Deconstructing Doctrine 7: Salvation, Part 2

What changes you when you join a religion? Any religion? What is fundamentally different from the time you were not a member to the time you were a member? Perhaps more importantly:  what happens when you leave that faith community?

The Seventh Doctrine of The Salvation Army attempts to break down and explain what happens when one experiences salvation. It states:

We believe that repentance towards God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.

A Trinitarian Dilemma

When I first read this particular doctrine, even before I went through my deconstruction process, I thought this was somewhat of a forced statement. It seems as if the writer was try to force a Trinitarian view on salvation, attempting to state that one needs to be saved by all three aspects of the Trinity:  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It reminds me of trying to do a family picture with my kids. Everyone is needed, but it seems forced and not everyone is happy with the result.

(My three sons in a failed attempt at a family portrait. It also happens to be my favorite.)

I really like the idea of the Trinity, but at the same time, I have a hard time trying to figure out just what each person of the Trinity has to do in this process of salvation. Also, why is it that the Father has to be the one to whom forgiveness is sought? Why can't it be the Holy Ghost or Jesus?

I've got to have faith . . .

What is this nebulous idea of "faith/belief" in Jesus? Believe what? That Jesus lived? Interesting fact:  In German, there is no differentiation between the words "faith" and "belief." It's the same word, "der Glaube." In English, we tend to put nuances on them, but in actuality, "faith" comes to us via the French/Latin route. "Belief" is Germanic and they both mean the same thing.

Once as a Salvation Army officer, I had some young people from the United States come to visit. When they arrived, I gave them a brief rundown of what to expect as far as trying to minister in Germany. There were important things to know, like:  You have to shake everyone's hand when entering a room, or else someone might be offended. Verses in a German Bible are numbered differently, especially in the Psalms, and certain books of the Bible are in totally different places than in English Bibles. I reminded them to never use plays on words or acronyms, because they rarely worked in translation and, most importantly:

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN GERMAN BETWEEN FAITH AND BELIEF.

I think they broke every single guideline I gave them.

One sweet girl was speaking before our congregation. She couldn't speak German, so I translated for her. She wanted to talk about three things that were important in her spiritual life.  I don't remember what the first one was, but the second and third were "faith" and "belief." I sighed and explained to my congregation what she was trying to imply.

Regeneration?

What is being regenerated? It is our life? I can understand that this process involves the Holy Spirit, but is it something that I must participate in as well? How active do I need to be, if at all? If I am being regenerated, the word itself assumes that I am going back to a state I was previously in. If I am tainted by original sin since birth (which I don't believe in), how can I be regenerated? It's a bad word choice.

Are we like some lizard that loses its tail and then it's regenerated?

I just think this doctrine is badly worded.

What does salvation entail?

Maybe this is the more pertinent question.

Looking at the Bible, there was no one answer for that, either. The writer of Ephesians (who most likely wasn't Paul, but wrote in his style), said:  "You are saved by God's grace because of your faith. This salvation is God's gift. It's not something you possessed. It's not something you did that you can be proud of" (Ephesians 2:8,9 CEB).

However, in James 2:14, the writer states, "My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can't save anyone, can it?" This seems to be in direct contradiction to the doctrine. Having faith by itself is no good. It won't save you.

Then Jesus said to his own disciples after his resurrection:  "If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you don't forgive them, they aren't forgiven" (John 20:23 CEB). This seems to imply that salvation is dependent on us forgiving other people or other people forgiving us.

And, perhaps most controversial, it doesn't seem that we need to do anything for it, as long as someone else believes in Jesus. When Paul and Silas were in prison, the prison warden asked what he needed to do to be saved, they replied to him:  "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your entire household" (Act 16:31 CEB). The prison warden's family didn't need to do anything. They were saved by the faith of the warden.

At one point, we are told it's a free gift of God. (See the passage above from Ephesians.) In another part of the Bible, we are told to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12).

It's enough to drive one crazy trying to figure it out.

What then?

