Friday, December 19, 2008
Opps I did not mean to actually post this letter...I was just writing it in here before copying and pasting...bah. Oh well. Archive purposes perhaps?
***
If I remember correctly you asked me yesterday what the Protestant view of sin was and God's response to sin.
I hope I don't sound too much like a jerk when I say this but some of the main problems I have with the Roman Catholic church is that they just took the (somewhat) established Christian theology and Bible canon around 300ish AD and ran wild with it for the next thousand years or so. Instead of just sticking with what had been previously established they just sort of started adding stuff left and right...incorporating pagan holidays to 'attract' people to Christianity and other stuff...
I mean I don't hate Catholics, I know some very nice ones. I'm just more along the lines disappointed that some very weird (and at times insane) decisions were made on a whim and the focus became the church instead of God.
And then you had the Protestant reformation that happened in the 1500's...which started out with good intentions and became a bloody mess with people loosing sight and getting caught up on human differences and thinking that killing each other would somehow make God happen.
This is all insane to me. In so many cases Jesus gets used sort of like a sports mascot and touted around and treated as if he actually gave/gives a damn about all these PETTY reasons and as if he would encourage actual war and fighting. Anyone who spends enough time in the teachings of Christ realize hoe radical he was and that he was more interested in 'sinners' and helping the downtrodden find their way back.
I'm jumping back and forth all over the place to give some sort of background of my thoughts and to hopefully help me sound less like a person in need of a nice white jacket and more along the lines of a...well certainly not normal person. =)
One of the more common beliefs with Protestantism is that God holds all the sin committed by people the same and to an extent I think that is true. But misses the point completely.
People get hung up on sin.
It's easy , it's flashy and makes for good loud arguments that everyone can be angry about.
To me the question that should be asked is not "What is the worse I can get away with?" or "Why is God such a prick and doesn't like people having fun?" or "What is the worse kinds of sins so I can go hold up signs and go set those sorts of people on fire!?!"
To me the VITAL overlooked question is:
1.What is sin and why does it exsist?
2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?
Obviously Jesus believed in sin as much as he believed that he was Messiah and was here to deliver people from it...and the next improtant question...
3.Why would people need to be delivered from something? Especially if they do not feel they are in need of delivering of any sort?
I just have been digging myself a huge hole that hopefully i won't bury myself in trying to get out of...
1.What is sin and why does it exsist?
Following what little the Bible actually says about the time before the creation you have God making the heavens and the earth and sometime around those two one of the highest angels named Lucifer began to be jealous (for whatever reason) and declared that he would be like the most holy and then decides to rebel against God and takes about a third of the angels with him, which is where you get the whole fallen angels/demon and tempters and the 'snake' in Genesis that tempts and helps humanity to fall.
Looking at any case of 'sin' and to me the chief problem is pride. This bloated sense that we are self sufficient creatures never in need of anything from anyone, be it human or divine assistance.
So in a nut shell sin as I can best tell is not just telling God no but declaring ourselves not in need of his love and the relationship he has wanted with us. Sort of like a wayward lover leaving and abandoning her groom right at the alter...after they have been separated for years and were finally going to be united as one.
There is something deeply broken and flawed in all people that sometimes just shows as little white lies and stolen candy...but at the same time is the same potential for another Holocaust, another Rwanda and another Sarajevo.
It kills me and makes me physically sick at times but humans have such a great potential for good but we so often stop ourselves and to me that is sin as well. It doesn't have to be the one causing rape and murder...it can be the complacency in our lives that causes us to ignore and not cry out and demand justice.
One last thought...something put forth but Augustine and about the only thing he said that doesn't make me want to strangle him is that, to paraphrase, is that "All sin really is, is good that has been twisted and malformed."
And that gives me hope...that even the worse cold blooded person...that the 'chief of sinners'...me even is just simply twisted in the wrong way...with enough love and grace that things CAN be better...that we aren't helpless or hopeless...but that we are loved.
2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?
There is no way I can sum up an answer to this because I am STILL trying to figure out my exact beliefs on this...but not just what I want but what is truth...all the same I think my thought can be summed up much easier by C.S. Lewis:
"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.""
