What's the point of "liberal" Christianity?

Great Debates
101

I am a sinner. I generally don’t like listing my sins publicly, since I think that tends to aggrandize them, and me. Yet another sin, piled up with the others.

On the subject of defining what sin is, I am as strict and demanding as anyone I ever ran across personally, or on the message board. I think everything I do that is not an active, and heartfelt expression of my desire to love my fellow man, and my Lord to the very best of my ability is a sin. So, for instance, if I decided to burn a bunch of heretics at the stake, wanting to is a sin, deciding to is a sin, actually acting to make it so is a sin, and every stick and faggot in the fire is a sin, whether I put it there, or just stood around watching while someone else did. Omission and commission are not significantly different. The state of the souls of the heretics is irrelevant, and speculating on it is also a sin. If the heretic is me, and I act to my own destruction, that’s a sin too. Sleeping is okay, in moderation, but sleeping through responsibilities is sinful. Waste of the talent I have been given is sin. (Waste is defined here as failure to use, or use in a way that does harm to other souls.)

As I mentioned, I am a sinner. This partial list is just what I might bring up in a discussion with another Christian about some third party’s sins. Fortunately, Christianity is not actually about sin. It is about Salvation, the mortal made immortal, by the love of God, in Christ. Punishment, if it comes from God is not my concern, and speculating about it is self aggrandizement, which I consider a very dangerous sin. There is no need for hell. That which is not made immortal by the love of God perishes because it is the nature of mortal things to perish. Death is a consequence of life. Immortality is not a natural thing. It is a supernatural thing, and it comes only from God. The way to find God is to love every soul you meet, as if that soul were the Lord Himself. Someday, it will be.

I have no authority, no proof, and no desire to be an arbiter of another man’s sin. I am commanded to love him. I am commanded to forgive him, as I would be forgiven, and since the tiny list of sins I am willing to discuss are not the great failures of my life, believe me, I want really intense levels of forgiveness. Lots and lots of forgiveness. Justice? Uh, no thanks, I’ll pass on the justice.

Now, for some reason, a lot of people seem to think that my “philosophy” is some sort of get out of hell free card, and that I support the idea that sinning is cool, and that I should just go ahead and sin, since I believe, in fact have entire faith in divine forgiveness. Sin is bad. Being good is good. It is entirely too simple to explain. Evil does harm. Don’t do that. I cannot live without sinning, but I must try to do so, because God loves me.

Let me make that clear. God, the creator of the entire universe, and most powerful of all entities, greatest of the great, loves me. Not just generic me. Really me, personally. He cares. He never looks away, in weariness at my unworthiness. He never stops loving me, even when I am happily contemplating scourging Fred Phelps. It hurts Him, that I do these things. No, it doesn’t make Baby Jesus cry. Baby Jesus grew up. He isn’t a baby, now. But He does still cry. I don’t like feeling like any part of that is my fault. Not because I want to go to Heaven, although I do. But because He loves me, and I love Him, and you should not do that to someone you love.

I have written before about how angry I get at Christians who use a non Christian’s questions as an excuse for condemnation, recrimination, and hate. I can only imagine myself, standing before the Lord on the final day, and seeing Him weep as He asks me, “Where is the child of mine whom I sent to you to comfort, and help to find his way to Me?”

Oh, I’m sorry, I told him to go to hell. Was he important? Uh, Mr. Phelps, I must ask your forgiveness, for I set myself above you, and I am not worthy. We are sinners, both of us, unworthy of the love of God, yet both of us have it, if we will take it. Please take it.

Tris

It’s hard to find a snappy comment that will fit here.

102

A few questions; if God created you in a state that you must sin, is that not itself a sin? And if he does not step in to help you in your struggle against sinning, is that not a sin by omission? Also, as you sinning is detrimental to God (since Jesus weeps), and so “acts towards his own destruction”, is him not helping you also a sin under that idea?

103

God made me as I am. I then started making me as I wanted to be. He knew how it would come out, on account of being so smart. I didn’t, on account of not being that smart. Sin means “to miss, or fall short.” My sin is not why God made me as I am, but, it is what made me less than I might be. In the end, He will make me more than ever I could have been alone. He has acted to his own destruction in order that I might become what He wished me to become. I don’t know what that is, but I have faith that it will be a thing worth my life, and that small part of Him that I have harmed.

Tris

Still falling short on the pithy sig line front.

