Category Archives: Insights

Thinking In The Box – Reblog

Humour, Insights
This entry is part 23 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Eight years ago, I published this essay about how Evangelical Christians can’t seem to ‘think outside the box’. Because I have an upcoming essay on how Evangelical Christian leaders seem unable to answer perfectly reasonable questions[1], I thought that, in preparation for the publication of that essay (in a couple of weeks’ time), I would whet your appetite with this little gem. Enjoy!

About twenty years ago, my lovely wife Fiona was making enquiries about going to a Bible week[2] – can’t remember whether it was Stoneleigh or New Wine, or even something else – and she was going to go with her friend Yvonne. In the end, they didn’t go, for whatever reason.

Anyway, as part of the ‘registration’ process, there was a couple of pages of Rules. Like, please keep quiet after 10:00pm, no cars allowed on site after initial unloading, no alcohol, please don’t block the toilets, that sort of thing.

One of the Rules, though, was a bit of a Legalism thing. Bearing in mind that, at the time, I had just begun my major detoxification-from-Fundagelicalism event which lasted fifteen years, so it was a bit of a trigger…

This particular Rule was that no unmarried, mixed couples were allowed to share a tent.

So, I guess if you’d wanted to go along with your fiancé/fiancée, forget it: it’s separate tents or no dice.

Quite who was going to police this Rule (and how they were going to do it) was not specified 😉

Anyway, I simply couldn’t resist it. I wrote to their admin people and asked if it was alright if I and my gay partner were allowed to share a tent, despite not being married (I don’t think gay marriage/civil partnerships were even a thing back then!) pointing out that given the Rules as written, we would still be ok as we were a same-sex couple/unmarried, rather than a mixed couple/unmarried..

No reply was forthcoming.

And so I wrote to them again expressing disappointment that my question had not been taken seriously/answered, and emphasising that because we were not a mixed couple, we would be abiding by the Rules and therefore where’s the problem?

Still no response.

I wonder why.

Maybe those religious people were in a ‘box’, perchance?

Still, that lack of any response was a great help for me in my deconstruction, illustrating that not only were such Rules ‘doctrines made by men’ (Mt 15:9) but also that, when it really came down to it, nobody in those religious groups ever think things through to their logical conclusions, probably because they’re not allowed to.

I still laugh about it now, of course. And it makes an excellent after-dinner joke amongst like-minded believers 😉

Here’s a link to New Wine’s website. At the time of the publication of my original essay eight years ago, thir camping events were called ‘United’, and I doubt it bore any reference to any football team. It’s more likely to mean that you had to fit in in order to be allowed to go 😉

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 As I write this, that essay is in draft, and I am performing an experiment and narrating it in real time. So the essay can’t be published until the experiment is concluded! All will be made clear in a couple of weeks! [Edit: Here is the link to the published final article]
⇧2 For those who don’t know, a Bible Week is a sort of Christian rally where thousands of Evangelical (usually) Christians have like a camping week, usually at an agricultural showground (because of good space and facilities). It’s usually in the summer, and it usually rains. The program normally goes something like this. Mornings: workshops and/or seminars where people can attend teaching sessions or learn basket-making. Or how to lead worship or write songs, as if people can do that without the proper gifting… Usually the workshops are quite arty-farty things and very rarely anything scientific (of course), although one I went to in 1984 (Festival ’84) at Staffordshire County Showground did, uniquely, have a workshop on Amateur Radio, which led me on to eventually qualifying as a Radio Amateur; Afternoons: Free to roam the surrounding area just like normal tourists; Evenings: An extended worship and sermon session (very much like a long Charismatic church service, which is not normally as bad as it sounds. In fact, they were good fun (although the sermons were usually boring) and we always used to learn lots of great new songs there. Then, after a week of that, its pack up your tent and join the traffic jam to get off the site. That’s a Bible week.

Twisting the Scripture

Others' stuff, Insights
This entry is part 22 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism
How Evangelicalism twists Scripture in order to support its most evil doctrine

One of the favourite things that modern-day Pharisees, the hard-hearted religious types, love to do is to trot out various Scripture passages that apparently justify their hard-line viewpoints, while at the same time belittling those they have a beef with by claiming that their victims’ faith is somehow ‘wrong’.