People love to think of Dante's Comedy and of imps, fire and everything when it comes to Hell...but I think the Bible is being somewhat metaphorical when it talks of Hell.
If God, Yahweh, Jesus...IS this infinite...incomprehensible source of life and light...that EVERY good thing...food, sex, kids, video games, sunlight, flowers, kittens, air, stars and everything good comes from him then can you imagine what the absolute worse thing in creation would be?
Eternal separation from that light, that life, that OXYGEN of creation...it is more than simple punishment...it is humans being so twisted that we begin to see light as dark and HATE the light because it burns...and I believe what is started in us here on earth is what we become in eternity...that if we have started to become like the Light we become light...but if we embrace the absolute darkness we become tainted and transformed and would hate the presence of God if he even offered it to us.
That is why there is no salvation for the angels. They are pure spirit and when they fell they instantly became riddled with the cancer of sin...and because we are half spirit and half flesh...we have time to see the consequences of our actions and to see what IS real and what IS truth. Not just the lies we get sold on and our own personal refuges so we can hide from reality.
*whew*
Hope I haven't put you to sleep yet. =)
3.Why do we need saving?
Simply put, the infection that is 'sin' is too great. We can't just beat it with the optimism stick because the nature of reality is that everything is fleeting and our ticket was up before we were born. None of us may have chose to live in this world but for whatever reason we are here.
It's beautiful and sucky and annoying and makes me double over in pain a lot of the time but all the same I believe we are here for more then just the sick amusement of divine chess players.
I believe God choose to come in human form as a Jewish person, a baby who became a man. Jesus was both God and man, an impossible mix of fully God and fully man. I can't say I understand it...life is like that though...full of impossibly good things that make sense because they make sense...if that makes sense.
God has been in love with us since the beginning and the Bible chronicles that...the Old Testament is Him trying to use a man named Abraham and his descendants as a way to show grace...from a small tribe to a huge nation...it is a tragedy that helps to show that humans simply cannot handle the responsibility of the divine.
And then, enter Jesus. This controversial rabbi who all to often is simply reduced to being the holder of a message of lovey dovey bad hippeness. Jesus was radical, he challenged the status quo, pissed off the religious authorities and ultimate died in the worse way possible.
Things would be SO LESS complicated if all Jesus taught was we should love each other and feed the hungry. Sometimes I wish that was all he was about because my life would be so much easier...but it is a lie to say all he cared about was our physical needs.
He fed the hungry and healed the sick to get their attention. To let them know they were loved, to know they were beloved children of God with not just physical ailments but deep seated spiritual needs...that whole sin thing. This seemingly living cancer that would eventually cause them to self destruct...no matter how well intended they were or how many good thoughts they had.
Sin grieves God desperately. So much so that he cannot be around it. You can't mix absolute light with absolute dark and God cannot be a part of sin...so for years the Israelites had to use a complicated religion system of sacrifice in order to try and appease Him but ultimately it failed because God WANTED us to see we can't save ourselves. That we are too utterly screwed to be able to do anything except lay down and die.
So the beautiful thing is that Jesus came and willingly died for a bunch of broken people able to do nothing but screw his message up and distort it for personal gain.
He loves us because He is love and wants us to be one with him. Those who are broken down and ultimately begin the process of being fixed by this love are told to tell others about that love...and we have failed.
Horrificly failed.
Just one look at a 'Christian' book store and all the absolute rubbish on the selves is enough to make me want to vomit. We theologians TOO OFTEN try to pin God down and define him in every way so that we don't have to serve someone who makes us uncomfortable and someone we can turn into a mascot for hating the modern day lepers...you know people who are gay, that have AIDS, those who smoke, people who are Muslims...all of these 'terrible' human beings that we somehow feel the need to judge.
I know it is not my place to carry around all of the failures of the church but I can't help BUT. I feel this guilt...this impossible weight that has to be fixed by God...but at the same time the responsibility I feel he is giving me to teach others and show them there is a better way then all of this rubish.
I hope I haven't gotten too off topic and put you our like a light.
