If I lived in a different time in human history, I am reasonably confident that I would be burned at the stake for heresy. Heresy is a belief or opinion contrary to those considered normal and orthodox, particularly in the Christian tradition.
The problem that I am having is that as I deconstruct my faith, I’m finding a whole new world of beliefs that seem pretty reasonable, even though they are widely considered to be heresies in the conservative Christian world of my upbringing. Let’s just say that my past self would be appalled at the ideas and doctrines that I’ve been exploring. He’d be praying for my immortal soul.
He should worry about me less.
Besides, I am not saying that I believe in any or all of the doctrines that he might consider wicker and dangerous, but I am saying that they don’t seem all that unreasonable to me. In fact, here are a few of the ideas that I reckon are worth a second look:
Everyone goes to Heaven
The belief that everyone goes to Heaven in the end — otherwise known as universalism — has been widely rejected by mainstream Christianity, which holds to the doctrine of special salvation: That a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called Heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in conscious torment and punishment in Hell with no chance for anything better.
Special salvation has long been held as a central truth of the Christian faith, and to reject it is, in essence, akin to rejecting Jesus. In fact, when former megachurch pastor, Rob Bell, wrote a book back in 2011 in support of universalism, it prompted evangelical preaching powerhouse John Piper to tweet this response:
Yep, in fine Christian style, let’s dismiss anyone with a different view!
However, according to Rob Bell, the belief that only a select few people get to spend eternity in heaven while the rest rot in hell “is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.”
He has a point.
Nobody goes to Hell
In between universalism and special salvation lies a kind of middle ground better known as conditional immortality. This is the view that those who choose to believe end up in heaven, but those who do not, are not punished for all of eternity. They simply cease to exist.
Many Christians seem hung up on the idea that those who refuse to believe will live forever in a kind of eternal conscious punishment that includes fire, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. But the Conditionalist believes that non-believer is simply annihilated at the end. Sure, it’s not all that pleasant to think about, but it will be over quickly.
The thing is, when you ask the question, “What does the Bible really say about the final fate of those who do not believe?” there is a good deal of Biblical support for the idea that people either live forever with God or simply die.
For example, in the Old Testament, there are over 70 metaphors that describe that the final fate of the non-believer as death, but absolutely nowhere does it mention being tortured or tormented eternally in an immortal body.
Even so, Conditional immortality is not the most popular view among Christians. Rather, many Christians read verses like “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23) or “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16) and somehow conclude that the word “death” really means living forever in eternal torment, and the word “perish” really means living forever in the bowels of Hell.
Go figure.
Image by Dmitry Demidovich on Shutterstock
God is the brain behind evolution
For so long, science has been set up as the enemy of faith. Nowhere has this been more evident than in respect to the theory of evolution. When I was a young person growing up in the evangelical church, we were coached on how to stand up to our high school science teachers when they taught us about evolution. In fact, we were virtually told that this was our Christian duty.
However, my brain exploded on the day when someone told me that belief in God and evolution need not be mutually exclusive. What? Do you mean I don’t have to deny all the scientific evidence to maintain my belief in God?
Surely not!?
Theistic Evolution believes that if there is an evolutionary process at work, as the evidence suggests, then God is behind it all. In other words, God is the brain behind evolution. To maintain a Christian worldview, one only has to believe that God made the world. How he did it might be an interesting thing to speculate, but it’s immaterial in the end.
The Bible isn’t perfect
According to a survey by Pew Research, around 40% of Christians believe that the Bible is the perfect, inerrant word of God and should be taken literally. I hope these people have perfectly behaved children. Otherwise, I suppose they will be following these directions in Deuteronomy 21:18–21:
“If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they punish him, then his father and mother shall take him before the elders of the city and declare, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and won’t obey; he is a worthless drunkard.’ Then the men of the city shall stone him to death. In this way you shall put away this evil from among you, and all the young men of Israel will hear about what happened and will be afraid.”
Gosh, maybe I’ll get this verse framed and hung in my house just so my kids know I mean business when I tell them to clean their rooms. Or maybe I could take a different view of the Bible.
According to Wil Gafney, associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, “Literal readings of Biblical texts can also lead to fraudulent readings, dogmatic tenacity to ahistorical or unscientific claims, and the loss of credibility for those who insist on nonsensical interpretations.”
