I Could Be Wrong

Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?  Snoopy raises an important point here.  As it is for all beliefs and assumptions about the world, doubt is an important part of an honest assessment of our concept of God.  It is also essential for any growth in our personal knowledge and relationship with God.

I listened to a podcast a number of years ago of a Christian speaker on the importance of doubt in developing true Christian faith.  Doubt, he contended, is the very pinnacle of faith and trust in God as Truth.  The man was from Scotland and had a thick Scottish accent.  He recounted how after giving this same speech in America a person approached him who told him that he had spoken beautifully, but he had one question, "What's Dooot?".

I started thinking about this subject recently after reading an article on rational thinking and logic fallacies, ways we are less than honest with ourselves in our arguments for a particular viewpoint or belief.  The article looks at strategies for cutting through flawed assumptions and false beliefs including one's own.

http://discovermagazine.com/2015/july-aug/16-user-guide-rational-thinking

One of the logical fallacies discussed is confirmation bias, the tendency to focus on evidence that supports our preconceptions and ignore those that do not.  We all do this to some degree, but to be intellectually honest and open to truth we need to be aware of the fact and make an effort to seriously examine information that contradicts the way we would like things to be.  In other words, in order to be faithful to the truth we need to be skeptical and doubt what we already believe to be true.  


Another good articles with references to research  on cofirmation bias can be found at the following link:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13718636/donald-trump-psychology-confirmation-bias-truth-backfire

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

John 4:24 

Doubt as an act of faith seems to be a paradox.  However, what should be noted is that what is being considered and weighed is not God, but our concepts and understanding of God.  Scrutinizing our beliefs about God recognizes that God is greater and more than just our limited understanding and concepts.  It is also an act of trust that states that if God is Truth, truth is no threat to a real understanding of God.  As well, it states that we place gaining a more accurate concept of God over maintaining our current entrenched views.

In a previous post, A God With No Name; The Problem With Personification, I discussed how the Ancient Hebrews rejected the hubris of trying to put God into too small a box by imagining that God can be totally defined by human understanding.  Surrounded by cultures with multiple gods and idols, they were aware of this danger.  This may have inspired their concept of God, the God with no name. In the Exodus story, the writer has Moses ask God who it is that has sent him and God replies, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”. It is from this phrase that YHVH, or Yahweh, became the personal name of God in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures. Later, in the Priestly Era, even this was replaced with the title, Jehovah, meaning, "The Lord", with the personal name seen as too holy for anything but very special use

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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."

-Paul Tillich

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In most cases our beliefs about God, like most of our ideas and views of the world, are not "ours" at all, but are a reflection of the social or cultural group that we identify with.  Most people do not work out a personal stance or viewpoint on very many things and instead trust in the wisdom of authorities and leaders in their own social or cultural group.  This is further complicated by the fact that most people do not choose their social and cultural groups or faith community but adopt the ones they were born into without question.

Much of our thinking on contentious issues is influenced by our pre-established social or cultural groups.

Dan Kahan, law professor and science communication researcher at Yale Law School.

When our beliefs and views are tied into our associations and support networks, questioning those dogmas becomes problematic, even threatening.  Holding a certain view of the world and a shared understanding of what's true can become a matter of faithfulness to the cultural, social and religious groups that form the basis of our self identity.  To question these shared perspectives can be viewed as withdrawing one's allegiance, being ungrateful, or even traitorous.

Once a certain idea or stance becomes associated with a group we belong to (part of what Kahan calls a cultural identity), we become more inclined to adopt that position; it’s a way to show that we belong.

Our understanding or assumptions about the world and about God are further conditioned and set beyond our specific social, cultural and religious groups by our wider culture.  The view of reality and what is true and real that is set by our wider culture (the nation/society) is all the more insidious because it is what we take for granted is true because it is, "what everyone knows" and therefore, "the way things are".  If we all share the same view and understanding, we take it for granted that it must be "right" and an accurate accounting of reality.  However, even a cursory look at the history of thought will tell us that what society believes as "what is" changes.  We no longer take for granted that the earth is flat and the sun and planets revolve around us.  Most of us no longer assume that certain racial groups or castes of people are inherently inferior to others and require moral guidance. It is difficult to seriously question ideas that you do not even realize are just a perception when our shared acceptance casts it as reality.

Questioning and examining these assumptions and beliefs is not only not a betrayal of Christianity, it is exactly what Jesus taught and encouraged his listeners to do. In another post in this blog, "Is Following Jesus About Turning Off Your Brain?", I argued that Jesus could be considered the poster boy for free thinking and critical reasoning.  He used open ended teaching devices like parables to encourage people to look beyond the assumptions of their culture. Jesus was no fan of accepting the authority of past knowledge as truth over reason and inquiry.  He opposed allowing authority and literal interpretations of laws and rules prevail over the understanding of broader principles.