Thanks for reading this and I'm going to feel like an idiot if I sent this to the wrong person. =)
***
If I remember correctly you asked me yesterday what the Protestant view of sin was and God's response to sin.
I hope I don't sound too much like a jerk when I say this but some of the main problems I have with the Roman Catholic church is that they just took the (somewhat) established Christian theology and Bible canon around 300ish AD and ran wild with it for the next thousand years or so. Instead of just sticking with what had been previously established they just sort of started adding stuff left and right...incorporating pagan holidays to 'attract' people to Christianity and other stuff...
I mean I don't hate Catholics, I know some very nice ones. I'm just more along the lines disappointed that some very weird (and at times insane) decisions were made on a whim and the focus became the church instead of God.
And then you had the Protestant reformation that happened in the 1500's...which started out with good intentions and became a bloody mess with people loosing sight and getting caught up on human differences and thinking that killing each other would somehow make God happen.
This is all insane to me. In so many cases Jesus gets used sort of like a sports mascot and touted around and treated as if he actually gave/gives a damn about all these PETTY reasons and as if he would encourage actual war and fighting. Anyone who spends enough time in the teachings of Christ realize hoe radical he was and that he was more interested in 'sinners' and helping the downtrodden find their way back.
I'm jumping back and forth all over the place to give some sort of background of my thoughts and to hopefully help me sound less like a person in need of a nice white jacket and more along the lines of a...well certainly not normal person. =)
One of the more common beliefs with Protestantism is that God holds all the sin committed by people the same and to an extent I think that is true. But misses the point completely.
People get hung up on sin.
It's easy , it's flashy and makes for good loud arguments that everyone can be angry about.
To me the question that should be asked is not "What is the worse I can get away with?" or "Why is God such a prick and doesn't like people having fun?" or "What is the worse kinds of sins so I can go hold up signs and go set those sorts of people on fire!?!"
To me the VITAL overlooked question is:
1.What is sin and why does it exsist?
2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?
Obviously Jesus believed in sin as much as he believed that he was Messiah and was here to deliver people from it...and the next improtant question...
3.Why would people need to be delivered from something? Especially if they do not feel they are in need of delivering of any sort?
I just have been digging myself a huge hole that hopefully i won't bury myself in trying to get out of...
1.What is sin and why does it exsist?
Following what little the Bible actually says about the time before the creation you have God making the heavens and the earth and sometime around those two one of the highest angels named Lucifer began to be jealous (for whatever reason) and declared that he would be like the most holy and then decides to rebel against God and takes about a third of the angels with him, which is where you get the whole fallen angels/demon and tempters and the 'snake' in Genesis that tempts and helps humanity to fall.
Looking at any case of 'sin' and to me the chief problem is pride. This bloated sense that we are self sufficient creatures never in need of anything from anyone, be it human or divine assistance.
So in a nut shell sin as I can best tell is not just telling God no but declaring ourselves not in need of his love and the relationship he has wanted with us. Sort of like a wayward lover leaving and abandoning her groom right at the alter...after they have been separated for years and were finally going to be united as one.
There is something deeply broken and flawed in all people that sometimes just shows as little white lies and stolen candy...but at the same time is the same potential for another Holocaust, another Rwanda and another Sarajevo.
It kills me and makes me physically sick at times but humans have such a great potential for good but we so often stop ourselves and to me that is sin as well. It doesn't have to be the one causing rape and murder...it can be the complacency in our lives that causes us to ignore and not cry out and demand justice.
One last thought...something put forth but Augustine and about the only thing he said that doesn't make me want to strangle him is that, to paraphrase, is that "All sin really is, is good that has been twisted and malformed."
And that gives me hope...that even the worse cold blooded person...that the 'chief of sinners'...me even is just simply twisted in the wrong way...with enough love and grace that things CAN be better...that we aren't helpless or hopeless...but that we are loved.
2.Why would God send people to Hell over sin?
There is no way I can sum up an answer to this because I am STILL trying to figure out my exact beliefs on this...but not just what I want but what is truth...all the same I think my thought can be summed up much easier by C.S. Lewis:
"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.""