Scriptures like ‘…the whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:27), ‘Many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord…’ ‘ (Mt 7:22), and, ironically, ‘Preaching another Gospel’ (Gal 1:8)[1] and, specifically for this present essay, ‘Twisting the Scripture to their own destruction’ (2Pet 3:16). These ‘Pharisees'[2] love to accuse people, with whom they have Biblical disagreements[3], of ‘twisting the Scripture'[4]. I mean, who’s to say who is twisting it? Who’s to say who’s ‘right’, if indeed anyone is? Anyone could twist any Scripture, and to accuse someone else of doing it means the assumption that a) there is a ‘right’ way of reading a Scripture, and b) that person doing the ‘twisting’ accusation is assuming that they have the (only) correct interpretation! Well there are methods for exegeting (determining the meaning of) Scripture verses, and context is one of the main tools used by serious Bible readers to determine that exegesis.

When misused by these Pharisees, most of those oft-misused Scripture verses mentioned above are not only twisted out of their contexts but are also simply quoted by rote, by NPCs,[5] without any regard for their context, their relevance, and without any useful explanation for their use.[6] And, in any case, no-one – myself included – has the right to accuse anyone else of not believing ‘the right thing’. When it comes to the things of God, we are all of us on a learning journey and, while I am sure many of us have some good insight, none of us really knows anything for sure – at least not to the extent that our beliefs give us the right to impose our beliefs on others, nor the right to accuse others of believing ‘another gospel’ or other such nonsense. And accusations of incorrect exegesis are simply another way in which the modern Pharisees misuse the Bible to harm others.

The reason that this essay is included in my series on the Problems of Evangelicalism is that this sort of thing is rife within the ranks of Evangelicalism. And so, I am here giving an example of how a Scripture passage can be twisted and then accepted without any thought by other believers, and used to create and support Evangelicalism’s most evil doctrine – the diabolical concept of humans suffering everlasting, conscious fiery torture in Hell if they die without ‘coming to Jesus’. This doctrine is known as the doctrine of ‘Eternal Conscious Torment’ and I will abbreviate it to ECT for the purposes of this essay[7]. I have written reams on this subject before; suffice it to say that I do not believe in such a place nor in such a fate for most of humanity – or indeed for any of it.

The Scripture passage in question, then, is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus[8], found in Luke 16:19-31[9]. And the reason I chose that passage is because that is probably the main Scripture that supposedly informs and supports the ECT doctrine. There are others, but that’s the main one. This Scripture really has to be twisted in order to generate the ECT doctrine from that parable – and how they excuse their twisting is that they claim that it’s not actually a parable, but is a true story. Believe it or not, that’s what they do! The reason for this is that they acknowledge that a parable should not be taken literally, so in order to accept the Rich Man and Lazarus passage as being literal, they have to claim that it’s not actually a parable. Makes sense in a way. And, in doing this, they have indeed ‘twisted the Scripture to their own destruction’ as well as, diabolically, the destruction of others as well.

And so, in response to all this, I would like to give you a few reasons – evidence if you like – why it is plain, to me at least, that this passage of Scripture is indeed a parable, and from that evidence you can then decide for yourself if it should be taken literally or not, and therefore whether or not they are twisting that Scripture in order to make it fit into their proofs for the ECT doctrine. I hope that makes sense.

The first argument for this passage being a parable is from Scripture itself. In Matthew 13:10-13, it says, “The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” [Jesus] replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables:

‘Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand’ “.

In the entire context of the Rich Man and Lazarus story, in Luke chapters 14 to 16, Jesus is teaching a mixed audience; crowds comprised both of His disciples, and of people who were not His disciples. Even though, then, the ‘Parable of the shrewd manager’ at the start of Luke 16 begins with the words, ‘Jesus told His disciples…’, there were also Pharisees present (and likely others too) who were also listening to the story (Lk 16:14) – and Jesus knew they were listening[10]. And this therefore strongly suggests that He was speaking in parables at that point, because His disciples were not the only people who were listening. Even just looking at the mode of speech that Jesus was using there is evidence that the stories He was telling were used figuratively – parables – in that section of Scripture. And there is no contextual reason to suppose that all of a sudden, by the time we reach the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, that Jesus had ‘switched mode’ and was suddenly telling a factual story and not a parable. This is a section of mixed teachings including parables and non-parables; even Evangelical hardliners agree that the story parts of the written account are all parables, except for when it comes to the Rich Man and Lazarus story, simply because they don’t want to admit that it is a parable.

That’s the first point.

Secondly, I recently read an excellent piece by my online friend Andy May, where he looks at the Rich Man and Lazarus story and explains why it cannot be a story which is meant to be taken literally – i.e. it’s a parable. Here’s what he wrote:

Why the Rich Man and Lazarus Cannot Be Literal

If you insist that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is literal history rather than a parable, you inherit a set of theological conclusions that contradict the rest of Scripture, the character of God, and even basic moral reasoning.

