The Individual Impact of Writing a Sermon

Preparing a speech is something I have done in the past and is an activity I have relished. While there is certainly a great deal of anxiety that comes with performing before an audience, the thought process that goes into presenting a message to others is unlike anything else. When I have written essays, the intended audience is almost always the grade. I see that the only people who will generally read these assignments are myself and the professor. In writing a journal, I know the primary audience is myself. Even this blog, something that other will read, is written as a means of communicating my personal beliefs to a larger whole. It is a means of pointing my audience to myself and to whatever I have thought is relevant and meaningful enough to share.

 

There is a painting done by Matthias Grunewald called the Isenheim Altar piece. In it, John the Baptist stands to the right of the crucified Jesus and points to him. This painting was most recently brought up in a class by a visiting

The role of the preacher is to facilitate the spirit. Prior to this year, I had never realized the reality of this statement. I have written two sermons at this point, a smaller one for my multi-faith worshiping community and a full length one for my preaching class. In both, my creativity in putting words to the page was inspired by my faith and I felt as though I truly was working with the spirit. Being a somewhat of a liberal intellectual, I feel very odd acknowledging a reality of God in my life. I often think of His esoteric presence, something that is influential but not powerfully moving. However, by beginning to point to the cross, there is a power the raises my eyes to that reality. In writing a sermon, I feel as though I look upon that Cross, the holy to which I am trying to understand, and am captivated by its complexity and depth. Only after taking time and internalizing the sermon do I pull myself away enough that I can look to my audience, reach out my hand, and invite them to look on with me at what I am trying to understand.  A preacher’s objective in speaking is not to confine the Cross in his or her words but to use his or her words as a key to a latched door. The objective is to open the audience to the presence and power of the Spirit in the many forms it takes so that their lives might be changed. professor, but it is one I have seen a few times since high school. It has been explained to me that John represents the modern preacher and indicates his/her role in that vocation. To preach the word of God, to lead a religious community, is to point to the cross. I would take this meaning a bit further and say that the preacher’s role is to point to the Cross and God’s truth with one hand and stretch out his or her other in a gesture that would say, “Come with me and let us see”.

When I write a sermon, because I am trying to point to the cross, a sense of responsibility grips me. It is a responsibility to the Spirit, to the text, to those that have written it, and to myself and my audience. It is a space in which I must interweave the issues that face us today with the Presence which brings people to church. But more than anything, I have seen the opportunities as a gift in which I am able to share my experience in a way which connects myself and others to God. I hope that in my future endeavors at sermon writing I can honor the opportunity that is given to me with humility and wisdom.

 

Why do we as Christians do theology?

The question I pose is one I have in the past struggled with greatly because of my over emphasis on objective moral law and the strict code of the Bible. The issue in this case was, why do we speak of the nature of God? Why do we postulate anything if our only source of objective knowledge is the Bible? Why conjecture about what heaven and hell look like without data from the Bible? From this standpoint, I believed I was pursuing a useless exercise in my theologizing.

However, I still persisted in it. I continued to think of the nature of God, the possibility of salvation, the definition of Sin, the proper conduct of relationship. All of these questions were touched upon in the Bible (more than touched upon in fact, we’ve got a couple thousand pages minimum of source material to go off of) but I felt I needed to continue exploring what these things meant by reading, watching movies, writing, playing video games, talking, and questioning. This curiosity about the divine nature of things could not be silenced.

But what does this mean? I did not suspect it as a beneficial practice until these past few years. To inquire about God seemed a noble endeavor, but to make a judgment on something I cannot determine seemed sinful, like a practice that did not put faith in God’s goodness and ability to make decisions for me. However, through studying the Bible in my second half of college and first year at divinity school, I have determined that to put ultimate faith in the Bible as I have described and to abandon or hamper that curiosity which strives to know God is the true error.

Questions of the Bible’s make-up have led me to question its true authority. A book, compiled over thousands of years from the pens of numerous authors and missing so much from the destruction of time, not to mention its somewhat arbitrary (in my mind) canon selection made me question its importance at all. How could such a thing be authoritative, let alone infallible? But to discount the Bible in such a fashion is to discount the curiosity of millions from the past, a curiosity which I  continue to experience and better understand because of my studies.