People love to think of Dante's Comedy and of imps, fire and everything when it comes to Hell...but I think the Bible is being somewhat metaphorical when it talks of Hell.
If God, Yahweh, Jesus...IS this infinite...incomprehensible source of life and light...that EVERY good thing...food, sex, kids, video games, sunlight, flowers, kittens, air, stars and everything good comes from him then can you imagine what the absolute worse thing in creation would be?
Eternal separation from that light, that life, that OXYGEN of creation...it is more than simple punishment...it is humans being so twisted that we begin to see light as dark and HATE the light because it burns...and I believe what is started in us here on earth is what we become in eternity...that if we have started to become like the Light we become light...but if we embrace the absolute darkness we become tainted and transformed and would hate the presence of God if he even offered it to us.
That is why there is no salvation for the angels. They are pure spirit and when they fell they instantly became riddled with the cancer of sin...and because we are half spirit and half flesh...we have time to see the consequences of our actions and to see what IS real and what IS truth. Not just the lies we get sold on and our own personal refuges so we can hide from reality.
*whew*
Hope I haven't put you to sleep yet. =)
3.Why do we need saving?
Simply put, the infection that is 'sin' is too great. We can't just beat it with the optimism stick because the nature of reality is that everything is fleeting and our ticket was up before we were born. None of us may have chose to live in this world but for whatever reason we are here.
It's beautiful and sucky and annoying and makes me double over in pain a lot of the time but all the same I believe we are here for more then just the sick amusement of divine chess players.
I believe God choose to come in human form as a Jewish person, a baby who became a man. Jesus was both God and man, an impossible mix of fully God and fully man. I can't say I understand it...life is like that though...full of impossibly good things that make sense because they make sense...if that makes sense.
God has been in love with us since the beginning and the Bible chronicles that...the Old Testament is Him trying to use a man named Abraham and his descendants as a way to show grace...from a small tribe to a huge nation...it is a tragedy that helps to show that humans simply cannot handle the responsibility of the divine.
And then, enter Jesus. This controversial rabbi who all to often is simply reduced to being the holder of a message of lovey dovey bad hippeness. Jesus was radical, he challenged the status quo, pissed off the religious authorities and ultimate died in the worse way possible.
Things would be SO LESS complicated if all Jesus taught was we should love each other and feed the hungry. Sometimes I wish that was all he was about because my life would be so much easier...but it is a lie to say all he cared about was our physical needs.
He fed the hungry and healed the sick to get their attention. To let them know they were loved, to know they were beloved children of God with not just physical ailments but deep seated spiritual needs...that whole sin thing. This seemingly living cancer that would eventually cause them to self destruct...no matter how well intended they were or how many good thoughts they had.
Sin grieves God desperately. So much so that he cannot be around it. You can't mix absolute light with absolute dark and God cannot be a part of sin...so for years the Israelites had to use a complicated religion system of sacrifice in order to try and appease Him but ultimately it failed because God WANTED us to see we can't save ourselves. That we are too utterly screwed to be able to do anything except lay down and die.
So the beautiful thing is that Jesus came and willingly died for a bunch of broken people able to do nothing but screw his message up and distort it for personal gain.
He loves us because He is love and wants us to be one with him. Those who are broken down and ultimately begin the process of being fixed by this love are told to tell others about that love...and we have failed.
Horrificly failed.
Just one look at a 'Christian' book store and all the absolute rubbish on the selves is enough to make me want to vomit. We theologians TOO OFTEN try to pin God down and define him in every way so that we don't have to serve someone who makes us uncomfortable and someone we can turn into a mascot for hating the modern day lepers...you know people who are gay, that have AIDS, those who smoke, people who are Muslims...all of these 'terrible' human beings that we somehow feel the need to judge.
I know it is not my place to carry around all of the failures of the church but I can't help BUT. I feel this guilt...this impossible weight that has to be fixed by God...but at the same time the responsibility I feel he is giving me to teach others and show them there is a better way then all of this rubish.
I hope I haven't gotten too off topic and put you our like a light.
Thanks for reading this and I'm going to feel like an idiot if I sent this to the wrong person. =)
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