In other words, when it comes to reading the Bible, we ought to take a more nuanced approach than merely accepting everything we read as fact, or else you’ll end up looking a little bit silly. Besides this, a lot of what is written in the Bible is not actually meant to be taken literally.
Some of it is poetic. Some of it is symbolism. Some of it is hyperbole. You’ll find irony, mythology, exaggeration, puns, riddles, proverbs, and quotes in and out of context in the Bible.
No, you don’t have to believe that Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale because even if that didn’t happen, the message is not lost. Were Adam and Eve real people? Well, how could we possibly know that since they were supposedly the only ones around to see it? And does it really matter? Actually, no.
It turns out the essence of the Adam and Eve story is not lost if, it turned out, that Adam and Eve were mythical characters.
Why?
Because the point of the story of Adam and Eve is less about introducing two historical figures than it is about archetypally representing the problem of the human condition. We are supposed to find ourselves in Adam and Eve.
That’s the thing with the Bible. It is not supposed to be read as a book of history, but rather, a book of theology, revealing to us what we are like and what God is like. In fact, the Bible is man’s best attempt to explain their God within the culture and context of their day. So, I will happily call the Bible inspired, sacred, authoritative, and useful, but I can’t call it faultless because, well… it was written by humans.
Now here’s the most excellent thing. When you stop taking the Bible literally, it actually becomes a whole lot more useful for understanding God and yourself!
Image by iStockphoto
God is a Feminine Spirit
As I wrapped up a church service one Sunday morning, I gave a blessing from Numbers 6:24–26, but let’s just say I put my own spin on it. Here is what I said:
“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn her face toward you
and give you peace.”
There was an audible gasp. A few people winced as if they had been pinched by an invisible lobster hiding in their pew. And a few others raised their bowed heads, exposing the wrinkles in their furrowed brows. Without using any words, their faces all screamed the same thing:
“Excuse me? Did you just say “Her?” Did you just refer to our loving heavenly father as something other than a benevolent older male? How dare you!”
But I wasn’t the first to do it. The late blogger and author Rachel Held Evans once had the gall to refer to God using feminine pronouns.
Why can’t people see that it is perfectly reasonable to presume God may also consist of a complimentary feminine side? I mean, if God is spirit, does he even have a penis? Does talking about God in feminine terms reduce the greatness of God? I don’t think so. If anything, it probably adds to it, in my opinion.
The conservative retorts, “But, in the Bible, God is only ever called a ‘He.’” to which I would say, “What would you expect of a book that was written by men in a patriarchal society?” Every word we write about our indescribable God is a metaphor. They used the metaphor that seemed best to them in that time, place, and culture.
God is not in control
When bad things happen, some will turn to Christians and rhetorically demand: “So where is your God now?” But, this question itself hinges on the assumption that God is in control of everything — all of the time.
But what if he isn’t?
It sounds heretical just to suggest it but hear me out. What if life is a combination of chance and divine purpose. I mean, if God really gave us free will, then, in essence, it means that God has given up a level of control, doesn’t it? And if that is the case, humans are free to engage in all kinds of moral evil, whether they’re Hitler, members of the Klu Klux Clan, or wanton polluters.
Maybe God has a divine purpose for the world, but within that purpose, people are free to do what they want? Let me explain with another metaphor. Back in days before COVID, when we could go on Cruises, there was the odd occasion where the captain of the ship would need to alter the ship’s destination — perhaps to avoid bad weather, for example.
The passengers have no ability to control the final destination of the ship, short of outright mutiny. However, within the ship, the passengers are free to do what they want. You can go to the pool, or have a drink at the bar, or toss a few coins into a slot machine if you want to. You have the free choice. But, if someone falls down the stairs in the ship, do you blame the captain?
Maybe God is in control, but then he isn’t at the same time.
…
Sitting in spiritual no man’s land
Hey, these Biblical heresies don’t seem all that unreasonable to me. Call me a heretic if you like. They said the same thing about Jesus anyway.
The battle lines may be drawn between progressive and conservative Christians, but while they lob their truth grenades back and forth, I think I might just sit down on the green grass of no man’s land and enjoy the sunshine on my skin with the other believers who are haven’t made up their minds on some or many of these issues but have decided that they do not need to divide us.
Feel free to lie down with us and rest.
I don’t care if you have doubts about the virgin birth or penal substitutionary atonement, or the inerrancy of scripture. I don’t even care if you have a different faith altogether. You’re welcome to sit with us in the in-between and enjoy the wonder and mystery.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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