This post is not going to be in the standard format. Instead of laying out what I think about a particular issue and then possibly getting into a discussion afterward, I really just want to ask a series of questions that I hope readers will answer in the comment section.
My background with Christianity is with a very fundamentalist variety that believes faith, grace, and works are all tightly woven together — each plays a necessary part in salvation. I’m much less familiar with more liberal versions of Christianity, and that’s what I’m hoping to learn more about in this discussion. So here are my questions:
- The New Testament speaks a lot about salvation. What exactly are Christians being saved from?
- In a similar vein, are non-Christians bound for a different fate than Christians? What will the afterlife be like for each?
- What does God/Jesus expect from us? Anything?
- Of what value are works? Is baptism a work? If so, then is faith also a work?
- What’s the relationship between faith, grace, and works?
I’ve numbered these for ease of reference, but please answer any or all of them in whatever way you like. Or if some of them are bad questions, let me know that too. It’s time to witness, folks! 🙂
Finding Truth 
“I think you are responding to a version of christianity that I don’t hold, and which I think people are moving away from. It is, I presume, what you are most familiar with, but it is not a good reason to reject other forms.”
unkleE, I am glad you don’t hold to this form of Christianity . I think you are correct in saying that many people are moving away from this form of Christianity too. What this indicates to me is that this is truly an Evolutionary Process . We (Christians and former Christians) are constantly reassessing our Spiritual Belief Systems.
I believe that as humans these changes are influenced by Science and Archaeology. The more we know and are willing to accept as Evidence, the more we reassess .
I think there are a lot of Christians who still hold to the form of Christianity you moved away from who would say you may no longer be a Christian according to their definition. I think where you and I differ from Nate and Ark is this. You and I have no desire to concede there is no God based on evidence we are willing to believe.. As I have continually looked at the best evidence (one of your favorite phrases) with my feeble reasoning powers, I have given up things you still believe in. I admit my pre-set stopping point is Deism. I think your pre-set stopping point is as you have called yourself .”An indifferent Christian” . Nate and Ark no longer have pre-set stopping points.
I know you get frustrated with many of us for not accepting the evidence you are willing to. That’s what makes the World go around. 🙂
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And Josh, some people believe they need Muhammad’s teachings to be saved. Other people believe it’s through Krishna. They are just as fallible and sincere as the Christians you mentioned who can’t fully understand just what it is God wants them to do (if anything). But since they aren’t Christians even nominally, they don’t get salvation. Sounds pretty messed up to me.
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unkleE, I agree that some statements carry more weight than others in scripture, which we can see through context. But I think you know the main point I was driving at — it even sounds like you agree.
Thanks
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Charity — excellent points! Thanks for weighing in. 🙂
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@Unklee.
”Being less than God, we are inevitably less than perfectly able to live in the way we need to if we are going to have a harmonious everlasting life. ”
And this utterly pathetic answer is why Christians need their heads examined and why the likes of Nate, Marcus and Chief must breath a huge sigh of relief every morning yet still shudder when they drive by a church.
If we were created by this god then whose bloody fault is it that we are less than perfect? And what a-hole of a god puts the one ‘tree’ we are not supposed to eat from within arm’s reach and allows a damn serpent the opportunity to bend Eve’s ear?
Of all the diatribe Unklee has espoused, all the pseudo politically correct and pretend polite dialogue he has insinuated over the blogs, this comment quite succinctly illustrates the mind of person who implies he is a more forward thinking christian yet displays the archaic backward mentality of the basest fundamentalist.
What a truly Silly Person.
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What I mainly wanted to show in this discussion is that Christianity is all over the place. Depending on which verses you point to, the “Gospel” can say pretty much anything. As John Zande pointed out at the beginning of the thread, you can even have Jesus saying we must all keep the Law of Moses.
Maybe the Bible’s not supposed to be a scientific treatise — I never really thought it was. But if God wants all people to follow some kind of instruction(s), I think he could figure out a way to do it that’s not so confusing. Christians can’t agree on whether or not there’s a Hell, on what someone must do to be saved, on who will be saved, how grace works, exactly what Jesus’ death accomplished, etc. Josh and unkleE are in pretty close agreement with one another, but there are other Christians who would say they’re completely mistaken.