Some people might assume that I am deliberately trying to confuse things. I'm not. I even had someone decry me as a "false teacher" due to my post from the previous doctrine. These are genuine questions I have and am nowhere nearer to an answer. Is salvation a process or a gift, or both? Am I saved by proxy, by faith, or by deeds?

What if the answer is "all of the above?"

It's the terminology that gets in the way. "Salvation." "Regeneration." "Faith/Belief."

We need a new language to describe what is going on here.

Jesus said that the greatest thing we could do was to love God by loving others. This "salvation" is then a healing process:  a process of love. Sometimes it's instantaneous.  Sometimes it takes repeated efforts, patience, and discretion.

Salvation is a healing of wrongs done to us and to others.

Some experience healing through faith. Some experience healing through penance. Some experience healing through the faith of others. What matters is that it involves love.

If I were to reword this doctrine, I would say:

I believe that I experience salvation through the love of God, expressed by my love and the love of others.

Deconstructing Doctrine 6: Salvation

photo credit: wuestenigel Night view of Antigua, Guatemala from "Cerro de la Cruz" via photopin (license)

I'm continuing in my personal deconstruction of the doctrines I grew up with:  The Eleven Doctrines of The Salvation Army. Please refer to my previous blogs for the first 5.

What's wrong with us? Christianity tries to answer this question. Most religions are concerned with this question, too:  How can we have a better life? The sixth doctrine of The Salvation Army addresses this, but requires tons of definitions with the Christianese it uses.

This is the sixth doctrine:

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by his suffering and death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved.

in 1997 I went to Germany as part of a requirement of my Master's degree to serve overseas in a missionary setting. I was invited by one of my friends to go with him to Switzerland for a youth congress he was participating in. On the bus ride to Switzerland, there was a young man who wanted to practice his English on me. He asked me which denomination I attended, in German I replied, "Die Heilsarmee" (The Salvation Army). He stumbled a bit on that and asked me, "What type of army is that? What is a 'healing army?'" This young man literally translated the word "Heil" from the German word, "heilen," which means "to heal."

In some ways, I appreciate that better than the word, "Salvation." Language is an ever-evolving thing. The doctrine here states that there is wrong in this world and the healing of this world is made by Jesus because of his suffering and death.

I agree with the first part, that Jesus came to bring healing, but I disagree with the second part, that it was accomplished by his suffering and death.

Why did Jesus die? That's a very easy question to answer. Jesus was executed for treason:  for breaking the law, for being in direct opposition to Rome as a pretender to the throne. The fact that he was a descendant of David did not help matters. On a religious side, he made claims amounting to divinity, which got the religious community in an uproar.

Have you ever sought meaning in a tragedy that happened? Why did a love one die? Why did a child die? Why did a natural catastrophe happen? It's easy to impose our own meanings to tragedies after they have happened.

I am convinced that the Early Church was trying to bring meaning to the meaningless death of Jesus. In all honesty, there was nothing special about his death. Jesus died by crucifixion. It was so common that Josephus recorded roads being lined with people executed on a cross. Even the Bible stated that Jesus was crucified between two other criminals.

It only makes sense then that the Early Church sought to find meaning in an event that already occurred. Jesus' death was ignoble. It was intended to shame and humiliate his followers. In order to counteract such a despicable death, the Church began to invent its own story as to why Jesus died.

The writer of Hebrews compared Jesus' death to that of a Passover Lamb. That symbolism works just a little bit and would resonate with a Jewish audience, but have little to do with non-Jewish people. The symbolism doesn't work completely, though, because the Passover Lamb was not a lamb of atonement. In fact, the animal that was set aside for atonement wasn't a lamb at all:  It was a goat. The goat was the animal where the sins of the nation were set upon on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Even then, it wasn't sacrificed, but forced to be abandoned in the wilderness. (See Leviticus 16:7-10.)

In more recent soteriology, many Christians love the idea of "penal substitution," the theory that Jesus had to die to take away the sins of the world and without his death, we couldn't be saved. God's wrath demands a sacrifice and it is only appeased by blood.

I reject that notion. I reject the idea that God needs blood in order to satiate God's wrath.