Given all this, let me now apply the subject of this piece to myself.  Am I wrong?  Am I wrong in my current views and concepts of God?  To begin with, Yes, Yes I am.  This question assumes that there is a "right" view that holds a level of truth above all others and is perfect in itself wherein no further development and growth is needed. However, all concepts of God miss the mark.  All words are metaphors and all metaphors are imperfect as they are not the things they seek to describe.

To ask the question differently, "Are my current views further from the truth than my former?"  In my youth I would have described myself as an "Evangelical" and a "Biblical Literalist."  There are many people in the "conservative" Christian organizations that I belonged to at that time who would say that I have strayed away from the truth.  

In High School I was a member of an Evangelical organization called the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship and was president of my school's chapter of the Interschool Christian Fellowship.  I convinced the school administration to have a reformed career criminal named Ernie Holland give his testimony of conversion to a school assembly.  I was also struck by the message of David Wilkerson's book, "The Cross and the Switchblade", and organized a public showing of the film based on the book through a joint venture with the ISCF group at our town's other High School.

I became an intended candidate for ministry with my home church and felt that God was calling me to help bring a wave of Evangelical revival to what I felt was an apathetic main line denomination.  At University while working on the Bachelors of Arts that was a prerequisite to a Masters of Divinity, I took the advice of my conservative friends and stayed away from the theological students and took part in the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.  Despite this, I found my preconceptions challenged in University and sought to find a more personal communication with God and way to discern his will that would counter these influences.  To this end I joined a fledgling sect led by a man ordained by the United Pentecostal Church that many in leadership with Queens Christian Fellowship were attending.  During that time I had the first major occurrence of an ongoing struggle with cyclic depression.  A number of the members also had problems with depression and it was interpreted as an act of God, tearing down the old in order to establish the new.  After having to drop out from my studies and a number of years "pursuing God" in this fashion, I finally realized that this was not brining me closer to life or to God and actually left town to reframe my direction.  To give myself credit, I did not view this as giving up on faith and told myself that I didn't want to, "throw out the baby with the bathwater".  However, I knew that I needed to look at my faith in a very different light.

When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer a number of years ago my family and I moved to my home town to be closer to her and started attending the Evangelical church she belonged to.  My wife and I knew that this church held a very different view of God and Christianity than our own.  We soon learned that this community did not respect dissenting views and that if we wanted to remain and not create a disturbance we needed to keep our mouths shut about ideas we disagreed with or held different perspectives on.  I made no mention of the fact that when we were directed from the pulpit to write "Pro Family" letters to our Member of Parliament encouraging him to oppose same sex marriage legislation that I wrote to both my MP and the Prime Minister to express my support for it.
http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/advocacy/letters_pm.htm

A couple of years after my mother died we left that church to find a faith community that tolerated a wider range of thought and faith.  Feeling freer to express my opinions, those friends from that church who I had social media connections with were dismayed to learn some of my actual faith views.

The direction of my current faith views and some of my current opinions were formed or came together during my time at that church.  In many cases they were a reaction to theology and dogma that did not sit well with my heart and didn't match the spirit of the words and actions of Jesus I read in the Gospels.  They were also a reaction to the spirit of intolerance, pettiness, and self-righteousness I witnessed this theology foster in this community.  I felt that some of the ways that the Scriptures were viewed and approached were less than intellectually honest and that there must be a more truthful perspective for gaining what they have to offer.

My current faith journey has led me to a place where I have a less literalistic interpretation of images of God as a sentient being.  I have a more metaphorical view of God and see these images as an anthropomorphism of what is truly legitimate and greater than our individual selves.  I also view, "the kingdom of god", and the use of images of an afterlife in the New Testament in a different light.  Instead of taking the concepts of an afterlife, Heaven and Hades, literally, I have come to interpret them as referring to the way our influence extends beyond our lifespan in our contribution to cycles of violence and hate, or love and compassion.  I have written about this in the blog posts, The Gospel Is Not About What Happens When You Die, and, What Does Jesus' Death Mean To A Non-Literalist?

So, what if I am wrong in the direction of my theology?  What if I am straying further from a more accurate understanding of reality and truth?  What if God truly is a sentient being who determines the fate of your existence in an alternate reality where your consciousness and awareness of self continue after death?  

I can only express my faith that if this is the case that an honest and open search for truth will lead me to that outcome.  I also have faith that setting one's sights on exploring and emulating the nature of God as portrayed in the Gospels is at least as important as what doctrines have my intellectual assent.  I believe that what I am persuaded to to take as factual or agree with intellectually is not nearly as important as allowing my heart and attitudes be transformed by the message I find in the Gospels.  One of the ways I strive to do this is through my study of the Gospels in my other blog, A Literary Look at the Gospels.

I will continue to doubt, reconsider, and readjust, both the views and opinions presented to me and especially my own because I trust in God as Truth.  None of our concepts or theology is perfect and I will continue to hold that doubt is truly the pinnacle of faith.

Who's Going to Hell?