After regarding the shortcomings of both practices, relying on individual curiosity and on the infallibility of the Bible, I have come to the conclusion (thus far in my life) that one must do both. To take either alone is to discount the importance of the other. To rely on an individual and personal connection to God without the Bible is to open one’s self to individual desire and fickleness. To rely on the Bible is to pursue a similar course of action, to rely on one’s own interpretation and to apply the thoughts of ancients to the (in many but not all cases) radically different present. To rely only on the Bible is to discount the power of God in present, but to abandon it is to abandon perhaps the greatest source of guidance for a confused and lost Christian.

But I qualify this partnership of real-life experience and curiosity and the Bible with the most important aspect for refining both: community and relationship. Ultimately, that is what Christianity is about. We are in relationship with the Trinity and with those around us, with Christians and non-Christians, with our multiple selves. It is through discussing and living and experiencing these relationships that we refine our theologies, our true understandings of God. It is these relationships which prevent us from using the Bible as a weapon of hatred and from groundlessly believing foolishness. Thus, in my head, our spiritual lives are balanced upon legs of scripture, prayer, and community. From our relationship with tradition, with God, and with our fellow brothers and sisters. Without any one of these legs, we risk losing ourselves to perdition, to succumbing to sloth, complacency, hatred, error, and at worst, incompleteness.

But to be human is to be incomplete. To believe that even these three things can perfect our lives and understanding is to underestimate the complexity of the real world. There are questions that may never be answered, despite how much time, effort, pain, and love we put into these questions. I will likely never truly understand why cancer exists, why disease cripples us and robs us of the relationships which define what it means to be a Christian.  And we must simultaneously and paradoxically be fine with and accepting of this fact, that we can’t understand everything in our reality and outside of it. We must accept our finitude and inability while celebrating and exercising our initiative, autonomy, and ability. I firmly believe that all goodness comes from God, but that humanity too can create goodness through what we have been given.  We attribute thanks to God, but God has endowed us with our own creative ability. It is this that lets us love one another, drink into the night with companions speaking of life, to put on plays that capture life’s brutality and reality and hope and goodness, to read scripture and be enraged or given life and hope.

Life is too complex without theology, it is too complex to not allow curiosity. So let me say it proudly, I know God because I have lived Him, because I have explored Him. And while there is much I don’t know and don’t understand, I do know that I am closer to God and His truth because of my own thoughts, prayers, endeavors, and relationships.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Revolution of Values

While Martin Luther King Jr.’s  “I Have a Dream” speech may be his most recognizable speech, the most moving words for myself come from “Beyond Vietnam”. In it, he writes:

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.

These paragraphs illustrate the heart of his movement, one that is both politically and spiritually based. King uses language that evokes both individual and collective responsibility to love indiscriminately. The concept of love is one that does not enter the political arena often, but King insists that the nation, one made of individual people, work to embrace the dignity of all men. This stretches from the Vietnamese who desire independence and Americans who must ban segregation. By embracing this individuality through loving respect, King hopes to banish violence from discussion. This is one of the most significant distinctions that King makes: that people do not need to agree with him on everything, but that the discussion must be done in a sincere and respectful manner devoid of harm. This is made evident in different places, such as in “Beyond Vietnam” where he writes that everyone must listen to his or her convictions and protest to avoid apathy. Through this means of discourse, people might love one another by looking for the best option in all choices that best suits all the people, not just the selfish individual.

I believe King’s call for a revolution of values both within the individual and the nation is still being answered. People tend toward complacency and King’s example and hope of an ecumenical society proves the efficacy of public ministry in turning people’s apathy. The Civil Rights’ movement owes King much because of his use of personal faith in advocating desegregation and equality. In today’s society, we still have many issues that have yet to be laid to rest. Abortion, Gay rights, intolerance towards different faiths and all manner of other taboo and difficult issues remain with divided sides so polarized they no longer discuss with one another. They yell. The only answer to such polarization is a revolution in which humility, love, and selflessness frame discussions of such issues. The use of personal faith is both hazardous and powerful. On the one hand, it leaves one vulnerable to attack. On the other, such risk enforces the power of personal belief in convincing others that a point of view matters and that it is worth discussing. By admitting this vulnerability, one pursues loving discussion: one in which the individual is on the line. Only by coming from behind the walls of false confidence in a polarized view can meaningful discussion occur to produce meaningful change.

