hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (10/23/85)
In response to article <2309@ukma.UUCP> slg@ukma.UUCP (Sean Gilley). My first comment is that wanting to believe in God because it makes things easier may not be the best place to start. Of course there are plenty of people who have turned to God because they are afraid of death. Some of then have probably gone on to become fine Christians. But I don't think it is the ideal place to start. In the long run, a Christian has to feel God calling him, and to see God at work in the world. It has to be very frustrating to set out to manufacture these perceptions when they have no basis in your actual experience. I envision coming to see God as a process of becoming more sensitive to the spiritual implications of what is going on around us, and what has gone on in the history of Israel and the Church. It is hard to see how someone can become more sensitive when he is gritting his teeth and trying to manufacture a faith he doesn't feel, because he wants to believe that he is going to live forever. At best (or maybe I should say worst) this is likely to produce a neurotic sort of Christianity, which is as much self-deception as it is anything else. Furthermore, if what you are looking for is an easy approach to life, where everything comes out rosy, the good guys always win, and we understand all of life's mysteries, Christianity is not the right place for you. Quite frankly, we do not have all the answers. Yes, I suppose it is nice to believe that we will live forever. But it is also unpleasant to have God butting in our lives all the time. And we do not have terribly convincing answers to some basic questions, like for example why a good God allows people to suffer. As for your friend who says you are going to Hell. Is somebody really saying that to you? From the New Testament on down, the Christians who are close to God have been very wary about making judgements on the status of others. We have enough problems with ourselves. God's call takes very different forms for different people. From the outside it is impossible to know what God is trying to do with you, and therefore how close you are to him. About all one could validly say is *if* you reject God, you will lose something eternally important. But whether you are currently on the road to heaven or hell is something that will be visible only in retrospect, when your life is finally totalled up. There may be situations where someone is so frivilous that it is worth emphasizing the seriousness of the decisions he is making. But I do not get the impression that such frivolity is your problem. On the other hand, I don't agree that because you believe in helping others, you are necessarily on the right road. There are lots of possible motivations for things, even good things. If you look deep enough, it is easy enough to be doing good things for entirely hateful reasons. Indeed the experience of most Christians is that at some fundamental level, everything we do is flawed. I'm not saying that you should start murdering people, nor am I minimizing the importance of high ethical standards within Christianity. I am simply explaining that Christians do good deeds in response to God's call to do so. If you do them for some other reason, it's still good for the people around you, but it may not say anything about your spiritual situation. You ask how God could reject people who follow other religions. You have put your finger on a question that is not entirely resolved within the Church. On the one hand, Christians believe that Christ reveals God in a unique way. However most of us are no longer comfortable with the old idea that other religions know nothing (or even more quaint: that the good ideas in them were introduced by Satan to make them more plausible traps for the unwary). The way I try to resolve the issue is this: As a Christian, I believe that God's relationship with the world is mediated through Christ. But a person can have a relationship with God without knowing that it is through Christ. He will no doubt be better off if he knows what he is doing. And if the religion he follows is sufficiently far off track, a person following it may become someone who is incapable of a relationship with God. But I am confident that God will find a way to make his call heard by people in every society. I am sure that he has some way of introducing people to Christ after death when the Church has botched the job. I am certainly unable to judge your experience as a Christian based on what you have said. All I can say is that there are many fine, caring Christian communities. They are not necessarily the ones where everyone goes to church three times a week. Not that I have anything specific against that. But "high pressure" Christianity is not my cup of tea. I have seen far too many people who have exactly your experience. When they look back, they conclude that it was all plastic smiles (how can anyone possibly watch some of those TV shows without throwing up?) and busyness. There was nothing really there. I do not want to knock all Evangelical Christians. I know many who really have an intense personal relationship with God, and for whom everything that shows is real. But it looks like growing up in such a church can be dangerous. There is simply too much pressure. It is fairly common for people to move out of that background (often when they go to college) and find that they are not as sure as they thought they were. In this context, being an atheist for awhile may not be such a bad thing. It may let you reexamine what you really do believe. I don't have The Answer for you. I have a few suggestions, though. One is to find some folks around you who represent a lower pressure approach to Christianity. You certainly don't need people preaching Hellfire at you. You may not even want people who greet each other all the time with "Praise the Lord." (I'm not saying that this is intrinsically bad. I'm glad to see people whose love for God is brimming over. But for someone in your position, such people may not be much help.) Another is to realize that you do not have to start an exploration into Christianity by having great faith. Jesus was willing to deal with people who did not have it. Faith isn't something you can force yourself to have. If you are really interested in taking another look at Christianity, you might consider some of the classic things: ask for God's help, being honest about your doubts; read one or two of the Gospels, in a translation that doesn't stand in your way (My favorite for this purpose is the Good News translation); read something by a Christian writer who you find congenial (At this point, you do *not* need Pat Boone. I would suggest "Surprised by Joy", by C.S. Lewis. It is an autobiography of his early life. It tells how he became a Christian, but that is not by any means its sole purpose.)
charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) (10/25/85)
>. . . . In the long run, a >Christian has to feel God calling him, and to see God at work in the >world. It has to be very frustrating to set out to manufacture these >perceptions when they have no basis in your actual experience. I >envision coming to see God as a process of becoming more sensitive to >the spiritual implications of what is going on around us, . . . . >It is hard to see >how someone can become more sensitive when he is gritting his teeth >and trying to manufacture a faith he doesn't feel, . . . . >[Charles Hedrick] I agree with much that Charles said (in particular his recommendation of _Surprised by Joy_ - that's a *wonderful* book, by one of my favorite authors.) But I feel compelled to comment on his statements quoted above. It sounds like he's saying that one is saved by having the appropriate feelings regarding God and Christ. I can most assuredly tell you that that's not true. I am not given to "mystical" feelings of the presence of God, of faith in Christ, of "the spiritual implications of what is going on around us". If I had to have such feelings in order to be saved, then I would most assuredly be damned. But because I trust God, and not myself, I know that I am a Christian *in spite of* anything I feel about the subject. I made a willful decision to be His. If, for some reason, I don't *feel* faith in God, that doesn't matter. I don't have to manufacture feelings of faith. God will give me all the faith that I require, and He will keep me. The feelings and visions and 'doo-dads down the spine' that other believers experience (and that I, too, have experienced from time to time) are nice, but *they are not necessary*. Our faith can be strong when we can't see God, perhaps even stronger than when we can. (Blessed are they who haven't seen, and yet have believed.) charli Prayer of the Day: Lord I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.