We have all heard pronouncements of condemnation by conservative and Religious Right Christians announcing God's judgement of an eternity in Hell on persons and minority groups whose "lifestyle" they don't agree with.  This is usually based on a cherry-picking of Old Testament Law that corresponds with their own cultural biases and used in the service of prejudice and bigotry to villify, exclude, and persecute those who don't fit the cultural and social norms of their religious denomination, sect, or movement.  I would like to take some time to explore why this is a gross misrepresentation of the "Way of Christ" given in the teachings and stories of Jesus in the Gospels.  Once I have covered this, I would then like to look at what the Gospels would tell us if we did take the metaphor of Hell literally.  What if Jesus is actually going to send some people to Hell?  If it were true that Jesus is indeed literally going to pass judgement on each of us in the next life, then, given what and who he condemns in the Gospels, who would he send to eternal punishment and suffering?

Unfortunately, the history of Christianity beginning with the Holy Roman Empire founded by Constantine is rife with the use of the literalization of Hell by those in power to control and in many cases oppress.  Both Church Authority and Christian States have used the threat of damnation to enforce compliance to their rule.  

Christian Monarchs of Europe and Britain followed the precedent of the Holy Roman Empire and reinterpreted Christianity as an ideology to reinforce their legitimacy and political control.  This is best seen in the doctrine of, "the Divine Right of Kings".  This creed held that those in power have Divine sanction and to question or oppose them is to question or oppose God Himself.  The reasoning was that if God controls and directs the activity of man, then anyone who comes to power must have been put there at the will of God and have His authority.  So, anyone who defied or questioned those in political authority were defying God and could be threatened with punishment not only in this life, but also with eternal punishment in the next.  Christianity became in many cases a gospel of control and oppression rather than transformation and life

However, the literal Hell narrative is not the point of the writings of the New Testament. I would argue that this narrative takes the scriptural texts out of context and is not faithful to the intent of the authors.  A literal interpretation points to an actual afterlife where one's identity and memories live on without a body, where one is sent to either one of two regions, one of bliss, or one of torture, depending on one's moral behaviour. This is figurative language used to discuss what is legitimate and laudable and brings "life" as opposed to what is destructive and brings a kind of "death".  Actions stemming from love, compassion, and inclusion create a circle of life where further actions in the same vein are encouraged to grow, a wholeness that continues on even after the individual is gone.  The same is true of the vicious cycle that can be produced by actions of selfishness, hatred, and exclusion.  It is these cycles of "good"or "evil" that create patterns of behavior that continue on after the individuals are gone that are a kind of afterlife, one that can be a heaven, or a hell.

So, what about all those references in the Gospels to an afterlife, you might ask.  To begin with, you have to remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi and wisdom teacher who belonged to post-exilic Rabbinical Judaism.  He and his early followers saw themselves as thoroughly part of that religion and tradition.  Wisdom teachers in that tradition frequently used the telling of popular stories, parables, and myths with their own twist in order to make a point, or bring a different perspective to light.

Epic of Gilgamesh

One of the best examples of this from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, is the story of Noah, which is a retelling of the story of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, fragments of which have been found on tablets dated around 2,000 B.C., and which was also retold by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.  This story was never meant to portray a factual account of some literal historic event.  Its importance is in the way it was retold and interpreted by the Hebrew people.  
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/flood-myths-who-believes-in-noahs-ark-and-why/
Secondly, one needs to be aware that an afterlife was not a theme in the Rabbinical Jewish tradition that Jesus and his followers belonged to.  After death was only sheol, the grave.  The Hebrew tradition and the Tanakh is all about the people's Covenant and relationship with God in life.  I can only imagine that they steered clear of any suggestion of an afterlife in reaction to the prominent place the idea held in the religion of their oppressors in Egypt.  As a result, the closest thing to an afterlife in the Tanakh is where Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.  However, he didn't experience a life beyond death, he just didn't die.

There are only two references in the Old Testament that could be said to refer to an afterlife and these are Persian influenced references to a resurrection in some future time rather than an immediate transition to another conscious reality at the point of death. The first is: “Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise, awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of light, and the earth shall bring to life the shades” (Isaiah 26:19); and the second: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence” (Daniel 12:2).

Outside of the Rabbinic Literature, there is a doctrine in Jewish eschatology of Resurrection, where in a future age the dead will rise from their graves to live again.  This idea was closely associated with the doctrine of the Messiah and would be a ready store of allusions for the Gospel writers who cast Jesus in the Messiah role.

Stories and myths about an afterlife in Jesus time, mainly came from other religions and traditions; the Egyptian stories of the Field of Reeds where the soul went to enjoy a continued existence without sickness or disappointment for eternity, or the Greek myths of Hades where there were different planes of existence the dead could inhabit depending on how they had lived their life on earth.  The Roman city of Sepphoris, the capital of the Galilee province, was a hotbed of Hellenistic culture.  This city was only five kilometers away from Nazareth.  Jesus and his audience would have been quite familiar with the Greek stories about an afterlife.