Here’s why the literal reading collapses under its own weight.

1. A literal reading teaches salvation by socioeconomic status, not by faith.

In the story:
– The rich man is never described as wicked.
– Lazarus is never described as righteous.

If literal, the message becomes:
– Rich → hell
– Poor → heaven

This is not Christianity.

It’s fatalistic classism.

It contradicts Abraham, Job, Joseph of Arimathea, and every biblical teaching on salvation[11].

If your interpretation makes Abraham—the wealthy patriarch—someone who would be damned under his own system, your interpretation is broken.

2. Abraham becomes cold, unmerciful, and unrecognizable.

In the literal reading, Abraham refuses to give the rich man even a drop of water.
That means:
– Abraham shows no compassion
– Abraham denies mercy
– Abraham refuses even minimal relief
– Abraham endorses eternal suffering

This is not the Abraham of Scripture.

It is not the God of Scripture.

It is not the gospel.

If your interpretation requires Abraham to behave like a villain, the interpretation—not Abraham—is the problem.

3. The saved must watch the damned suffer forever.

In the literal reading, Lazarus and Abraham can see and hear the rich man’s agony.
That means heaven includes:
– Watching people burn
– Hearing their screams
– Feeling nothing about it

This is not a biblical picture of heaven.

It is a moral nightmare.

If your doctrine requires the righteous to enjoy the sight of eternal torture, your doctrine is not coming from Jesus.

4. The story uses impossible imagery, proving it is symbolic.

Literalists must explain:
– How people in heaven and hell converse across a cosmic canyon
– How souls have tongues, fingers, and bodies before the resurrection
– How Lazarus is physically carried by angels
– Why the damned can request errands from the saved

These are narrative devices, not metaphysics.

Jesus also speaks of:
– Logs in eyes
– Camels through needles
– Trees thrown into fire
– People swallowing camels

No one insists those are literal.

Why insist this one is?

5. The story fits perfectly into Jesus’ parable pattern and Luke’s themes.

It begins like a parable.

It uses reversal imagery like a parable.

It uses symbolic names like a parable.

It delivers a moral warning like a parable.

The only reason to deny it’s a parable is to protect a doctrine—ECT—that the story itself does not actually teach.

6. A literal reading destroys the moral message.

If literal, the message becomes:
– You had comfort in life, so now you burn forever.
– You had suffering in life, so now you’re rewarded.
– And no one will help you because you deserve it.

That is not justice.

That is not mercy.

That is not the gospel.

That is not Jesus.

The parable makes sense only as a warning about indifference, not as a map of the afterlife.

Conclusion

If you insist the story is literal, you must accept that:
– Wealth damns
– Poverty saves
– Abraham is cruel
– Heaven includes watching torture
– No mercy exists
– No repentance is possible
– No relief is allowed
– God endorses eternal suffering without compassion

If that is the theology you want to defend, then you are not defending Scripture—you are defending a doctrine at the expense of Scripture.

The parable reading is the only one that preserves:
– the character of God
– the integrity of Jesus’ teaching
– the coherence of the gospel
– and the moral logic of the story

 – Andy May, shared with his kind permission

I would also like to add these follow-on thoughts too. Literalists would also need to explain how the story can be read as if it were intended to be true, when Jewish thought at the time was that the dead go to ‘rest with their fathers’ (e.g. 2Chr 33:20, 1Ki 16:28), in the place called Sheol (e.g. Ps 16:10) – the abode of the dead; the grave or the ‘pit’ – which was thought of as the shadowy world of nothingness where the dead await the final Resurrection. The whole idea of Hell as a place of torment[12] was not an accepted part of Jewish thought at the time. Here’s my essay on why this is apparent from Scripture. And how would Jesus have been able to say with any authority what happens to people when they die, given that at this time He was still subject to human limitations and not all-knowing despite being God in the flesh? (e.g. Mt 24:36) Given that His listeners did not know anything about Jesus’s true nature, they would never in any way have expected Him to talk about any afterlife ideas, as if they were truth, with any real credibility. They would have had no reason to imagine that He’d do that. And even if they did think that He was telling them ‘what really happens after death’, then why did His listeners not question Him about this; after all, everyone wants to know what happens when you die! If this hadn’t been a parable, they would have questioned Him as to where He got His facts from, as well as asking after the source of all that knowledge about after-death experiences! No, this was never intended to be taken as a true story, and the listeners at the time knew that full well. This argument is a great example of what is known as ‘cultural and historical context’, where factors outside the actual written text are taken into account[13].