104

I mean no offense, but I don’t believe you answered my question. You made it pretty clear that furthering one’s own destruction was a sin. God has harmed himself; he is a sinning being. Especially considering that he didn’t need to act to his own destruction and still accomplish his goal (unless, of course, his goal was harming himself. Cheer up, EmoGod!).

I’m afraid I have another couple of questions; you are a being that cannot help sinning, and God will (hopefully) remake you into a being better than you are now. Would this remade version of you be capable of sinning? I’m assuming not (so if your answer is “yes” ignore these questions), so would it be reasonable to characterise this remade you as a substantially different being than the “you” you are now? If so, would it not make sense to describe the situation as God causing harm to one being, you, so that later he can make a different, unharmed being? It sort of begs the question of why he doesn’t skip the first step.

Self-referential gags are still funny, though.

105

I am much harder than that to offend.

I really want to answer more completely, but I think this requires a post that would be a hijack to any thread! It will also probably be the longest post I have ever written, and I am just not quite up to it right now. So, I am gonna pull a page right out of the book by “He Who Must Never Be Named” and promise that I am going to write a long post later, perhaps a week or so later, since I am working overtime all this week.

We pause now for disbelieving snickering from around the world. . . .

Okay, I think God gave me free will. I think I dropped the ball. I don’t think He was surprised by that. Yet, He did it. I suffered, and He suffered from it. In a way, it’s all His fault.

Now, the part that will take a bit of thought, and I can’t work up the . . . well, spiritual juice to do that right now, 'cause I ain’t feeling all that righteous, what with whining and moaning at work all day. (not to mention thinking a lot of unchristian things about my coworkers, and such.)

But, in a thimble, dipped out of the bucket I got to say on the subject:

Since I cannot begin to comprehend what the heck God would need me for, I don’t feel competent to critique his use of creational methodology to achieve it. My feeling of incompetence stems in part from a general lack of experience in creating entire cosmoses, or even immortal souls, and in part from not having any sort of clue what purpose He, and I, (not to mention you, and a whole lot of other immortal) are going to be trying to accomplish in the endless ages beyond the resurrection.

But, think about it for a few days, I promise I will. Then I will probably start a thread, probably titled “In the beginning, was the End.” So you will be able to find it. If this thread hasn’t sunk from view, I will try to remember to post a link here.

Tris

“The scariest part of all is . . . people actually listen to me!” ~ me ~

106

I wonder if the people that Tris works with have any idea what a sage they have working among them.

107

Tris - thanks for your posts, they were very enlightening. Do you belong to a wider established church or do you mainly practice as an individual? Clearly your theology doesn’t require a church as it’s based on a relationship between you and God so other people aren’t relevant (if I read it right) but I’m sure it must be nice to have others to talk to about it.

108

God did not create us in a state that we MUST sin. But in order to make us free (“in His image”), he had to give us options.

He also gave us information (directly and/or through our own ability to reason, which is also His gift and also something in which we are made “in His image”) on which options are best. Sinning is when we decide that “I know better than that!” (sin of pride, the original sin from which all others derive) and choose something else. When we choose to hurt others (refusing to believe that this will eventually bite us in the ass), we sin. When we choose to destroy (unlike God) instead of to create (like God), we sin.

He gave us the choice; he doesn’t force us to sin; he doesn’t force us to make the choices that will make us and our surroundings better, either.

We’re free.

I know many people for whom the idea of “you’re free” is the scariest they’ve ever heard.

109

Oh: while stated in my own words, one of the reasons I think Catholic theologians aren’t always too much in their cups is that this is also the Catholic Church’s official answer to “why does God allow evil/bad stuff/sin?”

Practicing Catholic and the wrong gender to be a Jesuit, that’s me…

110

In fulfillment of a rash promise, made here in this thread I am going to try to answer the question, which basically comes down to “How can you love an omnipotent being who allows you to suffer, and bad stuff to happen.” Of course all my answers take as axiomatic the facts that a: God exists. b: I exist c: Love exists and d: at least two of those things are good.

Side issues like who is at fault for the sins of man, what makes God the arbiter of your life’s purpose and such things are going to have to wait for another thread. I claim no authority for the points made here, and I am only posting this rather long ramble because I was asked to do so. That doesn’t mean you cannot disagree, it only means that I may choose not to debate any or all of the issues brought up. Now, since the entire mass of stuff here is my belief, based on my experience and insights, demands for evidence proof and logic will probably be ignored. Save yourself the trouble, and just open another thread.

