Your God, and My God
Earlier this evening, during the course being told what a horrible person I am, how I don't deserve this that and the other in my life, and how I missed some turn on an interstate somwhere (?), someone asked me (granted rhetorically) if I really thought that 'God is looking down on you with an approving smile'? Despite its terribly arrogant, narrowminded and self serving nature, this question actually got me thinking, I admitt. After a great deal of contemplation, I decided that had I been given the chance to answer said question, the first thing I would have wanted to know would have been, are we talking about YOUR God, or MY God? Because I assure you, they're not the same thing - thankfully. My God is a God of love, mercy and forgiveness, not a God of judgement, persecution and punishment. So is God smiling at me right now? Possibly - I don't know, but I would never be so presumptious as to tell another person that He wasn't.
That aside, I suppose the biggest difference between MY God, and the God mentioned by the person above, is that my belief in my God doesn't preclude the validity of all other religious beliefs in the world. The thing I find most painful about Christianity in general, is the supremely arrogant idea carried by so many of us, that Christianity alone has all the answers, to all the questions. Now I am a Christian (Episcopalian in fact) and I consider myself a moderatley religous person, but what I want to know, is WHY people think that the 'horse blinders' are neccisary as soon as a person gains a little religious conviction? I fail to understand how or why my belief in God should make anyone elses belief in their God, Gods, Karma, Chi, Budda, Wiccan spirits, etc. etc. etc. any less valid? Is it supposed to be because of the things written in a book? Things written by mortal men, a very long time ago, and translated so many times that even the most knowledgeable scholars can't tell you EXACTLY what a given line was supposed to mean? I mean I hate to break the news, but pretty much every major religion has a book like this, and unless someone somewhewere has an autographed copy, the Bible is no more or less valid then any of those.
Religion should be about what YOU believe, not what someone tells you to believe. Each of us must decide what we want to put our Faith in. I chose to put my faith in Christianity - how could I look another person, who chose to put their faith elsewhere, in the eye and tell them that their soul was condemned to Hell, because they didn't make the same choice I did? I don't even believe in Hell! All that fire and brimstone, smiting, punishing, wrath of God type stuff is simply something I don't accept. Lots of people have a problem with this, but as a person of faith it is my RIGHT to decide exactly what I do and do not believe, and not anyone elses. When I am in the places that are most sacred to me, and when I feel closest to God, those are not the impressions I get, and they have no place in my beliefs. Who has the right to tell me otherwise?
No one has all the answers, and yet in every corner of the world, religous leaders will tell anyone willing to listen that only their religion can "save you", only their religion has ALL the answers, and that only through their beliefs can you lead a good life. And yet, when you take the time to look close, it turns out that each and every religion has the exact same holes, and exact same BIG questions, and the exact same unexplainable aspects. Why? Because when you come down to it, religion is about FAITH and FAITH is not about having all the answers, but in realizing that you don't, and believing anyway.
That aside, I suppose the biggest difference between MY God, and the God mentioned by the person above, is that my belief in my God doesn't preclude the validity of all other religious beliefs in the world. The thing I find most painful about Christianity in general, is the supremely arrogant idea carried by so many of us, that Christianity alone has all the answers, to all the questions. Now I am a Christian (Episcopalian in fact) and I consider myself a moderatley religous person, but what I want to know, is WHY people think that the 'horse blinders' are neccisary as soon as a person gains a little religious conviction? I fail to understand how or why my belief in God should make anyone elses belief in their God, Gods, Karma, Chi, Budda, Wiccan spirits, etc. etc. etc. any less valid? Is it supposed to be because of the things written in a book? Things written by mortal men, a very long time ago, and translated so many times that even the most knowledgeable scholars can't tell you EXACTLY what a given line was supposed to mean? I mean I hate to break the news, but pretty much every major religion has a book like this, and unless someone somewhewere has an autographed copy, the Bible is no more or less valid then any of those.
Religion should be about what YOU believe, not what someone tells you to believe. Each of us must decide what we want to put our Faith in. I chose to put my faith in Christianity - how could I look another person, who chose to put their faith elsewhere, in the eye and tell them that their soul was condemned to Hell, because they didn't make the same choice I did? I don't even believe in Hell! All that fire and brimstone, smiting, punishing, wrath of God type stuff is simply something I don't accept. Lots of people have a problem with this, but as a person of faith it is my RIGHT to decide exactly what I do and do not believe, and not anyone elses. When I am in the places that are most sacred to me, and when I feel closest to God, those are not the impressions I get, and they have no place in my beliefs. Who has the right to tell me otherwise?