Another time, I wrote a short piece to try to explain to a sincere questioner about this parable, where he was asking why Luke 16 should not be used as a proof-text for the existence of a literal, fiery Hell. Here’s what I wrote:

[My friend], I think the thing with this passage in Luke 16:19-31 is that it has always been used as a ‘proof-text’ for Hell, because of the vivid description of the fiery fate that happened to the Rich Man.

The problem with proof-texting, amongst others, is that it generally ignores the context and is simply a set of ‘magic words’ that people use to deny others’ arguments.

With this in mind, then, it is well worth looking at the context of the entire adventure in which Jesus gave this parable. Firstly, there’s the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the Prodigal son. Then, the ‘shrewd manager’. Then a couple of bits about adultery and whatnot. Does the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus connect with the adultery teaching and the other parables? It’s not clear; however, what is clear is that Jesus has been talking in parables for the last chapter at least. Therefore it is a very reasonable assumption that this too is a parable. (My opinion is that it is more about the way in which the Jews had been keeping their religion and God to themselves, rather than giving it to those who needed it).

Of course, the thing about parables is that the very last thing we should do with them is to take them literally. They are not meant for that, and to do so does them an injustice; rather than contemplating the parable and getting all the richness out of it, it is easier, and lazier, but far less fruitful, to simply accept what it says at face value. Could you imagine taking the Parable of the Sower at face value? We’d all be out in the fields throwing seeds all over the place.

It’s also worth noting that the idea of an eternal furnace of torture was not in the Pharisees’ minds at any time during Jesus’s ministry. If they had believed in Hell, they would have threatened Jesus with it at every opportunity. For today’s equivalent of the ancient Pharisees – judgmental Christians who hate everyone who doesn’t agree with them – it’s always their first weapon of choice when someone says something they don’t like. But they didn’t. Therefore if this parable was about Hell, then it would have gone completely over their heads.

I also consider that the context of the Lost Coin, Lost Sheep and the Prodigal son are included before the Rich Man/Lazarus story because the writer wanted to set the scene of God being loving and willing to rescue even the one who ran away and/or was lost. For those who would say ‘Well yes, so Jesus was saying what would happen if people *didn’t* respond to God’s love’, that’s not what this is about at all. There is no storyline link (except for the context) between the loving/searching/returning parables and the Rich Man/Lazarus parable; nothing saying that if that lost coin refused to be found, then it’s off to Hell. If anything, the Prodigal story is more about the response of the ‘obedient’ son, who thought of the Father as a tight-fisted taskmaster rather than a generous giver.

And finally, remember that the Rich Man/Lazarus parable has a number of differences from current Evangelical theology as to how to avoid the Rich Man’s terrible fate. Firstly, Lazarus just died and went straight to ‘Abraham’s bosom’. There was no Sinner’s Prayer, no forgiveness of sins needed; nothing. And Abraham is not the Father; he’s not Father God. The word Jesus used for ‘Hell’ is Hades, which simply means the ‘grave’ or ‘the pit’; it is the Greek word meaning the same concept as the Hebrew word ‘Sheol’, which is a dark shadowy place of restless spirits; not a flaming torture chamber. The Old Testament – which is what Jesus’s theology would have been founded upon, as well as that of his listeners – does not refer to Sheol/Hades as being like that. I don’t know why Jesus added in the torment detail for Sheol; maybe it was added later by the church? No, Lazarus’s ‘salvation’ is nothing at all like how evangelists today would describe it. Whatever he received in Abraham’s bosom, it likely wasn’t ‘Heaven’ and the converse, missing out on Abraham’s bosom and ending up in fiery Hades, is therefore also not the point of the story. Jesus wasn’t saying ‘If you die righteous (or very poor) you go to Abraham’s bosom; if you die rich you get burned. Also it doesn’t say that the fiery torment lasted forever either.

So you see there’s so much wrong with the Luke 16 passage being used as a proof for Hell, because in so many ways it just doesn’t fit with its use as a proof-text.

Hope that helps. Sorry it was so long.

In short, if you’re going to use Luke 16 as a proof-text for Hell, then you also have to accept that the standard Evangelical ‘salvation model’ of saying the ‘sinners’ prayer’ is not relevant to whether or not a person ‘goes to Heaven’.