So I reject outright the idea that Jesus even needed to die for my sins. He did not. Such a notion makes God into a bloodthirsty deity with no regard for grace and mercy. God's "wrath" does not need to be satisfied. Let us think about this rationally:  If all we needed to do was to sacrifice Jesus, logically, the quickest and easiest way (and the most barbaric way), would be to do it when Jesus was a baby. If God demanded a blood sacrifice from a human (which goes against the Torah) (cf. Deuteronomy 12:31), this would be the most expedient way. However, the idea that Jesus had to be sacrificed to appease God's wrath is illogical.

If that's the case, where does salvation come from? Where is healing in this world? Jesus gave it to us already. When Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God, it was something that was meant for this world, not some afterlife. God's kingdom was meant for now, not later. The examples given by Jesus of what the Kingdom of Heaven was like was something that we did. The Kingdom of God is how we treated each other. The Kingdom of God was showing love and mercy. The Kingdom of Heaven was found in the relationships we had with each other.

Salvation is not attained through a gruesome blood sacrifice.

Salvation came to us through the incarnation of the Christ.

This is the mystery that I am wrestling with now. If Jesus as the Christ, as the anointed one, was/is also divine, then our salvation comes through his incarnation.

Then what about his death? It was a tragedy, but I don't believe it was a necessity. It was definitely a sign of evil that we would put to death something that was so pure. We humans don't tend to learn, either. We continue to sacrifice pure things with no success. We sacrifice the children of Newtown, Connecticut. We sacrifice the Tutsis of Rwanda. We sacrifice the Jews of Europe.

Blood does not bring atonement. Blood does not bring salvation. I don't need a bath in blood to make me pure. I don't need to have my clothes washed in blood.

God is not a vampire. As the psalmist said, "You don't want sacrifices. If I gave an entirely burned offering, you wouldn't be pleased" (Psalm 51:16 CEB).

So, in rewording this doctrine, I might say:

I believe that Jesus brought healing into this world through his incarnation and life and is available for anyone who follows his teachings.

Deconstructing Doctrine 5: Original Sin

photo credit: Lawrence OP O Clavis David via photopin (license)
A depiction of Christ saving Adam and Eve.

I'm continuing in my series of deconstructing the doctrines of The Salvation Army. Please refer to my previous blogs for context if you are reading this post for the first time.

I love Star Trek. Despite the science fiction aspect of it, the shows tend to have an optimistic portrayal of humanity and the future. I recall a storyline where the Klingon character, Worf, is forced to answer for the supposed crimes of his father. His father had been accused of treason. Since he was dead, Worf had to answer for his father's crimes. This seemed to be a gross injustice. It made absolutely no sense. Why should anyone stand in judgment for the crimes of their parents? The whole storyline dealt with this injustice and how this character needed to prove his own innocence and the innocence of his parents.

Which is why I have so many problems with the Fifth Doctrine of The Salvation Army.

We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness, and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.

This doctrine attempts to tell why we are all facing bad things in life. The long and short of it:  It's our parents' fault. Because Adam and Eve sinned, we are all doomed and "totally depraved."

The language of this doctrine is also just cumbersome. I will give the author credit:  At least he said "first parents" and not Adam and Eve. However, using the patriarchal inclusive words of "all men have become sinners," leaves out anyone who is not male. At the same time, I can imagine most women and gender non-conforming people are quite happy that they are not included in this declaration.

The concept introduced in this doctrine is "Original Sin." Simply stated: Because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we are all sinners by birth. We already have a strike against us because of what our parents did. We are already damned for eternity, not because of what we did, but because of Adam and Eve. Some Christians even go so far as to say that because of their sin, disease, pestilence, etc. entered into this world. These people say that because of the sin of our parents, anything and everything that is evil in this world is their fault.

Hogwash.

That is not justice at all. This also certainly doesn't reflect the loving nature of God. Granted, one could find scriptural support for this concept. (One could find scriptural support for just about anything.) People often turn to Paul's discourse in Romans 5 as support that we are all born evil. However, I would rather turn to Jesus.