No one has all the answers, and yet in every corner of the world, religous leaders will tell anyone willing to listen that only their religion can "save you", only their religion has ALL the answers, and that only through their beliefs can you lead a good life. And yet, when you take the time to look close, it turns out that each and every religion has the exact same holes, and exact same BIG questions, and the exact same unexplainable aspects. Why? Because when you come down to it, religion is about FAITH and FAITH is not about having all the answers, but in realizing that you don't, and believing anyway.
posted by CarpeDM | 11:10 PM
4 Comments:
My Dear sweet Matt.... I almost hate to respond this way... But hopefully you've known me long enough to know that I love people, respect them, and value their opinions, beliefs, values, etc. While I believe we should do our best to honor the ethics and faiths of others, Belief in Christ comes with a burden. Now, I am by NO MEANS justifying what this person said to you. I would like to clear up one thing very quickly- God LOVES the world... that means everyone. We are His created... I mean seriously... "There is no greater love than this: that he would lay down his life..." I believe with all my heart that God smiles as he watches you grow and experience the life He gave to you! Ok- now to the part you may not like... but my belief. Believing in Christ comes with the burden of believing that His death gave us Life... and His love extends to us... He asks that we love him first and others as ourselves. I know I'm talking in circles... It is out of this love that we should attempt to share our faith and why we believe certain things to be true. The nature of FAITH and BELIEF is acceptance. This means that if I believe Christ died for each unique soul in creation, that I would desire to share His love with others. Not because I see their faiths as being not valid (they have chosen to believe what they do just as I have,) but because I care for them and desire to live out my faith.... I hope this was clear... It's so hard for me sometimes... But I say this not because I'm confronting you... only explaining... There are those who live in service to this love and share it with others out of love... their message is grace and forgiveness. A favorite song of mine calls God, "the God of second chances." and He is.
Love you
Allison
"It is out of this love that we should attempt to share our faith and why we believe certain things to be true."
It is simply astonishingly arrogant to me, that any group of people could look at this amazing world, and then conclude that they, and they alone have a lock on who and what God is. The problem I have w/ "sharing" of faith is that it's very rarely sharing. More often it's insisting that there is only ONE answer, and condemning those who disagree. That is not what the God I believe in is all about.
Dear Matt-
Here is a blast from your past. This is Dan Alger- I suppose last time that we saw each other I was still going by Danny Alger at Camp Trinity. A mutual friend of ours read this post on your blog and asked if I would check it out and offer my thoughts. Why me? Well, if you have not heard, I am now a Pastor of an Anglican church near Fayetteville, NC.
I am not writing to judge or condemn or argue, only to clarify the faithful Christian stance that you have taken affront to. I will be upfront and honest that I do differ from your understanding of things, but I just want to share that those of us who see the nature of Christ, religion, and the Bible differently than you do are not all savagely close minded and judgmental. I personally believe in the authority and validity of the Bible and there are many scholarly and intelligent responses to your claims of the fallibility of the Bible and if at some point you would like to discuss those I would be glad to have that conversation. That however, is another conversation for another time. My reason for posting this comment is two fold: I want to at least present another option for the basis of religion from the stance that you have taken and to show how this affects our faith as Christians.
Let me first of all comment on your statement, “Religion should be about what YOU believe, not what someone tells you to believe.” If God is truly real, I mean really out there. If he exists just like you do or I do, then we cannot choose to believe whatever we want to about him. For example, one could choose to believe that I have black hair, but I don’t, I have blonde hair. Just because someone believes that my hair is black does not mean that my hair is actually black. In other words, there are many things that are not relative. Our belief does not create reality. The color of my hair is a fact, it is not really debatable. People who believe that my hair is blonde and only blonde are not close minded or ignorant, they just believe in what they see as fact.
This brings up the point: well, how can we truly “know” anything about God. I can’t see what color hair he has. Well, that would be true except that Christians believe in a concept called revelation (I’m not talking about the Book of Revelation here, I’m talking about the theological concept). Basically, someone who has heard about Dan Alger in Hope Mills, NC can assume that I have hair (or they can assume that I at least did at one time), but they cannot know what color my hair is. Unless…I tell them. Unless I reveal myself to them. If I send them a picture, if I sent them a lock of my hair, or if I send them an email that says- “Hi, I’m Dan, my hair is blonde” then they can know what color hair I have.
Christians believe that this is exactly what God has done in two specific ways- through Jesus Christ and through the Scripture. God knows that we could not know who he is, what he likes, what he doesn’t, what is fair, what is not, what is good, what is bad if he did not reveal himself to us. Our roots in Judaism see the authoritative words of God written in the Jewish Scriptures: the Pentateuch, the Writings, and the Prophets. Our New Testament says that Jesus came to fulfill the words of the Old Testament and is the exact image of God. So, Jesus reveals God. We can know who God is and what he is like because of his words and his words made flesh- Jesus Christ. The burden of creating God, figuring God out, or or determining what is right and wrong is then off of our shoulders, God has revealed himself.
