A Fresh Perspective

The late Ken Chafin, who was a Baptist minister and professor and something of a statesman, tells about a friend in college who use to preach a lot in some of the small country churches not far from campus. Chafin would get a card from his friend saying something like: 35 saved in rival at the Mossy Bottom Baptist Church. Chafin thought that was pretty good since they only had about 25 members. This pricked his curiosity a little bit, so one evening he drove out to hear him preach. It was a Friday night and his friend’s sermon that evening was on the Great White Throne Judgment. His text came out of the book of Revelation. The preacher was in a white suit, white tie, white shirt, white belt, and even white shoes. He thundered from the pulpit that if you didn’t become white as snow through the blood of the lamb you would find yourself literally in one hell of a predicament, a hell of fire and brimstone. Chafin said that he didn’t think he was going to get home that night until the pre...

Sometimes deaths in communities come like waves. I am ready for the tide to turn. I have conducted too many funerals in too few days. The following is a story I love to share with families. I’m not sure where it originated. I got it from a minister who got it from a minister who got it from a minister. Once there lived a colony of grubs at the bottom of a swamp. Ever so often a member of the community would feel the urge to swim to the surface of the water and then disappear, never to be seen again. This confused and bewildered the others, and so one day they agreed that the next time one of them felt compelled to leave the colony, that one would return and share with the others what it was like above the surface of the water. It wasn’t long before one felt the urge to depart. She swam to the surface and crawled out onto a lily pad and in the warmth of the sun went to sleep. As she slept the carapace of the little creature broke open, and out emerged this beautiful rainbow...

Some Christians have a narrow understanding of salvation that makes it all about the afterlife (going to heaven). They think they know who has it and who doesn’t, who’s in and who’s out, and they consider the work of the church to be largely about converting others to their version of the truth of salvation. It’s hard for me to be too critical of these Christians, since at one time, I, also held to that exclusive version of salvation. Progressive Christians (and more evangelical Christians are coming to this realization also) insist that there are multiple images and metaphors for salvation in the Scriptures and different contemporary ways for understanding salvation. Many Christians are surprised to learn that not a single reference to salvation in the Old Testament relates to the afterlife. And only a few references in the New Testament relate specifically to the afterlife. One of the dominant images in both Testaments is salvation as liberation from bondage. In the OT this is I...