I think one of the worst parts about Christianity is the separation between the saved and the unsaved. There are many Christians who don’t put a whole lot of thought into their beliefs, but are mostly Christians by accident of birth. Yet the same kind of people who were raised in non-Christian cultures are not saved. That’s disgustingly arbitrary. If a god really did judge people in such a way, he would not be worthy of worship.
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“Yet the same kind of people who were raised in non-Christian cultures are not saved. That’s disgustingly arbitrary. If a god really did judge people in such a way, he would not be worthy of worship.”
Regarding the firs sentence: you know as well as I that being born in a non-Christian culture does not mean someone will not be a Christian. Same with the reverse situation. And, neither you nor I can possibly judge who is saved. C’mon Nate. You should know better.
Regarding the rest of the quote: I completely agree. This is not the God I worship. This is not the God Jesus reveals to us. Again, you should know better. You accuse Christians of not putting a lot of thought into their beliefs. You actually reveal a fair amount of surface-level and I investigated understanding of Christianity yourself, Nate.
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That should read “surface level and uninvestigated understanding”
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And to Nate’s last posting, I say AMEN!
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@ Josh
“Yet the same kind of people who were raised in non-Christian cultures are not saved. That’s disgustingly arbitrary. If a god really did judge people in such a way, he would not be worthy of worship.”
That there are 40,000 separate Christian cults is evidence enough of how arbitrary your faith /god is. If your go’d cant deliver a simple straightforward message to his öwn” then…god help you lot!
What do you plan doing to appease your god if you all think you are deserving entry into Heaven? You going to slip St Peter ten dollars, give him a wink and offer him a bacon sandwich?
The average protestant Christian does not even think of a Catholic as a ”proper” Christian and many consider them unworthy of being saved.
Sheesh! Christians are so mind numbingly ignorant, it is staggering.
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I’ll second Nan’s Amen on this latest comment of yours Nate. It summarizes very well my own thoughts.
And your last paragraph also hits home for me about this separation between believers and un-believers that is created by the beliefs of the majority of Christian sects when all of us really are just human beings trying our best to find our way in this world.
The quote above you have written was something I grappled with a lot when I was a Christian. The fact that all of my relatives and a lot of my friends were raised Jewish played a big part in the difficulty I had in resolving that part of my belief. The culture one is raised in clearly has an incredibly huge impact on the kind of worldview that people end up holding.
I do want to add a little side note on this too though – happily there are a small but growing number of very liberal Christians who are going away from this kind of “believer/un-believer” separation theology. You’ll find some of them in UU churches and even other liberal denominations. I also think Rodalena’s comment on this post seems to nicely express a belief that breaks down that dividing line (although I may have interpreted her comment wrong).
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Hi kcchief1, I am pleased to see we are much closer to agreement this time. Some people (and it can be both believers and non-believers) feel threatened by possible changes to their beliefs, others don’t. While I have been a christian for 50 years, my beliefs have evolved considerably as I have read, considered, prayed and re-assessed the evidence and information I have. As a christian, I believe the Holy Spirit can guide us in that process, and that is why I pray.
You might be right, though I can fit in with the somewhat conservative (theologically) church I currently attend, as long as I am careful about what I say, because I still believe what most christians regard as the essentials – Jesus, his death, the resurrection, forgiveness, etc.
I don’t think I get frustrated, and I’m sorry if it comes across that way. I have long since learned to accept that other people won’t always find convincing the things that I find convincing. But I always hope we can at least agree to consider the objective evidence, even if we interpret it differently.
Thanks for your comments. I feel we are at least understanding each other a little better than we were, and I am happy with that.
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I was wondering what you are getting at, and this clarifies. But I think you have over-stated the case here.