The Right to Vote: Hope for the American Mind

I have gotten into far too many awkward and combative conversations about politics.  I (a Democrat and Obama supporter) have many friends who disagree with my political opinion.  Often, we passive aggressively talk past one another, saying things we don’t like about one candidate or the other.  Honestly, I don’t see this impasse being resolved anytime soon (though I believe we must take steps to resolve this, no matter how daunting it seems).  Instead of talking about how bad political discourse is today, I want to focus on how wonderful our opportunities are.

I voted at approximately 7:24 this morning (Central Standard Time) and had to wait for one hour to get to do so. This was after attempting to vote on the last day of early voting where I found a 3.5 hour line. The voting process wasn’t easy.  It took time and thought and consideration of the candidates. While I think our perceptions of the candidates we glorify and the ones we despise can often be extreme, I do believe we as American citizens have a genuine desire to elect the best candidate.  We have honest concerns about where the country is going. We want to know how our lives will be affected by the government.  While we are adaptable and can face even the most incompetent of decisions, we care about our lives and the lives of those we love. We care about justice. We care about truth. While these ideals may be ridiculed in their cliche redundancy in our society, they ring true.

People vote because they care about things and this, I think, is the greatness we witness in election day. We recognize our presence in the grand scheme of things. While our vote will statistically be meaningless, it means more than that. It represents our stake in the life of something outside ourselves. While we live in a global community, one which must accommodate all of humanity, we are different. We have nationalities. We have teams. How we deal with other groups is one question, but on voting day, we focus on ourselves. We remember what it means to us as individuals to be an American; to be part of a history (however flawed) that represents the struggles of those that have come before us. What that means to each person is very different. I am thankful for the legends we have of our founding fathers. While I think they are often over-glorified and that our constitution is too often treated almost as scripture, I love the story of America.  To be part of that experience is to vote, to join our voices with the rest of the team and say we hope towards a better tomorrow.

It took me a long time to vote. I got angry. But the reason for this is that everyone else wanted to vote too. I will state here, in spite of my grumpiness, my thanks to everyone involved in this process. Thank you fellow voters and thank you everyone who has taken on the responsibility of moderating this process. It isn’t an easy job. I thank also the candidates, all of those who have run for office.  While we can get petty, mean, spiteful, and downright evil, we are brothers and sisters together in this enterprise.

My great hope for American citizenship is great involvement in holding our leaders accountable and understanding the issues at hand in greater depth. While seemingly impossible, I know that we must work towards this ideal. If we do nothing, we risk greater suffering for ourselves and others. We must open ourselves to being educated and be gentle and engaged with those we hope to teach. We must pursue conversation in these areas which are so sensitive so that they become less so, that we can actively search for answers to the questions we already think we know the answer to. How we undertake this challenge is something that cannot be answered easily; we must know how to engage one another on the individual level. But as I have witnessed in this election so far, we are wholly capable of this endeavor.

Silas Marner and Redemptive Love

I had read George Eliot’s Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe when I was in eighth grade and remembered enjoying it and recently decided to give it another read. Upon finishing the story, I realized how good and in many ways different it was from a lot of classic literature.  The story is a more modern (albeit written in 1861) comedy; following the traditional meaning of ending with joy and a wedding. The story relates the life of Silas Marner, a man wrongfully exiled from his home town of Lantern Yard to Raveloe, a sleepy little town.  In the process, Silas loses his faith in God and becomes a miser; working constantly on his weaving and hoarding the wealth he accrues.  The people of Raveloe initially see Silas as a somewhat evil figure; mysterious and apparently powerful.  However, Silas reaches out to the community when his hoard is stolen and his appearance becomes more approachable. The case is furthered when he finds an abandoned toddler in his hut.  The child’s golden curls are mistaken for his money initially, but Silas comes to find the hole from his loss filled with the relationship with this child, naming her Eppie after his mother Hepzebuh.