Be sure, though that I invite responses! (“Oh yeah, where do you do that?” “I’m doing it right now!” “Yeah, after telling us to shut up and let you ramble.” “No, not shut up, just don’t expect logic, and don’t ask for proof.”) I hope the responses are in the general form of “well, I think you are failing to consider this.” Questions about how did I get from one thought to another will be answered, of course, but the answer might be, “I don’t know! I wonder how I did that?”

So, I shall begin. Since it was less than the week predicted, I will do it here, in this thread.

In the Beginning, God already knew the End. In addition to knowing the End, he knew a lot of other ends that were not going to happen. A fair argument can be made that that level of knowledge makes him responsible for every single ill in all the histories of all the places, and all the people that ever have, and ever will exist. I suppose He is also responsible for all the things, places and people that don’t exist. Being God, it seems, is a tough gig.

So, why suffering? Why not fluffy stuff, and wall to wall kindness, and happy things? I don’t think it is because God thinks suffering is good for us, or He doesn’t think we would value it enough if we hadn’t had to take it on the chin for a few millennia first. I think it has to do with the whole plan. The big picture, which I think includes a minor little prelude we call mortal life, taking place on an off street stage we call the Universe. The eternal stuff comes later, and the whole concept of somewhere gets redefined before we get anywhere. So, the great misery we all know so well is a consequence of how this prelude must happen. It must happen that way, to create us. (I am not being speciesist here. Us is a collective with a membership beyond my reckoning. We are everyone God loves.)

God created the stars in the sky, the seas, the nebula, the great expanding vaults of space, and I don’t know how many other marvels. But He created us, too. And I think he created us because he has something in mind for later, and wants us there, to make it happen. God needs help. Think about that for a while. Toss out a few billion galaxies, and an unknown number of vast empty spaces, and planets beyond my enumerative abilities, and then put together an incubator to raise up some souls for the main event. It’s sort of jarring really. God wants help. He wants my help. Now I am not saying only me, but I’m the part of this that I know most about, and let me tell you, I am not feeling up to it!

So, it is my imagined reason for the sorry state of things that it isn’t that God wanted me to suffer, but that God wanted me to start making the universe the way I wanted it to be, and unfortunately I fucked it up pretty bad, right from the get go. (Okay, I had help, I know that.) So, why did He leave it up to me? Wasn’t it obvious from the start that I was a schlub! I mean, he had to know, right?

So, let us cut God a break and make an assumption. He isn’t just sitting back chuckling about what an idiot I am. He wants me to do this. He needs me to be able to fuck up. He gave me free will, knowing entirely well that I would do evil with it. And then he became a man Himself, so that I could know Him, and know Him as I know myself. Christ is my window into the being of God. And in Christ, as well is the way that I can be loved in a manner that I can accept, and feel, and become joined to His will, and be forgiven for my love of Evil.

And in the end, by seeking His being, and His love, the essentially limited self that I have can become immortal. I can join with Him for whatever it is that only He and I can do together. I cannot begin to imagine what that will be. However, I suspect, after glancing around the endless vistas of space, across the ages of time, it is going to be something pretty cool. I don’t want to miss it.

Now, you might be thinking well, He’s omnipotent; He should have done it without the whole Holocaust thing, or the Crusades, or whatever your particular favorite shortcoming to God’s plan is. I can’t argue that, because my own experience with the creation of entire races of free willed beings is somewhat limited. And planning extra-temporal, extra-universal Miracles beyond the scope of mortal being is something I can’t really critique. Yeah, I am an optimist, and it makes no more sense that I might be right than any other explanation. But I know the love of God, as I mentioned. And that love doesn’t seem to be reflected in the “oh well, let 'em fight it out, it’ll be good for 'em in the end. Give 'em grit” point of view.

Tris

111

I go to church when invited, or when I need to lie face down in front of an alter and weep. The National Cathedral was quite kind to me about that and several local churches as well. (Truro Church, of recent fame was one that was quite kind to me, when I lived next door.) I don’t belong to any particular church, and I try not to act as if I were a member, since I think that might be a presumption I do not merit. I come as a child of God, seeking Him. I have never been refused permission to weep on the floor. Joyful noise is often offered, as well, and I have taken much comfort from it.

Several local church groups know me, from my work, and I am praised by them far more than is good for my humility. However, they do it out of love, and I bask in it for the same reason. Joy too is part of Christian Faith.

Tris