Jesus and his disciples once encountered a blind man. His disciples, curious of course, wanted to know why this man had been born blind. It is a common enough question. So many people are born into situations we don't understand and which are patently not fair. It's the question whose answer we are seldom satisfied with:  "Why do bad things happen to good people?" So the disciples asked Jesus:  "Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?" (John 9:2 CEB)

It's a legitimate question. Why did this bad thing happen to me? Why do I have this disease? Why was my child born with Down's Syndrome? Why did I have a miscarriage? Why did my father beat my mother up? Why was I abused?

Jesus had an answer in this case:  "Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God's mighty works might be displayed in him. While it's daytime, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world," (John 9:3-5 CEB).

This answer, albeit somewhat cryptic, makes something clear:  this wrong done to this person was not his fault, nor was it his parents' fault.

The bad things that happen to us in this world are often not our fault; however, it is our duty to make things right again.

Because of this, I reject this doctrine outright. In fact, I find it somewhat interesting that The Salvation Army has no problem adopting a petal of Calvinism here:  Total Depravity. This is the idea that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, all humans are incapable of doing good and are born in a sinful nature.

I tend to stand more behind the idea of Pelagianism, a doctrine in direct opposition to Augustine of Hippo, which states we are not born in a state of sin, but we can through our own efforts still do good. This caused a bit of controversy back during Pelagius' day. To some people it seemed that if one thought this way, one doesn't need God at all. The teachings of Pelagius were declared a heresy and most of his writings were destroyed.

However, I tend to agree with Pelagius.  We are not born bad. We are born good. If God has declared the universe and us good, who are we to argue?

This whole idea of Original Sin is something I can understand. It's trying to give an answer as to why so many things in this world are messed up. Why is there disease? Why is there war? Why are people born in poverty while some are born in wealth? It is important to wrestle with these questions; however, I don't believe the answer lies with Original Sin.

While attending college, I visited a synagogue as part of a class on Worship I was taking. It was a reformed Jewish synagogue in Lexington. In speaking with the rabbi after the service, I suddenly discovered something:  Jews do not believe in Original Sin, either! They had the same stories that we do. They know the story of Adam and Eve, but they came to a different conclusion. I remember asking the rabbi, "It doesn't seem that you think it was a bad thing that Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." He replied, "No, because before that there was no sex!"

Well, that certainly has my vote for discounting the concept of Original Sin!

Perhaps it's not quite that simple. Perhaps we are born good. When God created us, God proclaimed that we are good. That is nothing anyone can take away but we ourselves. The deeds of our parents cannot make us evil or sinful.

If I were to rework this doctrine, I might say something like this:

I believe that we humans were created in a state of innocency. We are all born with the capability of doing good or evil. We are responsible for our own actions and it is our duty to right the wrongs of our ancestors.

Deconstructing Doctrine 4: Jesus

Arian Baptistry via photopin (license)

I am continuing in my deconstruction of the Salvation Army doctrines. Please see the first entries if this is your first foray into my blog!

Jesus:  Who was he?

Every time I think I get closer to an answer to this question, I get further away. Still, I try to examine what I know and what is verifiable. Then certain things collide with what I know to be scientifically true and these things clash hard with Scripture. That can lead to a crisis of faith for some. Others choose to ignore the science and focus solely on the faith, turning a blind eye to what they know is impossible.

So here is the Fourth Doctrine of The Salvation Army:

We believe that in the person of Jesus Christ the Divine and human natures are united, so that He is truly and properly God and truly and properly man.

I do not dispute at all that Jesus lived on this Earth. He did. This extraordinary man started a movement and a way of life that reverberates to this day.

Was Jesus divine?

For most people, this is the crux of the question. They point to his virgin birth:  a birth that was based on a misinterpretation of Isaiah 7:14. Matthew (in Matthew 1:22-23) for some bizarre reason decides to quote from this scripture and say, "This was meant for Jesus," when, in its context, it clearly does not. If you look at the whole of Isaiah 7, Isaiah was speaking about a young woman (not a virgin) who was pregnant right then and there and the child was going to be a sign that King Ahaz's enemies would be destroyed. Matthew was more than likely quoting from the Septuagint, where this word (young woman) was rendered as virgin in Greek.