Like the good Jewish wisdom teacher he was, Jesus used the popular stories, myths and ideas his audience was familiar with, giving them his own twist to illustrate his ideas and perception of reality. The writers of the Gospels did the same thing using allusions to these stories in their metaphorized accounts of Jesus' life and actions.  Marcus Borg in his writing uses the example of the parable of the prodigal son to demonstrate how a story in Scripture does not have to be literal in order to illustrate truths.  No one would say that because the family in the parable were not literal historical figures and that the narrative told is not a recording of actual historical events that the point it was meant to illuminate is not "true".  Many Christians, however, do not seem able to accept metaphor and allegory in the Scriptures where the text is not clearly identified as being a parable.

So what references to these stories from other cultures and religions about an afterlife were made in the Gospels?  There is the example of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke.  In this parable, the rich man and Lazarus both die and experience an afterlife where they are judged and sent to different planes of existence dependent on how they had lived their life on earth like in the Greek myths of Hades.  This is obviously a parable and shows up in Luke among a collection of parables.  It doesn't make sense to interpret it as Jesus giving a science lesson on the actual workings of what happens when people die.  The point being illustrated is that wealth and luxury are not rewards from God to the righteous and that failure to look after the poor and suffering is worthy of punishment (or, at least, that's how I interpret it).

Part of the narrative of a non-figurative Hell includes the characterization of Jesus as having come as judge, to mete out punishment to the many, and provide salvation to the few.  In this theology, after a person has died and their personality and memories have passed into an alternate reality not observable by our own, Jesus is portrayed as sitting in judgment over the person on which level of Hades they will reside, or to decide if that person merits the Field of Reeds, Heaven.  

In modern conservative Evangelical Christianity, the deciding factor is what you have allowed yourself to be convinced is factual.  The first condition is that you be convinced intellectually that there is a literal God, an all powerful sentient being that can read your mind and presides over the alternate dimension experienced at death.  Secondly, you must be convinced that the legal system of this narrative is also true and just, and that you have transgressed against it and are deserving of punishment.  And thirdly, you must be remorseful about this transgression and wish to be pardoned.  One can then gain forgiveness by asking that Jesus' death be accepted as payment on your behalf.  However, one must refrain from a, "lifestyle", that is out of compliance with those Old Testament laws that whichever Christian denomination or sect you have joined have determined God still endorses as opposed to the others.  This is a somewhat convoluted theology which may be a helpful model for some people.  However, it is not reflective of the themes of judgment and salvation in the Gospels.

Judaism of the second Temple period thought of Salvation in more of a corporate than personal fashion.  The concept of Salvation was tied to the restoration of the state of Israel and rescue from national enemies.  This was especially relevant in Jesus' time with the conquest and occupation by Roman forces. The Jews of the first century expected to be rescued from foreign dominion. Looking to texts such Deuteronomy 4:32, Isaiah 40:1-2, and Jeremiah 31:27-40,  many believed that this would only occur after they suffered a purification process for past breaches of their covenant with God.  As such, they looked for an immediate earthly wrath and judgment by God on the people of Israel where, as John the Baptist put it, "every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" (Luke 3:9).  This was an earthly process for the living and had nothing to do with one's existence after death.  In the Gospels, John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the awaited Messiah that would carry out this process on God's behalf.

"But one who is more powerful than I will come...His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:15-18)

The people asked John what they should do (to be saved from this immediate earthly purification).  His answer did not involve any of the Evangelical narrative above.  He told them that, "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same".  To the tax collectors he instructed that they not, "collect any more than you are required to".  To the soldiers he advised, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely". 

So, the, "Good News of Salvation", in this section of the Gospels, is that there is a way for the people of Israel to escape the coming earthly judgment and purification necessary before their salvation from foreign domination.  The key to this salvation is through practicing generosity, social equality, honesty and justice.

Now, let us turn to the subject of the title of this blog.  Given the teachings of Jesus and the stories about him in the Gospels, who would he, "send to Hell", or, more accurately, what behaviours did he view as meriting punishment?  To begin with, this would include those actions that are the opposite of those John the Baptist cited to the people as the path to save themselves from the Messiah's earthly purge: greed, such as not sharing ones wealth with those in need to the level of equality, corruption, such as using position to extort or take advantage of others, and dishonesty, such as giving false testimony.  

Jesus is given in the Gospels as affirming John's route to escaping the Messiah's judgment and as confirming his displeasure with those who do not follow this direction. One of my favorite sections from the Gospels comes from the 21st chapter of Matthew where, in response to the Chief Priests and Elders questioning of his authority, he tells them a parable about two sons. At the request of their father to work in the vineyard, one son says he will not go, but changes his mind and later does, while the other initially says he will go, but in the end does not. When the Chief Priests and Elders identify the first as doing what his father wanted, Jesus responds with one of my favorite verses, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.“ 

Next, let us look at the parable that is given in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke about the Rich Man and Lazarus.  As mentioned earlier, this is one of texts that literalists draw their narrative on Hell from.  However, it is obviously a parable using the Greek myth of Hades as a vehicle and is placed in the chapter between other stories told by Jesus that no one questions as being parable. 

