A Fresh Perspective

For most evangelical Christians (and not a few mainliners), salvation is about going to heaven or hell. Once upon a time I believed that too. I was wrong. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I believe in an afterlife. I believe there is more to this life than this life. And I am sure it will be good, because God is good – as the song says, “God is good, all the time.” I believe that. If you believe that, then there is no need to worry about heaven or hell in the literal sense. God would not be good if God tortured people. Other people might torture us, and we might torture ourselves, but God won’t. While not literal, hell is still a reality though. And most of usually have to live through some “hells” before we reach “heaven.” Heaven is where love is, now and forever. I love this passage by Wendell Berry in his book, The Lost World : “I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merci...

The stories Jesus told enabled him to both conceal and reveal truth. There were people in the high ranks of the Jewish religious establishment who were completely closed to Jesus’ teaching – they were set on getting rid of Jesus at the first opportunity. The stories Jesus told had a way of conveying truth in a kind of veiled way. On the other hand, there was perhaps no better way of trying to get through to people who had their defenses up. One of things that often blocks spiritual teaching – one reason we do not receive spiritual teaching very well - is because of our assumption that we already know. And this is why direct teaching that counters what we think we know hardly ever gets through, because we react in anger and defensiveness. It may be teaching that we need to hear, but we can’t hear it because we think we already know, and the first thing we want to do is prove the other person wrong. So Jesus tells stories. We are naturally drawn into a story. And the stories Jes...

When Mother Teresa’s private journals were published after her death, the surprising revelation was that she spoke of long periods where the sense of the absence of God was more real to her than God’s presence. In Mark’s version of the passion narrative Jesus utters a single saying from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry echoes the feelings of the Psalmist (Ps. 22:1). It’s a question, not a declaration and it reflects the sense of God’s absence that overtook Jesus in his humiliating death. Did God actually depart? Was Jesus really forsaken by God? Was this in reality the eclipse of God? In subtle ways throughout the passion story Mark’s Gospel proclaims Jesus to be God’s agent of redemption. Before the high priest, Jesus is asked, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” (14:61). Jesus responded, “I am” (14:62). Jesus also affirmed Pilate’s question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (15:2), which, obviously, Pilate did not believe. The ...

Conservative analyst and commentator Charles Krauthammer in a recent piece in the Washington Post lamented that in striking down DOMA the Supreme Court enumerated equal protection as one rationale for their decision. He argues (rightfully so) that the rationale of equal protection will lead eventually to nationalizing gay marriage.  We have turned a corner. While conservative states will rev up their stands against gay marriage as they did when the Supreme Court ruled segregation laws unconstitutional, their ultimate defeat on the issue of gay marriage is inevitable. Just as there are key transitional stages in biological evolution, so we have now entered a transitional stage in our spiritual and moral evolution, at least in our part of the world. Recent polling indicates that in some estimates as much as 80 percent of the younger generation now supports gay marriage. What’s a conservative to do? In an excellent piece in Baptists Today executive editor John Pierc...

Recently in a webcast, Richard Rohr offered a simple rule of thumb for discerning, evaluating, and judging the redemptive value of biblical texts. The first question to ask of any biblical text, he said, is not, “How does this text help me, save me, guide me?” Those are questions that leave the ego in charge. The first question to ask is: What does this text say about God? How is God imaged in the text? How does the text portray God? Father Rohr says: If the God depicted and imaged in the text is operating at a level lesser than the best person you know, then you know that the text is not presenting an authentic revelation of God. If the God portrayed in that text is not as just or loving or compassionate or understanding or gracious or forgiving or kind or fair as the best person you know, then you know it can’t be a reliable portrait of God. When we read accounts of God ordering Israel to put an entire civilization under the ban—to kill men, women, children, animals, and d...