Questions on Christianity

It is somewhat surprising that a movie about World War II raises questions about the Christian doctrine of salvation.  But the movie Fury does so at least in my mind.

In this film a Christian character, Boyd, displays his faith by holding the hands of dying German soldiers and urging them to “in their last moments to call on the name of Christ and be saved”. [1] So what is the question this scene raises?  It appears that Boyd is doing exactly what Christian doctrine says he should do.

The question is simple:  Why would God ordain that salvation be conditioned upon what we say or believe at one instant of time instead of what we do in our entire life?  Is what we do with our entire lives meaningless and of no regard because of what we do at one point in time?  The Christian doctrine of salvation would seem to indicate so.

[1]  Megan Basham, “Fire and Fury”, World, November 1, 2014, pp. 23-24.

On this blog page you will notice a link to Amazon and to a book I have written.  This book documents with scores of scripture passages and 179 footnotes the logic behind the main theme we have discussed in this blog—namely that salvation is the change of our soul so it becomes like God and not through belief in Jesus.  Belief in Jesus is only a means to this end, not the end itself.

In all my discussions with Christians, I have not heard any argument that invalidates what I have written.  But then, more likely than not, I have not heard all the arguments against my position.  So read my book and let’s discuss!

I’m reading a book about beekeeping.  In the beginning of the book the author states that the most important thing we need to learn in life is how to learn and we learn by making mistakes.  Yes, we can learn from the mistakes of other but the primary way we learn is through our own mistakes.  He also states that the reason children learn so rapidly is because they are not afraid to make a mistake.  We adults let our ego get in the way of learning because making mistakes implies a certain deficiency—a lack of knowledge.  The result is that we do not push the boundary of what we know.  If we want to learn we will make mistakes but what is most important is that we learn from our mistakes. [1]

It is because we are finite that we must learn through our mistakes.  Because we are finite we will encounter situations where we will not know what to do.  If we do not know what to do we will try something and quite a few times what we try will be wrong.

When we make a mistake in the area of morality, we call it a sin.  Now most of the time we know what we ought to do but there are times where we do not.  Regardless, what is important in either case is that we learn from our mistakes (sins).  That is what God requires.  Ezekiel 33:12-16 and Ezekiel 18:20-24 tells us that Israel’s pattern of behavior was important to God and our pattern of behavior is determined by whether we learn from our mistakes or not.

God considered David to be a man after his own heart in spite of David’s failings because David learned from his mistakes.  When the prophet Nathan talked to David about his inappropriate relationship with Bathsheba, David could have told Nathan to take a hike or could have had him killed—after all David was king.  Instead David learned from his mistake and his repentance is recorded in the beautiful Psalm 51.

Each one of us will make mistakes throughout our lives.  The question is whether we will learn from those mistakes.

[1]   Michael Bush.  The Practical Beekeeper.  X-Star Publishing Company, 2001, pp. 12-13.

A recent book has as its premise that liberal states have a lower divorce rate than conservative, conservatives tend to be more religious so therefore religious beliefs are bad for marriage.  Well, I’m not quite sure of their logic since religion is only one element in a person’s life and also correlation does not necessarily equal causation.  However, my interest lies in the response of Christians to this idea.

Janie B. Cheaney questions this statement by asserting that if we make a distinction between religious affiliation and religious practice this statement does not hold because those who attend church regularly are less likely to divorce than those who do not. [1]

It seems that some Christians want their cake and eat it too.  Most doctrinal statements assert that only by belief in Jesus and his death for our sins can we be saved.  However, when issues such as the above come up they are quick to talk about practice not just belief.

If salvation is just a matter of belief, then why does it matter what our practice is?  I would like an answer.

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[1]   Janie B. Cheaney, “A little religion”, World, September 6, 2014, p. 21.

Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air in the Roman Catholic Church.  His emphasis on helping the poor instead of enjoying the perks of his office is very Christ-like.  However, I do disagree with him when he states there are limits to free speech and that we cannot insult or make fun of the faith of others.  While I do not believe making fun of or insulting others is acceptable behavior, I am not willing to willing to support laws against hate speech.  Once you start to limit what people can say, it is a slippery slope to banning all manner of speech including religious speech that runs counter to the current moral climate of a country.

Jesus did not tell us to use the coercive power of government to silence our critics.  Instead he told us to “. . .Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28, NIV).  While being insulted for our beliefs is never a pleasant experience, we need to follow Jesus’ teachings instead of using Machiavellian tactics.

The above title is a well-known advertising tag line for the city of Las Vegas.  A Lutheran church in Tulsa, OK had a slightly different take on the idea expressed in this tag line and placed it on a billboard:

What happens in church shouldn’t stay in church.

That would be a great tag line for this blog.  We have always maintained that Christianity is not a belief system but a life that is lived in a certain way—God’s way.  Going to church can give us the information we need to know concerning what God’s way involves.  However, what really counts is if that knowledge does not stay in church but is lived in every aspect of our lives every day.

I was out Christmas shopping this past week and ran across a book of common sense sayings.  Most were humorous but one that caught my eye was serious:  “The best sermons are lived not preached”.

Now I think all of us would agree with that statement.  Why do we do so?  Because a sermon that is preached is just theoretical while a sermon that is lived is practical, it is authentic because it has been tried and found to be of value.

If we believe the above statement to be true then why do we believe in God’s case it is different?  When we maintain that salvation is solely a matter of belief than we say that all God cares about is our statements of belief; that it does not matter to him if we actually live what we believe or not.  Does that sound like God?

George Will recently wrote an opinion article on Adolf Eichmann. [1]  Eichmann was greatly responsible for the wholesale slaughter of those who the Germans considered to be undesirables in the World War II era.  Some think Eichmann to be evil incarnate.  Others, including Eichmann, consider him to be a bureaucrat who was just following orders.

My question is:  Does it really matter which person Eichmann was?  Either way, millions of innocent people died horribly.

So why this argument about who Eichmann really was?  Is it because we do not want to face the reality that all of us have some responsibility for the evil that exists in our world?  Say that Eichmann was just a bureaucrat following orders.  If he and several other bureaucrats had stood up and refused to carry out their orders, then it is possible the Holocaust would not have happened.  Even if Eichmann was evil incarnate, then those under him who were just carrying out his orders had an opportunity to stop this madness.

The problem is we humans are more interested in power, prestige, and wealth than we are in doing what is right.  History shows we will twist our logic and ethics to justify doing whatever we want to do.  While the consequences of our actions might not be as severe as Eichmann’s actions were, they do contribute to the deteriorating moral climate of our world.

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[1]   George Will, “The warped idealism of a murderer”, Tulsa World, November 21, 2014, p. A14.