In the parable, both a rich man, who lived in luxury every day, and the beggar Lazarus, who lived at his gate, die, are judged, and sent to different planes of existence dependent on how they had lived their life on earth like in the Greek myths of Hades.  The place where the rich man ends up is actually called Hades, ᾍδης, ου, ὁ, in the original Greek texts of the Gospel, the same word used in the original Greek myths.  Jesus does however give a Hebrew twist to the story by having Father Abraham the one in charge in the next realm.

Now, in the story, the rich man isn't so much presented as being punished for his greed and lack of humanity in not sharing his wealth with Lazarus, as much as being subject to a kind of cosmic Karma.  When the rich man asks Father Abraham for pity and relief from his torment he is told:

But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony." (Luke 16:25)

So it appears that Jesus is proposing that if you live in inequality where you reserve the good things in life for yourself, not sharing them equally with others, you will at some point experience bad things in proportion so that there is a balance.  Not quite the message we are used to in the popular representation of Jesus and his teaching.  However, the theme is quite a common one in Greek Myth and Tragedy.  In these stories, rising too high risks gaining the notice of the gods and being knocked off one's perch like Oedipus.  In this case, Jesus would seem to be condemning inequality and hoarding resources to live in luxury while others live in deprivation.

Aside from social inequality, the thing Jesus is least tolerant of in the Gospels is self righteous legalism.  He condems those who consider themselves to be better or set apart from others due to strict observance of moral and Religious laws and who believe by their adherence to the letter of these laws that they have reached the limits of what God, compassion and empathy, requires of them and can demand blessing and reward in return.  This way of thinking was exemplified in Jesus time by the Jewish sect of the Pharisees.  Jesus was in no way shy in his insults towards this group for this mindset and the actions it produces.

43 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.”45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” (Luke 11:43-45 NIV)

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28 NIV)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. (Matthew 23:13 NIV)

All this condemnation aside, who might be worthy of punishment is not the point of the Gospels.  The principle aspect of Jesus' teaching is his portrayal of God, what is legitimate, as primarily compassionate, generous, merciful, and inclusive, and that we are called to emulate this nature.  The main issue Jesus has with the Religious Leaders and Authorities is that they claim to represent God while not demonstrating these qualities and for excluding others in God's name.

So, given all this, who would Jesus, "send to Hell", or see as first in line in deserving of punishment?  Ironically, it would be those of us who censure and exclude others and pronounce them as condemned to Hell for not following Religious Law, or not following it to the same degree as ourselves.  The, "kingdom of heaven", is manifest whenever we live under the authority of God, the authority of love, compassion, and mercy, and no one is excluded, not even legalists and pharisees. 

How Jesus Taught Us To Observe God's Law

I have another blog series called, A Literary Look at the Gospels, where I am working my way through the Gospels passage by passage in an effort to better understand what these teachings and stories meant to the authors and their faith communities.  In the course of this study I have been quite excited by the themes of acceptance and inclusion I have been discovering in the second chapter of Mark.  The other thing I have found quite enlightening there is the Gospel's presentation of Jesus' teaching on how to observe Torah, Old Testament law.  I believe that this teaching has a lot to say to modern Christians on how to faithfully approach laws written in the Old Testament.  It also speaks to their relevance to both our own Christian practice and how, in regard to these laws, we view and treat others, so much so that I felt it deserved some additional discussion on its own outside of that study series.

Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, was not one for imposing rules and regulations. He stated that all the Commandments and the Law could be fulfilled through the commandments to love God and to love our neighbour. The only addition he is given as adding is to love others as he has loved us. This would seem to be a pretty clear direction, but Christianity has still struggled over the years with how to approach the holiness and purity regulations found in the Old Testament. 

Some, laws like the dietary regulations, have been clearly negated in the New Testament. Faithful Jews to this day honour the ban on eating pork and shellfish, but I do not know of any Christian groups who believe they should do likewise. In the tenth chapter of Acts, Peter has a vision were God presents him with a variety of animals and reptiles restricted by the purity laws and commands him to kill and eat. When Peter balks at breaking the law and eating that which it identifies as unclean, God replies, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15 NIV) Later in the chapter, Peter interprets this vision as extending beyond food to people. He is asked to go to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile. While there, he tells the crowd that has gathered outside, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean." (Acts 10:28 NIV).

The letters of Paul included in the New Testament were written at a time when there was much debate in the early Christian community around what laws they had to follow.  Did Gentile members need to be circumcised as required by the law?  Could people eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols before going on sale at the marketplace?