On the essentials. there is consistency, in the New Testament, and among christians. All pretty much agree that Jesus came from God, lived the life recorded in the gospels, was crucified and resurrected. All believe he offers us something the human race desperately needs – whether we express that as “salvation” or “the kingdom of God” or whatever. All agree we need forgiveness from God and must offer it to others. All agree that Jesus calls us and the Spirit empowers us to live a new life, though whether we actually do so depends on whether we are obedient. All agree that God’s gifts to us are due to his grace, and we need faith to appropriate them.
If we didn’t know anything else about christianity, that would be enough. The things you quibble about are details, on which humans will always disagree. Baptism, the exact balance between faith and works, the gifts of the Spirit, etc, are not really essential matters, God can cope with our variations there. I can have meaningful fellowship with people who hold different views on all those things and see them as brothers and sisters – and in fact I often do (from Catholics to Mennonites and house church, I can feel united on essentials with them all). The main problems come when the other person excludes.
I think you (and many christians) have a wrong view of God’s actions in the world – thinking he is a “command and control” God. God is indeed sovereign, but he chooses not to impose himself on us. His grace to us is to make us “in his image”, which means giving us a fair degree of autonomy. So of course there is variation in how we think and respond.
In fact, this discussion has helped me think through a little more where I feel there are two opposing concepts of christianity, and I think one is quite mistaken:
1. God is not “command and control” but he gives us autonomy.
2. He doesn’t expect us to pass a knowledge exam to be “saved”, but rather to respond to him with a right attitude.
3. The Bible isn’t a textbook of facts so much as an account of people relating to God and an invitation to join them – and it makes this appeal in many different ways to suit the wide differences in people.
4. God’s communication to us is primarily in subtle ways through the Holy Spirit (so subtle that we are not always aware of it).
Accepting all this removes many of the issues people have with unequal opportunity to hear the christian message.
I both agree and disagree with this. Clearly Jesus taught that one day there would be separation (e.g. the parable of the sheep and goats). But he also taught that God would do any separating, and we shouldn’t even begin to try (e.g. “judge not” and the parable of the wheat and the weeds). So any person who comes on too strong about who’s in and who’s out is disobeying Jesus – and annoying both you and me!
One thing your blog is achieving for me is a slowly clarifying understanding of some of these issues. I hope it is doing the same for you. Thanks for the opportunity.
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One of the reasons I love Nate’s blog is his endless patience in the face of Christian stupidity.
I suspect that every now and then he will lean back in his chair and have a quiet chuckle while certain visitors will politely, yet ignorantly brush off Nate’s erudite and very intelligent replies.
Because of his history of fundamentalism he is the perfect foil for these silly people, yet they continue to debate with him as if he hasn’t heard EVERY argument; hasn’t himself defended each and every one of their outrageously silly claims at some point in his previously chequered past.
And all they are doing is illustrating their complete ignorance, believing that clever philosophy and metaphysical word games will either confirm this nonsense in their own minds or somehow unlock something in Nate’s mind that will have him rushing back to the bosom of Yashua weeping inconsolably, ”Forgive me, Jesus, and thank you Unklee and all for showing me the light once more. I am saved.”
Er…No. I don’t think so.
What christians refuse to grasp is that by becoming an atheist one IS stepping into the light.
A light filled with critical thinking, reason, better understanding and freedom from lies and dependency upon superstition. It is responsibility and for Nate and others it must be a wonderful feeling.
Yet these same Christians, so filled with self-righteousness will look at the Young Earth ‘brethren’ with a degree of pity for the stupidity of their extreme fundamentalism yet consider their own degree of evangelism perfectly normal…because theirs is a revealed faith/religion/relationship and god wouldn’t lie to them, right?
Well…no he wouldn’t if you care to think about it. If the character of Jesus taught anything at all is what to think for oneself.
http://www.is-there-a-god.info/blog/
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I’ll toast unkleE’s last comment. I think clarification and truth is what we are all seeking. We’re all at different places, but all trying to make sense of the world in which we live.
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And I’ll toast Ark’s last comment.
