed to apply anything at all to my life until I get a Ph.D. in ancient studies so that I can figure out what I should apply and what I shouldn’t? Are we really at the mercy of the “scholars” to tell us what is relevant for our lives?

And what does this say about the Bible? Is it really any different than Grimms Fairy Tales which get reinvented every few years; updated for today’s youth? I think you’d be suprised to know how some of the original ones ended — not at all the way Walt tells them. There are people who claim that the Bible is absolute truth. Yet absolute truth should be true, absolutely, no? How can absolute truth change from generation to generation? And doesn’t this make the Bible less like God’s Word and more like Dear Abby? A lot of advice that you can pick and choose from and use or not use depending on your mood — I mean your modern social situation?

And what does this say about God? I was taught that the Bible is the plenary, verbally, infallible, inspired, inerrant Word of God. If this is the case, then it seems to me that we ought not be mucking around with it. After all, “God said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me” was a whole-heartedly believed motto in my youth. But now, it’s “God said it, but I’ve decided it’s not applicable to my particular situation, and that’s good enough for me.” I wonder why God put all that stuff in the Bible in the first place, knowing that it would be out of date in just a few millenia. I thought he was omniscient — surely he would have had enough foresight to put some everlasting words in there.

Furthermore, doesn’t this really make Society our new God? Since we are reinterpreting the Bible based on our “social situation or institution or practice or attitude,” if society changes then our Bible changes. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I thought the Bible was to dictate how we live. But it seems that the modern view is that the way we live dictates how we read the Bible. So society is, essentially, issuing a new edition every few years. You know, updated and revised with more graphs and pictures and 17 hours of special features including a 7 hour “The Making of” featurette. If Society is putting out the new editions, doesn’t this make Society God?

And what is the end result of all this reinterpretation? I doubt very much that passages deemed irrelevant will ever come back into “fashion” so we will slowly eliminate verse after verse, passage after passage, until entire books are inapplicable to our modern social situation. What do you think will remain in 25, 50, or 100 years? I think that pretty much the entire Old Testament is null and void even now. After all, the entire thing is about a nomadic, oppressed by everyone and his cousin, desert-wandering society. That pretty much fails the first of Houston’s two tests so chuck it all! And even a lot of the New Testament is out. I mean, women covering their heads while praying, all men with short hair, divorcees banned from church boards, men only as pastors, deploring homosexuality — we have absolutely nothing in common with those people.

I think the death blow is not far away and will be signaled by the removal of Bibles from those little shelves on the back of the pews. Afterall, if the pastor can’t even mention one verse during her sermon, why do we need them? And the pastor can’t mention a single verse because she needs to be hip and relevant and nothing in there is. Of course, we can always ship our unused copies to third world countries. It will take a couple more generations for their social situations to outgrow the Bible.

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Is the Doctrine of the Trinity just God on purée?

Published
by
Ken
on January 20, 2007
in christianity, god, religion and st. paul
. 0 Comments

I was feeding our nine month old daughter tonight and started thinking about the milk/meat analogy that Paul uses in I Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 5. Now that we have a baby, this analogy has gone to an entirely new level for me. God, I love a good analogy!

Earlier today, my wife and I were talking about whether or not to start giving our baby some finger food. You know, cereal, soft crackers, and the like. I want to but am scared to death of her choking on a bit of food. We make our own baby food and are no longer puréeing everything but are leaving it a little chunky. Every once in a while, she will try to swallow too fast or something and will start gagging a little. Nothing major and she always manages to get it down but when she does this I feel myself starting to panic.

So I started thinking about the transition from milk to meat, both the physical one with actual food and the metaphorical one with spiritual food. First of all, the transition is a slow one. No baby actually goes from drinking milk one day to eating meat the next. It takes time to work in new foods slowly. You have to be careful to not overstress the baby’s digestive system and you have to avoid creating food allergies from introducing certain things too quickly. The same thing applies with spiritual food. I think there has to be a gradual change in our spiritual diet; we have to work our way slowly from milk to meat. This means that there must be more than two categories of food. There must also be the spiritual equivalent of rice cereal and mashed sweet potatoes. Now, this also means that just because you’re not drinking the milk it does not mean that you’re ordering the holy lamb shank.

Secondly, the transition cannot progress without a little grimacing and gagging. As we introduce new foods into our daughter’s diet, invariably the first few bites give us much laughter as she shudders and shakes and contorts her mouth in reaction to the brand new flavors. But as we eat a little bit to show her how good it is and she gets used to the new tastes, she is soon eating faster than we can fill the spoon. And there will be some gagging as she eats bigger and bigger pieces. It’s just something that I have to accept as she gets used to eating. Again, there is a parallel with spiritual food. Some truths and doctrines may not seem very appetizing at first and others will be difficult to swallow. But we can’t just ignore them and rationalize our way out of taking them in. If we do that, we’ll end up eating diced peas and carrots the rest of our lives.

All this got me thinking about the Christian doctrines we have today. My guess is that anyone you talk to will probably say that these doctrines — the virgin birth, the Trinity, the historical Jesus, etc. — are spiritual “meat.” But I wonder. Just as a baby has no idea about the foods she’s not eating yet, can we really say whether our doctrines are meat or mashed taters? They may seem solid enough to cut with a knife but could they not be mashed up versions of something bigger and better but totally beyond our comprehension right now? Maybe we are still eating puréed notions of God.

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