Paul, who was formerly a Pharisee and a strict legalist, responded to these issues with the position that these laws were part of the Old Covenant, the old agreement with God.  Jesus had fulfilled and completed our requirements under this old contract making them null and void.   The Old Covenant of law is replaced with a New Covenant of grace and faith.  In fact, he criticized those in the Christian movement who, by continuing to call for strict adherence to the purity laws, were rejecting the freedom of Christ to remain "slaves to the law".  I've included a few of Paul's statements to this effect below

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1NIV)

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4 KJV) 

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. (1 Corinth. 10:23 KJV) 

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

Returning to the Gospels, Jesus is presented as breaking the purity laws, or the Rabbinical strictures on how to observe these laws, at various points: he heals and works on the Sabbath, he touches lepers, he and his disciples are criticized for not following the proper washing practices before meals, and at one point he negates the dietary laws by telling his disciples to eat anything put before them without question while a guest in someone's home on their travels to spread his message.

However, the Gospels also relate a statement by Jesus that seems to contradict both Paul's theology and Jesus' actions listed above.  In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is presented as stating that the law will remain in effect until heaven and earth pass away.

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20 NIV)

Given this, modern Christianity displays a wide range of attitudes on how to be faithful to the legal tradition of Torah. Some Christians, taking their queue from Paul, see all Old Testament law as void, something that no longer bears any relevance to Christian practice.  Others see the law as a source of general guidance, but not something we are strictly bound to.  At the other end of the spectrum are Christians who contend that all Old Testament laws are still in play with the exception of those, like the dietary regulations, which were explicitly exempted in the New Testament.  For them, the transgression of any of these laws requires either absolution by a Priest (if one is of the Catholic persuasion), or a heartfelt request for forgiveness to God calling on Jesus blood and sacrifice as payment for their sin and accompanied by a promise to no longer engage in the sinful practice or lifestyle.

Another take, more in the middle and popular among many Christian denominations and groups, is where most of the law is considered void with the exception of those which religious authority has deemed still reflective of God's will.  The authority who sets this distinction may be the traditions of their denomination or cultural group, or may be current church or religious leaders.  Invariably, the laws chosen as still in effect are reflective of the group's own cultural bias and prejudices.  Laws such as the ban on trimming the sides of one's beard, wearing clothing woven from more than one material, or planting more than one kind of seed in one's field do not make the list.  Likewise with the restriction on loaning money at interest and the requirement to take anyone who becomes destitute into your home and providing for their needs, or the commandment not to be prejudiced against foreigners or refugees.

To make things somewhat confusing, these various groups and denominations look to different authorities for the determination of which laws are still in effect and so hold different views on which ones when broken constitute a sin.  A recent example would be the case of a county clerk in Kentucky who gained some notoriety by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in defiance of Federal law because her religious community felt that it was against, "God's law".  What is particularly relevant here is that, while many Christians, including Christian leaders and politicians belonging to groups with similar views, held rallies outside her workplace to support her, one unexpected group came to protest against her.  Members of the Westboro Baptist Church came to the rallies with signs to condemn her as an unrepentant adulteress and tell the world she was going to hell.  This woman had divorced and remarried and so the man she was living with, in their eyes, was not her husband according to God's law.  In fact, the woman had divorced and remarried a number of times and had conceived a child with one future husband before she had divorced her then current one.  That, to the Westboro Baptists, could be forgiven, but to continue in a lifestyle of unrepentant adultery by living with a man who was not the first she said vows with was not.

The concept of following religious authority to dictate how to observe religious law and Jesus' alternative is the topic that I find addressed in the passage from the second chapter of Mark that I talked about in the opening.  Much of my observations stem from a study of Mark 2:23-28 in my blog, Lord of the Sabbath.

This passage follows a number of stories where Jesus is shown in conflict and disagreement with the Pharisees.  The stories are used to contrast the way, the teaching, of the Pharisees with the new way of Jesus.  To understand the difference being presented we need to understand something of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were the dominant sect in Judaism in the time of Jesus.  Judaism is primarily concerned with the Covenant with God and upholding this covenant through the observance of Torah.  The Pharisees were particularly zealous in following Torah to the letter.  They created numerous regulations and requirements on how to put Torah into practice.  Much of this legalism was based on the Mishnah, a redaction of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (536 BCE – 70 CE). The Mishnah is comprised of examples of Rabbinical judgments that were used to determine the correct way to carry out laws recorded in the Torah.  Each Rabbi would teach both the collected regulations, the "yoke", of his teacher and the line of teachers before him, as well as his own leading to an ever increasing body of rules to clarify and break down in ever increasing levels of minutiae the proper observance of Torah. These regulations set standards on what it meant to follow laws like the command to rest on the Sabbath. They defined for the observant Jew what should be considered "work" and therefore restricted on the Sabbath, what constituted the beginning and end of the Sabbath when these restrictions applied, and what exemptions were allowed. 

The reasoning behind this zeal was noble and stemmed from a desire to make Isreal great by ensuring that the people upheld their part of the Covenant.  This would have been particularly important at the time when the Gospel of Mark was written which scholars date as being close to the occupation by Rome and the destruction of the Temple. 

