(Author’s note: This post is a response to a CNN Belief Blog column that was on CNN.com’s front page this past Sunday. The column’s author, Steven James, is a Christian writer. –E.A.)
Hi. I’m Eric, and I’m a Bible geek.
I can’t help it. I enjoy Biblical interpretation and exegesis, I love comparing translations side-by-side, and my Christmas list last year included a copy of the newly-released Common English Bible version of Scripture.
At the same time, I recognize that no English translation gets it right, and that my rudimentary Biblical Greek is not sufficient to thoroughly understand the texts in their original vernacular. Don’t even get me started on my Biblical Hebrew, it’s even worse, bordering on non-existent.
So, I am reliant on the preferences of scholarship and the trends of the English translations of Scripture, and I can therefore appreciate Mr. James’ point that our English versions really do, in fact, sugarcoat the original Scriptures. As a Christian proponent of searching out the historical as well as the theological Jesus in the original Scriptures, I am very sympathetic to his call to not sanitize my holy texts for the sake of my (not so) delicate ears. After all, as he says, the Bible depicts murder, torture, adultery, and all other manner of R-rated material. If I’m going to be offended by a little vulgarity, I’ve picked the wrong book to elevate to sanctity.
But here is where the argument falls of the tracks:
"I believe that Scripture includes such graphic material to show how far we, as a race, have fallen and how far God was willing to come to rescue us from ourselves.
God is much more interested in honesty than pietism…I find it encouraging that Jesus never came across as pietistic. In fact, he was never accused of being too religious; instead he partied so much that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19).
Jesus never said, “The Kingdom of God is like a church service that goes on and on forever and never ends.” He said the kingdom was like a homecoming celebration, a wedding, a party, a feast to which all are invited.
This idea was too radical for the religious leaders of his day. They were more concerned about etiquette, manners, traditions and religious rituals than about partying with Jesus. And that’s why they missed out.
That’s why we miss out.
According to Jesus, the truly spiritual life is one marked by freedom rather than compulsion (John 8:36), love rather than ritual (Mark 12:30-33) and peace rather than guilt (John 14:27). Jesus saves us from the dry, dusty duties of religion and frees us to cut loose and celebrate."
First and foremost, I should note that none of this has anything to do with sugarcoating the Bible—this is an entirely different kettle of fish, as the subject has changed entirely from Biblical translation to theology. I believe the inclusion of words that may repulse us today is part and parcel of Scripture being a two-to-three-thousand-year-old array of documents. For instance, slavery repulses us today, but it is permissible in Scripture. So to say that such graphic material was included to emphasize our fallen nature, such a statement is problematic, because prose that might shock us today may well not have 100, 500, or 1,000 years ago. If more of Scripture shocks us today than it did yesterday, does that mean we have fallen even further into sin and need even more to have our fallen nature emphasized? If so, I suggest that we all immediately get out of the business of being Christian, because clearly it isn’t working.
What we are then left with, then, is that there is indeed such a thing as an evolving standard of decency. But the fundamental basis of the Christian faith remains unchanged: belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). What has evolved instead is our works, by which our faith is made known (James 2:18).
To be sure, we still have a long, long way to go—but fairness and equality are much more at the forefront of national and international issues now than they ever were even a century ago, when women and minorities had not been given full voting rights, when safety nets like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare were nonexistent, and when banning child labor was a non sequitur. All of those things—giving voice to the previously voiceless and ensuring a standard of living for all people, protecting the young, these all speak to the decency of society, and all are fundamental components of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By that standard, our faith is actually improving.
Of course, it is not the only standard by which we must measure the capacity to believe in greater good. People are still slipping away from organized religion (and the moral compass it can provide) in droves, preferring instead the nebulous identity of “spiritual, but not religious.” After being powerful and popular centers for community involvement in the 20th century, churches are swimming upstream to try to maintain their relevancy in a postmodern, individualistic world. And as a card-carrying member of Generation Y, whose spiritual heritage has been influenced by mainline Christianity, meditative Roman Catholicism, and contemporary and emergent movements, I get the impulse to run from those “dry, dusty duties” of religion. But here’s the thing—being saved does come with duties and obligations, which have nothing to do with the sugarcoating of Scripture!
Scripture says that our faith is kept alive by our works (James 2:26). Indeed, our works create faith within other people (Matthew 5:16). One purpose of the Church is to provide any Christian with the opportunity, theological framework, and spiritual support to do those works. The evangelist Billy Sunday got it all wrong when he said that the best thing that could happen to someone is to be saved and then immediately die, because that utterly robs that person of the opportunity to demonstrate that faith by working to make the world a better place.
God’s grace is not, and never has been, a get-out-of-jail free card (the big, fancy seminary term for the belief that grace functions this way is “antinomianism.” Try that one on for size at your next cocktail party!), but I worry that God’s grace is treated this way by the churches where you can become “saved” in a matter of minutes, even though experiencing grace can take a lifetime—in his amusing and insightful book “My Jesus Year,” author Benyamin Cohen refers to this brand of Christianity as “LensCrafters for the soul.” God’s grace is an earth-shattering, world-upturning, soul-quaking thing, and it cannot be reduced to something that excuses us from the duties and obligations of being Christian, indeed, of being human, to “party with Jesus” instead. When we do this, we demand too little of ourselves when God in fact demands more than just our faith. He knows we are capable of goodness and demands it as well.
By your works, God shall know your faith. It is why I believe that the chance for salvation is universal, for Christians and non-Christians alike. I cannot imagine that someone would do good without some sort of faith, even if it is only faith in the good act itself. That may not yet be a faith in God, but if you have the capacity for faith nonetheless, I believe that God sees it. And, by God’s grace, such good is, I pray, enough to merit your entry into Heaven.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
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