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@ Nan
Woof woof…who’s a good doggy! 😉
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I would like to add that the Early Church Fathers including Justin Martyr realized the stories portrayed in the NT about a miracle working dying rising savior were stories told in other and older cultures as well, When confronted with them, the best explanation they could give was that Satan knew the stories of Jesus before he came to earth and planted these stories in the minds of other cultures so when Jesus came, they would confuse everyone . Justin Martyr admitted the Jesus Stories he was telling was nothing new that the Greeks believed about the Sons of Zeus. Clement even believed in the Mythical Bird the Phoenix to be true and compared Jesus’ life , death and resurrection to the Phoenix. If you read the 10 Volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, you will notice some of the outrageous stories they used to validate the Jesus Story. When you have Church writers so close to the time of Jesus spinning tales like this, it was impossible for me to accept Christianity any longer.
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I’m assuming this wasn’t your only reason, but if it was, the evidence would suggest you should reconsider. Hypotheses that the Jesus stories were copied from pagan myths about dying and rising gods were popular a hundred years ago, but contemporary historical scholarship has rejected them. And for good reason – (1) most of the parallels are spurious, (2) there is more evidence of the pagans copying from the christians, and (3) the historical evidence for the pagan gods is zero whereas the historical evidence for Jesus is compelling.
You can read more in Was Jesus a copy of pagan gods? It’s another case of a small minority of non-believers fulfilling their own wishes by ignoring historical scholarship and taking up long-disacredited ideas.
But don’t believe me, research it for yourself and see.
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@Unklee.
I stand under correction but I don’t think this is what The Chief is saying.
The early church fathers were aware of all the mythological stories, as who would not have been?.
So when they came across the ridiculous stories of Yashua they merely had to add a few more details of their own to justify the rubbish that was being touted.
”3) the historical evidence for the pagan gods is zero whereas the historical evidence for Jesus is compelling.”
Er…just enlighten us all here, if you don’t mind, as that is quite a high and mighty sweeping statement.
Exactly WHAT compelling historical evidence are you referring to, Unklee?
I am unaware of a single shred of irrefutable evidence to support the statement that the character as described in the biblical texts is anything more than a narrative construct.
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unkleE, your argument is with Justin Martyr (110 – 165 CE) not me. To quote him,” And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.
Again Justin says,” And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from the ordinary generation, let this, said above, be no extraordinary thing to you , who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God.”
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No argument with Justin, kcchief1. Neither Jupiter or Mercury were historical figures, which is just what I said.
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You’re missing my point unkleE. Justin Martyr was a historical figure. He was an early Church Father who wrote this. When confronted with these Pagan Stories historical or not ,he is the one who conceded that the Christian story of Jesus propounded nothing new than what they already believed of Jupiter. BTW , the Christian God is no more historical than Jupiter or Mercury. You can argue a case that there may have been a Jewish prophet named Jesus however.
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“I am unaware of a single shred of irrefutable evidence…”
Ark-
I’m unaware of a single shred of irrefutable evidence for pretty much anything. If irrefutable evidence is what you’re looking for, then you wouldn’t be able to trust any information. For example, start with yourself: do you have “irrefutable evidence” that everything thing you think, reason, and believe about yourself and the world are not merely constructs of what the evolutionary process has deemed “important” for you to perceive and believe? By demanding irrefutable evidence you have given yourself no way to verify anything – you have placed yourself in a situation where you could explain away everything.
To quote C.S. Lewis:
“The kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. You cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever.
The whole point of seeing through things is to see something else through them. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the garden beyond it is opaque. What if you saw through the garden, too? If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is exactly the same as an invisible world. To ‘see through’ everything is the same as not to see anything.”
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kcchief1-
Here’s a link to the Wikipedia article describing events told in the novel, ‘Wreck of the Titan’. This book was written in 1898, 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Read over the list of similarities between the fictional Titan’s story and the historical Titanic. By your account of Justin Martyr’s reasoning, since the story of the Titan was written 14 years earlier than the sinking of the Titanic, and so many details are similar, then the “historical” story of the Titanic must have been made up. For, nothing historical could have so many similarities to something fictional made up before the “historical” event happened. Right?
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