Judaic thought of the time, as represented by the Pharisees, was one of a community of exclusive holiness. Only by the people becoming more holy, purging themselves of the unclean, and fulfilling their side of the covenant through strict adherence to the law, would God fulfil his side and drive out their oppressors and make them a nation again. This could only be accomplished through increased zeal in meeting the letter of the law, for the purity and holiness regulations and rituals as a community. This mindset demanded the exclusion and censuring of those who did not, or could not, meet these practices to the level demanded. We see this in the Gospel stories through the exclusion and condemnation of the disabled, the ill, and those not tithing or meeting the purity practices and rituals, exactly the people the Gospel stories show Jesus reaching out to and making a point of including.

A theology similar to that of the Pharisees exists among some modern Christian groups and religious leaders, particularly in the United States.  Many see their country as inheriting the Old Covenant between Israel and God.  They interpret economic downturn and tragedies such as natural disasters and 9/11 as the withdrawal of God's favour due to what they see as the moral decline of the nation.  The way to make their country, "great again", is to enforce across the country the purity laws that they subscribe to through exclusion, persecution, and civil laws targeting those who do not practice these laws and against those of other religions.

In an article at Patheos.com, Morgan Guyton describes the disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees as a difference between consequentialist and deontological ethics. In consequentialist ethics, you decide what to do on the basis of what will cause the most good and least harm.  In deontological ethics, you find an authority figure to give you a duty to obey.  The more unreasonable the duty, the more faithful the observance.

People with deontological ethics only feel assured that they are submitting fully to an authority if they perform duties that make no sense from a consequentialist perspective. The duty must be opaque to be fully deontological. Deontological ethics says that unless I do what makes no sense to me, then my sense is my authority rather than the Bible.

In regards to this difference in ethics in Jesus interaction with the Pharisees, Guyton explains:

For the Pharisees, the Sabbath is an opaque duty. The test of whether you’re honoring the Sabbath or not is whether you avoid doing even virtuous deeds for the sake of honoring God. When Jesus puts the Sabbath in terms of “doing good or doing harm,” he’s making the Sabbath consequentialist rather than deontological. The Pharisees would say that Jesus is offering a false choice. The cessation of work on the Sabbath is a duty. Making the Sabbath pragmatic destroys the deontological authority of the law.

Jesus makes his consequentialist stance explicit when he says, “The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath, and the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). So to me, respecting Jesus’ lordship as the chief interpreter of scripture means reading it consequentially rather than deontologically. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mercynotsacrifice/2016/05/12/why-were-ethically-incomprehensible-to-each-other/

This perspective also sheds light on some otherwise confusing behaviour by many Christians in the United States that belong to groups that have been labelled "Evangelical" or part of the "Religious Right".  A large component of this group along with many of their leaders have put their support behind the Republican Nominee Donald Trump.  Why would Christians who trumpet "family values" endorse for President a man who has had multiple divorces and boasts about having affairs while married?  Why would they endorse someone who owns casinos and regularly lies about things like donating money to veterans?

One reason may be the authoritarian leadership style of this man which is similar to that of many of their own religious leaders, a style which they have learned to respect and follow.  A PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst named Matthew MacWilliams explored the lure of authoritarianism as a factor in Donald Trump's popularity in his dissertation research.

MacWilliams studies authoritarianism — not actual dictators, but rather a psychological profile of individual voters that is characterized by a desire for order and a fear of outsiders. People who score high in authoritarianism, when they feel threatened, look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear.

Trump embodies the classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful, and punitive

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

Donald Trump capitalizes on people's fears.  He characterizes the "average citizen", the white christian majority, as under attack and provides scapegoats and direct puntive solutions.  Mexicans take our jobs and create crime.  The solution is to build a wall.  Muslims are a terrorist threat.  The solution is to ban Muslims, including Muslim refugees, from entering the U.S.

As an authoritarian he presents himself as someone who is "right" and has firm simple views that will not be influenced by others, do not require further analysis, or consideration, and will not be comprimised by debate or the arguements of others.  This is popular among those who just want someone who will take authority and clearly and simply tell them what they need to do to meet their percieved threats without nuance or the requirement to analyze and weigh the merit of his proposals.   It appeals to those who want someone who will take away from them the responsibility and burden of thought and moral decision.

Unfortunately, these are the characteristics and methods of many of the Christian leaders that many deontological Christians seek as an authority in the practice of Christianity including which religous laws should be in effect and how they should be implemented.  Like Trump, they use fear and scapegoating to build their power.  Christianity, to them, is under attack.  Those who support respect for other cultures and religions are trying to destroy Christianity.  America's economic decline, terrorist attacks and natural disasters, are God removal of his favour and protection because the nation is failing to practice their brand of Christianity and the religious laws that reflect their own culture and prejudices.  Those of other religions and those who fail to follow these laws are to be hated, reviled, excluded, and persecuted.