Silas Marner’s story is the story of redemptive love; a story in which isolation and sadness is replaced by relationship and selfless love. In today’s literary society, I wonder if we wouldn’t think George Eliot’s account rather simplistic.  A greedy man is saved by loving a child. The entire plot is summed up within that sentence, more or less. What matters is the emotion felt within the play.  As we see the people of Raveloe ostracize and fear Silas because of the wrongs done to him in the past, we sympathize with Silas and want to see him redeemed.  Eliot draws this emotion out, rewarding it in the way we hope to see those we love in our lives redeemed. Silas makes one step at a time; first relying on others in helping him find his gold, then relying on them in dealing with Eppie.

The point of Silas Marner is this redemption we can be given through community. Eliot recognizes the badness that can come of human interaction (or lack thereof) as witnessed in the exile of Marner as well as his placement as a pariah in Raveloe.  But Eliot emphasizes that need expressed to others is often reward; while many people may ignore the need, it is doubtful that no one will find sympathy.  The fact is that we have all had common experiences. We have all suffered loss and have experienced joy. While Eliot does not expound on why we feel the need to share experience with others (both present and past experience) she does show this need and the benefits it can accrue. Often times, we dissect our actions. While this can help us gain greater self understanding and lead us into a better ability to understand others, it is important to “stop and smell the flowers” as it were; to simply live. To experience the beauty of life’s tragedy and joy. George Eliot promises us that while our situation is awful, there is always hope for us to find goodness in the love of others.

The Necessity of the Seperation of Church and State

As the title implies, I believe in the separation of Church and state.  As the election season comes to its climactic conclusion, I feel it necessary to join with the voices of others who maintain that a government official should not be elected based on his religious base but rather on his or her likely ability to promote the wishes of the people as well as the foundations set forth in our constitution.  By this I mean that the basic ideals of freedom and equality should be maintained in the best possible manner.

Let me clarify what I mean by freedom. I do not mean the freedom from sin, the freedom from the oppression of society, or anything of the sort.  I will note that I very much believe in the former freedom. However, the freedom I refer to is the freedom which allows an individual to make decisions for his or herself. This is the decision to be an atheist, to be a homosexual, to be dissatisfied with America.  From a Christian standpoint, this freedom is something that is the point of our current predicament: mortality and life on earth.  We should not limit one anothers’ ability to make not only our own decisions, but intelligent ones.  When I see a candidate take the stand and begin spouting beliefs in order to pander to the voting masses, I feel outraged and deeply sad.  Religion is something that is at the core of our beings.  It is something that defines our very understanding of life. This is not something that can be summed up in a press release to throngs of individuals.  Our personal convictions, the things we ourselves often don’t understand or have taken a lifetime to develop, cannot and should not be reduced to a mere elevator speech.

What’s worse to me is of course the apparent perversion of the ideal of freedom. While it is important to believe in what you want and for a person to have the freedom of expression of those beliefs, a person should not hope to run for an office which MUST support all religions/areligious backgrounds and expect to expound his beliefs as the basis for his political decisions.  Our faiths obviously affect us and bias us towards one action over another.  However, the hope is that we can promote understanding of others and provide a home for those who do not feel at home.  I think the world was created by God. But what does it say if we hold this as absolute fact as a nation? It indicates bias as a governing body; something America has attempted to avoid but I fear has continued to grow. Our country must promote free thought and the potential to find truth wherever that may be.

So many people fear change and so many people hate establishment.  This is because both hold onto a fear of the other.  Christianity is a religion that has been used for murder, oppression, hatred, and bigotry.  As a Christian, I have to own that and talk about it with other people.  These brutal actions which have arisen out of greed and (more often I believe nowadays) fear polarize those it has harmed. What reason do the oppressed have to love or even tolerate the oppressor? This goes for both sides.  So often we refuse to see the virtues of others for fear their virtue may invalidate or subvert our own. We have to be open to change; to the possibility that

we can be better thanks to the help of another person.