In your profile you said that the Book of Matthew is one of your favorite books- as you read through Matthew again notice how Matthew sees the words of the OT as authoritative and as being fulfilled in Christ. Just in the first three chapters he shows the nature of Christ through words of the OT. The reason that we know who Christ is and why he came is because of the context of the authoritative words of Scripture.
The Christian faith believes that God is not only the source of the words of the Scripture, but if he is big enough to do the things that those words say that he is also big enough to be a part of the process of making sure that the correct words are kept in the book. He is bigger than translators, manuscripts, etc. etc. God made sure this Bible got into our hands.
Having an authoritative standard allows us to have a basis for our faith. Without it we have no faith. The only way that we know about Jesus is because of the words in the Bible, the only reason that we understand why He is important is because of the Bible, without it we have nothing.
If our faith is really only just what we decide it to be I am afraid that I have no place for faith. Why? Because I am wrong too much. If my faith is based on my feelings, my experience, my intelligence, my rationality then I am too unstable, too tired, too dumb, and too irrational to put any confidence in the faith that I create. The repercussions of me being wrong are terrible. What if I am wrong about hell, what if I am wrong about salvation through Christ alone, what if I am wrong about what God likes and doesn’t like, what if I am wrong about Jesus?
But what if, just what if, God knew that I could not handle it on my own and made a way for me. What if he made sure that I had an authoritative standard, what if he sent me an email with instructions, what if he put it in a book and assured me that that book was true, what if my faith was in something bigger than me, something that I could not understand, create, or even image on my own? That is Christianity, that is what the Scripture means. I don’t know what color hair Jesus had, but I know his character, his heart, his instructions, and his glorious promises. I’ll take that over hair color any day :)
This is also why Christians must be steadfast in their belief in the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. In other words, we cannot believe that he is just one of many ways to heaven or that every other religion is as valid as ours. Not because we are close minded or ignorant or unmercifully judgmental, but because we believe that God has revealed himself in a specific way and he has said that. It is not our place to change that revelation. It is not our place to tell him he is wrong. If God says he has blonde hair and someone else says that he has black hair, I’m going to believe God. If God says that Jesus is the only way and someone else says that he is only one of many ways, I am going to believe Jesus.
I know that you have doubts about the validity of the Bible, but my hope in submitting this post is to help you see that all Christians who hold to the historic faith are not ignorant, archaic, and judgmental, but rather are trying to be authentic, faithful, and real in their devotion to what they believe that God has said. I don’t believe that there is your God and my God, I believe there is one God and that he has revealed himself so that we can know him. If I am to be faithful to him then I must hold strongly to what I believe that he has said is the truth whether that is easy or hard, whether it differs from my opinions or not. I’m not saying it is an easy road, but I am saying that it is a road that leads to God.
I hope this helps some. I would be glad to continue the conversation if you are interested. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
In Christ,
DAN+
Dear Dan,
A couple of thoughts on hair color. 1) Did you know that 90% of brown hair is actually a VERY dark shade of red? So while you may say you have brown hair, someone who says that it is actually red is equally correct. 2) If I say I have sandy blonde hair, and someone else says a have light brown hair, isn't that just a question of perception? Just because someone else percieves my hair to be a different color then I happen to think it is, that doesn't make them wrong.
Your analogy actually supports a point I was trying to make - I don't like the fact that so many of our religous leaders deal in such glaring absolutes. The fact is, you DON'T have blonde hair. You have hundreds of thousands of different color hairs on your head, some lighters, some darker, some longer, some shorter, and they all work together to produce what YOU call blonde. Your definition of blonde and my definition of blonde may not even be the same thing - why do YOU (not you specifically of course) get to decide what qualifies as blonde and what doesn't?
Yes, you may be MUCH more knowledgeable then I am in the area of hair color, and you may have studied hair color for years, and even have a book that your great, great, great grandfather gave you that says 'The ONLY REAL blonde is this exact shade...', but I'm sorry, in the end your blonde could just as easily be my very light brown.
So my question is, instead of spending so much time trying to convince EVERYONE that there is only ONE shade of blonde in the ENITRE WORLD, why not accept that everyone percieves their own hair color a little differently? You don't make your definition of blonde any less valid by allowing someone else to have a different definition. Just realize that in the end we're all talking about the same thing - hair. And as long as we all agree that we do in fact have hair, and that it does have color, then we're doing ok.
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