Like Trump, they are not to be questioned.  Supporting positions that don't bear up to the facts or promote persecution and violence towards others is a sign of faith and trust in the belief that these leaders are chosen and directed by God.  Like the Pharisees, the more obscure and nonsensible the command, the more faith it shows to follow.  If you can accept creationism and an earth that is only 6,000 years old, facts and statistics have no relevence.  This is a recipe for disaster.  As Voltaire is famous for saying, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

A further analysis of authoritarianism and evangelicalism can be found in the following article.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2016/04/evangelical-authoritarianism-and-fear-in-america-cruztrump-two-christian-failures-one-authoritarian-ethos/

Jesus did not have an authoritarian leaderhip style.  He also did not give us a list of which laws we should accept or reject.  There were incidents were he acted in defiance of some laws and particularly the way the Pharisees decreed they should be practised, but, as we saw in the passage from the fifth chapter of Matthew, he did not call for the law to be discarded.

He also did not give us regulations or rules prescribing how Christianity should be practiced.  His teaching style was to present stories and parables that showed the world from a different perspective, one where God is seen as primarily loving and compassionate.  He invites the listener to repond to others in terms of this love in one's practice of the law and beyond.  This is true as well in the Gospel stories of Jesus' interaction with others and debate with the Pharisees.  It is more than consequential, what will result in the most good and the least harm.  It is compassionate, based on emulating the love and acceptance of God by all which Jesus characterized.

In not giving us the burden of his own authoritative list of rules and regulations, Jesus gave us what may be a greater burden, responsibility.  We are called on not to shirk the task of moral decision on authority, but to take the risk ourselves of getting it wrong and the responsibility and accountability that goes with it on our own shoulders.  However, he has promised that as Christians we do not shoulder that burden alone.  He has sent us the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God's wisdom, compassion, and love, to help us judge the loving and compassionate way we should practice, or not practice, religious law in each situation.  This, I believe, is Jesus' teaching on the Law we need to emphasise today.

The Deification of Jesus: Matthew Part 1

These series of posts are a non-literalist Christian's exploration of images of Jesus as Divine in Christianity and the New Testament. I am examining where these images came from and the reasons they were created. This is also an investigation of these image's meanings to those who created them and what meaning they may hold for myself and others today.


I began the analysis of images of Jesus in the New Testament with the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, the book of Mark. Like the other Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus is portrayed as considering himself the Messiah, the future King of the Jews of the Messianic Age, but not as Divine, or somehow equal to God. There are, however, descriptions of him able to access special favor with God, and as such God would perform miracles and mighty deeds at his request. There is also mention of special abilities due to his intimacy with God.

In this post I move to the Gospel of Matthew to investigate the images this community used to express who Jesus had become to them and to explore whether any of them portrayed Jesus as in any sense Divine, or more than human.

The first chapter begins with, "the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham". Jesus' lineage through Joseph is traced via king David to Abraham. This would seem to be done to validate him both as a true Hebrew and as a candidate for kingship. However, it would seem to be an odd way to claim his lineage if they were taking literally the Divine conception portrayed later in the book. If Joseph is only Jesus', "adoptive", father, then why claim the legitimacy of his heritage through Joseph?
Descent in Judaism at that time was patrilineal and did not change to matrilineal descent until the second century. However, the tradition of adoption, taking another's child as one's own, was not strong, and considering an adopted child as an heir, or part of the lineage even less.

The evidence for adoption in the Bible is so equivocal that some have denied it was practiced in the biblical period.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_0_00486.html

Looking at the story of Abraham and his son Ishmael by Hagar, his wife Sarai's Egyptian handmaiden, we see that, even though Ishmael is of Abraham's seed, he is excluded from the lineage because he was not of his wife Sarai. With this in mind, it makes no sense for the community of Matthew to claim Jesus' legitimacy via his lineage through Joseph if they literally considered Joseph as only his "adoptive" father.

The whole idea of portraying Jesus as having been born by immaculate conception and therefore a demi-god seems to be a chancy thing for this mainly Jewish community.  This idea has no real precedent in Jewish Scripture, but is an idea taken from pagan mythology, particularly the Greek.  It would seem in my mind to testify to a real need to legitimize Jesus' birth and parentage.  This strongly suggests that the story that Jesus' mother Mary was found to be pregnant with Jesus before she came to live in Joseph's household was believed to be factual by either this community or the wider Jewish community of the time.  As such, Jesus would have been considered a "Mamzer".  As Bruce Chilton, in his Book, "Rabbi Jesus", explains, this was a caste in Jewish society of Israelites of suspect parentage, born of a prohibited sexual union such as incest or with a non-Isrealite. Also called a shetuqi or "silenced one" in the Mishnah at a later period, one without a voice in the public congregations of Israel.

"No one born of a forbidden marriage" (footnote - Or one of illegitimate birth) "nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD," (Deuteronomy 23:3 NIV The Holy Bible)

As investigated in earlier posts, Jesus had another problem with the legitimacy of his teaching.   Because he was not a recognized Rabbi who had been certified by semicha, rabbinic ordination, he did not by Jewish tradition have, s'mikhahto, "authority" to give his own teaching and interpret Scripture.  If he was also suspect of being Mamzer, his lack of the right to give his own teaching would be overshadowed by not having any legitimate voice in the public congregations of Israel at all.