If we continue to allow our leaders to trivialize faith, both their own and that of the countless people they hope to represent and lead, we cannot hope to expect real positive change.  We must as individuals continue the discussion of faith, or what matters most to us and what we need from our leaders, in order to do justice to ourselves.

Starting at the University of Chciago Divinity School: Being Happy with Growth

Whoo boy. I have successfully completed my first week  and am starting my second at the University of Chicago Divinity School. My current feeling of the entire situation is, “Wow. It happened”. Prior to my senior year of college, I couldn’t imagine myself being in this place and learning what I am now able to learn. The opportunity coupled with responsibility might have once seemed intimidating, frightening, or daunting now spurs me on toward my hopes and passions. In essence, I believe that I have grown; an idea I think many people don’t consider.  Sure, we get to the age where we can see a PG-13 movie, drive, drink, and other sorts of benefits which society has deemed accessible only to older people.  What I mean is the sense that one has become a better human being than they once were; that while some things have faded or been lost, there are so many things to be thankful for in the present.

Much of my optimism has come from my growing relationship with God and my faith. I don’t feel alone, nor do I feel unloved.  I do not feel as though my actions exist in a vacuum; that they are not felt by others. God experiences the joy and pain I feel. Furthermore, I have faith that He experiences the lives of others; their pain and joy. I have also grown to trust in God more. Indeed, I came to the University of Chicago because I have been following a calling. By heeding this call, I have found something that is deeply satisfying. All of the great decisions I have made in my life that give me happiness have been because of some call or another (all of which I will one day elucidate): going to school at St. Olaf College (a school 1,400 miles away from my home in Louisiana), joining the College LARP (Live Action Role Play) community, taking my position at Rebuilding Together Acadiana (perhaps the most challenging experience of my life thus far), and of course, the one I speak of now.

I do not mean to sound “holier than thou” by any means; I have done awful things and hurt more people than I would like to remember. I have been greedy, selfish, lustful, cowardly, and ugly to my fellow man. For this I feel great shame everyday and greater shame that I know I continue to do these things.  My point is this: people are good, and so am I. I have been able to do wonderful things that have helped many people, and I have grown closer to God in spite of my vice. So often, people either beat themselves up over what they have done wrong or live in a world of apathy. Sometimes, they become full of themselves and don’t properly appreciate the goodness that they have done; they pervert it with their pride.

I speak from a standpoint of faith in God, and while I believe we are all motivated through His love, I think that we should all be happy because of our accomplishments regardless of religion or background. We all recognize our mistakes and we all have regrets. So often these can paralyze us and demote our self worth. We are all worth the world; we all have goodness within us. While it is of the utmost importance that we consider all of our actions in a day and that we recognize our shortcomings and destructive acts, it is equally if not more so important that we consider how wonderful we can be and what we have done to prove that.

 

The Great Gastby: Obsession and the Necessity of Relationship

About two weeks ago, I finished reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. For those unfamiliar with the plot, the basic premise is that a man named Nick Carraway falls in with a man named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby has built a life of wealth and luxury while chasing the dream of being with Daisy Cunningham. Nick went off to World War II and Daisy, who once loved him, decides to marry Tom Cunningham. The present of the book finds Gatsby making the final attempts to win Daisy over. Be forewarned, there be spoilers here.

Gatsby’s story is one of unintended relationships accrued in a quest driven by obsession. The whole of the story is told from the perspective of Nick Carraway  who knows nothing of Gatsby at the outset of the novel, but who becomes the closest and truest friend of the man by the end of the book. This is the source of the goodness of the story of Gatsby, something somewhat hard to find in the face of the story’s tragedy.

Gatsby’s whole life revolves around ambition; about getting the next big thing, no matter the consequences.  From the humblest of beginnings, he finds himself hosting fantastic parties for the aristocratic and affluent.  But this is merely a consequence of his ultimate obsessi0n with Daisy.  All the parties he throws, all of the big to-dos, are insignificant. When Daisy leaves after the first party she attends, Nick asks Gatsby about the dance that he had just thrown. Fitzegerald writes, ” ‘The dance?’ He had dismissed all the dances he had ever given with a snap of his fingers. ‘Old sport, the dance is unimportant’ “. Nick then tells Gatsby that he cannot repeat the past and recapture the relationship he once had with Daisy to which Gatsby responds, ” ‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’ “. Gatsby wants Daisy, no matter the cost nor the odds.