Let's go on with what we know about the ancients. Women were only viewed as the ground whereupon seed was sewn. That's why women were called "barren" when they weren't bearing children. Men had the "seed," the full human offspring. The Ancients didn't realize that the genetic material of both parents made up the offspring. So it only made sense, then, that Mary was "conceived by the Holy Spirit."

Even up until the Enlightenment, this view was called "preformationism."

Let's bring science into this. That just doesn't work. It's impossible. If there were no male genetic material to go into Mary's egg, then the baby would only have female genetic material. Would that make Jesus transgender?

So what do we have here?

Does being born of a virgin make someone divine? I don't think so, but then again that's probably missing the point of the story. Being born of a virgin wasn't even important at all to Mark or John. They ignore the birth of Jesus altogether.

If Jesus were truly divine, it had nothing to do with how he was conceived. In fact, perhaps we are taking the story too literally, as we often do in our culture, and we should be taking the story symbolically.

Was Jesus human?

This question might seem laughable, but one that early plagued Christians. It's easy to shoot off the answer, "yes," but are we prepared to accept those consequences of what it means for Jesus to be human?

Did Jesus eat? Sleep? Cry? Those are easy to answer. We know those answers. We see the Bible reporting about him eating, sleeping, crying.

Let's ask the harder questions.

Did Jesus make mistakes? After all, making mistakes is part of being human and more importantly is how we learn. I cannot learn how to walk without making mistakes. I cannot learn how to talk without making mistakes. 

If I may posit, even Jesus made mistakes. This one will be hard for most Christians to wrestle with. In fact, many will find some eisegetical reason to counter it. I think Jesus made a mistake when he first refused to heal the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman. Most people are uncomfortable with this story. First of all, it shows Jesus acting quite like a racist. I can understand that. It's always easier to identify with a group and to put people into an "other" category. We do it even in this day. Racism exists and is quite widespread. Is it any wonder that Jesus, a Jew, born in a society that hated non-Jews, especially Canaanites, would show contempt for this foreign woman?

However, Jesus learned from this mistake. He did the right thing. In so doing, he showed that his message was not meant only for the Jews, but for the whole world.

If Jesus were human, was he sexual? Absolutely he was! I'm not saying that he never had sex. The Bible is silent on that, but he was human and, in being human, was a sexual being. There is a possibility that he was Asexual, but I don't believe so. And if Jesus was truly human, then he experienced most human desires and feelings, which includes our sexual drive. So when Jesus hit puberty, he more than likely had the exact same emotions, hormones, and actions that most young men do his age.

That concept is so difficult for Christians to accept. In fact, there was an early movement of Christians who rejected this altogether, stating that Christ denied himself such pleasures. We call this Gnosticism. This thought basically denied everything pleasurable and states that only Spirit is good. The Early Church considered this a heresy, while still struggling with it to this day.

Are we ready to accept what it means for Jesus to have been human?

What did Jesus know about this?

Did Jesus believe he was divine? If he did? When? Did he know it from the moment of conception? If that were the case, how could a divine being ever be truly human? Paul in his letters to the Philippians states that Jesus emptied himself of all divinity (See Philippians 2:6-11.)

If Jesus emptied himself of all things divine, how could he be truly and properly God and truly and properly human when he was on Earth?

I think I'm coming up with more questions than answers.

And that's OK.

The fact is, I don't know for certainty that Jesus knew he was anything more than human. His preferred moniker for himself was "Son of Man," which is a euphemism for "Human One." He didn't call himself the Son of God. This praise came from other people. Friar Richard Rohr likes to postulate that Jesus did not know he was divine until his resurrection. I can accept that.

In the end, I probably have just as many questions as Andrew Lloyd Weber's portrayal of Judas Iscariot.

I believe that in the person of Jesus, his humanity and divinity are worthy mysteries to investigate.