Gatsby does indeed finally “get” Daisy, but there is no true fulfillment. In fact, she is the cause of Gatsby’s death and aptly describes herself as the “beautiful fool”. When Gatsby dies, it isn’t Daisy who rushes to care for him, but rather Nick.  Nick, who throughout the story consoles Gatsby and listens to his story. The relationship developed with Daisy is made wholly from obsession and the constructs made to impress her.  The money, the parties; these are all superficial creations of Gatsby’s will.  It is only when they are analyzed and considered, in particular by we the readers and by Nick, that we see Gatsby’s humanity; the part we find common within ourselves. How often have we been obsessed with something? In particular, how often have we been obsessed with our image in the hopes of impressing others? Grades for school, clothes for work, our interests for the friends we want.  These are all derived from what we judge is most important to us; what our values are and where we want them to be put to the test or celebrated. But it is the people who know us, why we make these decisions, that matter most to us. These are the friends who  stay with us through thick and thin.  This is the role Nick plays; the unintended  relationship that helped Gatsby more than his obsession with Daisy ever did.

To put this into my own personal context, I was once obsessed with a girlfriend. When I was eventually and unavoidably dumped, I was devastated. This was a direct result of the obsession I had and the lack of self respect which made it all the worse. However, I began to realize the strength I had simply from the relationships I had taken for granted. The support of my friends made me recognize the mutual appreciation and love we held for one another; something that was more substantial than the obsession I had so adamantly clung to. It is these sorts of relationships that are most often unappreciated and hardest to establish, but also in turn are the most necessary in terms of leading a happy life.

Gatsby’s greatness lay in his ability to continue striving towards something that was impossible no matter the obstacle and no matter what was suffered.  The last paragraph Fitzgerald writes follows:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eludes us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther …. and one fine morning—- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Gatsby, a man who could seemingly do almost anything, needed true relationship like every other person. In the boat metaphor, we continue forward with hope while ever being drawn back towards the decisions we have already made. Our perception of the future changes as the past is decided by our present actions.  Its hard to know what will happen; if our present hopes and desires will ever be answered. However, there is one that that we can always see; the other boats with row along with into the future.

I’ll close with the last stanza of my favorite poem, Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

A Response to the Concept of Hell

Earlier today, I received an e-mail from my friend and roommate with an article from CNN. The article poses the question, should we believe in Hell? I didn’t mean to get so in depth, but the following essay is what I wrote to him on the fly. I will note that my friend is an Atheist and is incredibly respectful towards my beliefs and has been a great resource for tough conversations on taboo subjects within religion.

I really don’t agree with the video and the last guy. I kinda agree with the middle one. I think that for a Christian, hell is something that you can’t really avoid, assuming you take the Bible as divinely inspired as most Christians do (I personally think it is divinely inspired but that careful thought and interpretation with a focus on love is necessary in reading it). So ok, I’m gonna go through part 3 (Mark Driscoll), part 1 (the video from Hellbound), then 2 (Frank Schaeffer).

Part 3: On the inevitability of hell for non-Christians

While the existence of hell should be taken as very real, seeing it as the result of retribution against our sins is, I think, disrespectful towards God’s power and inclination towards love of humanity. I don’t think God himself casts us into a lake of fire. While punishment for sin is I think very real, I don’t think that it is eternal. There is a limit to the amount of evil men can do, even if it seems truly abominable. One of the greatest powers attributed to God is the power to create something good from evil. This is one of those “miraculous” capabilities. There are numerous passages in the Bible where hell exists, but either God is with them or it is accessible by Christians whereas non-Christians may not enter it.

Psalm 139:8
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
and

Matthew 7:21-23

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

True belief in God is not nominal; you cannot get in just because you call yourself a Christian. What matters is one’s actions, as Jesus focused on. Paul writes in I Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”. The emphasis is on loving on another, not just in expressed faith in God through Christianity.

Part 1: The Video and the emphasis on Hell avoidance

While I think this can be true in a sense, the way the video puts it is a farce. Hell is not the focus of Christianity. Sin and death are the enemies of God and this includes hatred towards others. While hatred for injustice is Godly, in the end, the idea is that there will be no more hatred because all things will be set aright. The belief that we should focus on hell assumes that this is our ultimate focus as Christians. However, this should not be the case. The focus, once again, is on love. God, in spite of the amount of suffering, pain, and evil human beings can indulge and create, created us with the knowledge that love and goodness must necessarily exist longer and triumph over evil. Going back to Paul, he writes that only faith, hope, and love remain. He does not say our avoidance of hell is paramount; it is the focus on actions of righteousness.

Part 2: The Dude in the middle

This guy is most correct because he focuses on the triumph of God rather than the defeat represented in the concept of Hell. I can’t remember who said it, but “the Christian duty is to believe in hell, but hope that it is empty”. The possibility of hell exists because it is a choice human beings can make. However, I believe that people don’t want to choose hell. Hell is a place devoid of love; devoid of community. I think people want to be in community with others. C.S. Lewis makes hell a place where people can freely enter or leave, dependent on their choices. He notes that hell begins with a grumble and is complete when one’s entire being is nothing but the grumble, the state of finding no joy in anything. I’m very much a proponent of hell being locked from the inside; that we choose our ultimate destiny and can always choose no matter where we are in life or afterlife.

All in all, I agree with the sentiment that our religious culture is hell focused. Too many people think others are going to hell because of their unbelief in a specific religion. While I still maintain that Christianity is the truth, to believe that loving truths cannot be found outside of our religion, a human institution, is putting faith in our own ability to choose what is right from a human perspective. We must instead as religious beings put our faith in the object of our religions, namely God. This focus turns us back towards love and the inclusion of heaven rather than hatred and the exclusiveness of hell.

That was what I e-mailed back to him. This is definitely an area where people will have disagreement, and I don’t know that I wrote this with the most gentle state of mind. I will say that these are my own beliefs, the thoughts of one person who is extremely fallible. If I have said anything which is not true, I ask that people call me out on it. This is an example of a place where I think people have to respectfully discuss a topic in order to make headway and create understanding between people. More than anything I don’t want to shout down people’s throats. Everyone has free will for better or for worse, and I think that will must be respected. I hope that my article here is coherent for others to understand and that I have written in a way that is not bigoted or hateful.

The Song of Songs in Relation to the Holy of Holies

After a good deal of time, I have finally finished reading a compilation of Origen’s writings. Origen was one of the early church fathers and wllived from 185 to 254. He was recommended to me by Sarah Miles, author of Take This Bread(a book I will certainly write about someday). While Origen has many wonderful things to write about, today I’m focusing on his introduction to he Song of Songs.

The Song of Songs is somewhat different from many other books in the Bible. It is a love story which celebrates sexuality and marriage in terms of Godly love. What I most appreciate about Origen’s introduction is his comparison to the Holy of Holies. This particular term refers to the resting place of the ark of the covenent within the tabernacle. Origen writes that the Song of Songs is like this.because it is the ultimate, most powerful song which represents the culmination of Godly love between individuals. It is the song that the bride in the story has been waiting for, because only with the bridgegroom can it be sung.

This idea of ultimate an dprofoundly powerful love is so moving to.me. This is only furthered by the comparison between the Song of Songs and the Holiest of Holiest. The latter refers to something that is hallowed beyond human comprehension. In fact, the closest any human ever got to witnessing the power of the God within the tabernacle was Moses and he only saw the back side of God (I like to.think God was effectively mooning Moses). The Holiest of Holiest Honor’s the utter inapproachability of the lower and mystery of God; it represents the power we can never have.

On the other hand we have the Song of Songs. This song is sung in honor on of marriage, a practice that is both human and divine. It is sung by both man and woman, by God and humanity. Where the holiest of holies represents God’s unapproachability, the Song of Songs represents the invitation of God to love us and for us to love him. A song is something which everyone can learn, sing, dance to, or participate in.

In such a sense, I am dumbdfounded by the song of songs ability to express Gods love for us and the possibility of mutual love win our world.