Well, I think that’s enough for us to be able to draw some conclusions on whether or not this passage has been twisted to make it fit in with Evangelical doctrine. Of course, if it has indeed been twisted, then it raises the question of what other Scriptures they have twisted in order to form and/or support other key doctrines? And it also makes me ask whether or not these people actually look into the Scriptural basis of any of their doctrines in any great depth? Personally, I think that those who do so enquire are few and far between. I think they generally just believe what they are told, without questioning it. And then regurgitate it to order when challenged, giving out the standard line on any issue without actually owning their answers. Because only when you have thought things through can you say Yes, this is my belief; this is what I really think, and not just what someone else thinks recited parrot-fashion.

So there we are. Yet another Problem of Evangelicalism – the twisting of Scripture in order to make it say not only what it doesn’t really say, but even to make it say anything that we want it to say. If you know your Bible well enough, you can quote a Scripture verse to back up any assertion you want!

Jesus said in John 16:12 that He had so much more He wanted to tell His disciples, but that they weren’t ready for it just yet. He then said that He’d send the Spirit of Truth in order to lead His people into all truth; that the Spirit would take from what belongs to Jesus and make it ours too. (Jn 16:14)

Listening to the Holy Spirit, then, is far and away the best way to form any ideas about God and His ways.

And She does not twist the Scripture – She doesn’t need to. Anything beyond that is ‘doctrines taught by men’ (Mt 15:9), and Jesus had no time for that sort of thing. None whatsoever!

Grace and Peace to you!

Header image shows a tornado storm system; a ‘Twister’, probably one of the most locally destructive, eerie and terrifying forces of nature in existence. And the deliberate twisting of Bible verses can have a similarly catastrophically destructive effect on people’s spirits, hence my use of the picture here.

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 The irony here is that usually the people using that Scripture are legalists; those who think that righteousness before God is based on our behaviour instead of on the free gift of God’s Grace – and the letter to the Galatians is all about Grace and not about Law. In that letter, St. Paul is writing specifically against the ‘other gospel’ of legalism – hence the irony of legalists using that verse against people who are living free from religion and its hidebound, legalistic rules.
⇧2 I put ‘Pharisees’ in inverted commas because they are of course not, strictly speaking, members of that very specific ancient Judaic sect, but they are of the same spirit!
⇧3 Which, let’s be honest, is probably just about everyone outside their own particular group!
⇧4 A word of explanation: ‘Twisting the Scripture’ is the concept where a Bible verse can be claimed to mean something different from the meaning held by the person making the ‘twisting’ accusation, i.e. they’re accusing someone else of ‘twisting’ it. This is a bit rich, given that anyone familiar with Bible reading and interpretation knows – and indeed expects, for themselves at least – that God can speak different things to different people through the same Scripture verse. It is generally wielded as an accusation by those who habitually see the Bible as a book of cast-iron Rules, dos and don’ts, ‘sins’ and prohibitions; those who take it literally and prefer the ‘plain reading’ method of interpreting Scripture; and those who are not willing to learn anything new.
⇧5 Non-player characters; people who just recite programmed scripts as if they are bots in a video game. See this article for more on this idea.
⇧6 Scripture-bombing, the weaponization of Scripture for the harm of others, would be a good case in point here!
⇧7 It’s actually known as ECT in general theological terminology anyway; I’m using the abbreviation here because it is a well-established concept for discussion.
⇧8 Also known as ‘Dives and Lazarus’, it’s always mispronounced by people who do not know any Latin. You see, the Latin word ‘dives’ means ‘riches’, hence the ‘rich man’. And it’s pronounced ‘dee-ways’, not ‘dyevs’ (rhyming with ‘chives’). If people are going to try to show off their supposed knowledge of classical languages, they should at least learn the correct pronunciation! 🤣🤣
⇧9 Here is the link to the full passage in case you’d like to read it.
⇧10 At that time in the ministry of Jesus, people just couldn’t get enough of His words: the general crowds because His teaching was blessing them so much; the Pharisees for quite different reasons.
⇧11 All these three men were described in the Bible as being wealthy.
⇧12 In the Rich Man and Lazarus story, Jesus referred to the place where the Rich Man was as ‘Hades’; the Greek word equivalent to Sheol, so He was referring to Sheol – which I have already explained above.
⇧13 Many Fundamentalists discredit this type of context, notably in cases where they disagree with conclusions reached using this method; in cases where they agree, they will accept its arguments. They do the same with science and also with anything else they sometimes agree with, and sometimes disagree with. We agree with science; science good! We disagree with science; science bad! Typical unsurprising religious double standards! 😂

Against a Dark Background – Reblog

Insights, Ministry, Reblogs
This entry is part 21 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism
A Second Essay to encourage gentle souls blighted by online Pharisee trolls

As I said I would do in the previous post in this series, this following reblogged essay (originally published in 2019) builds on some of the ideas in that earlier essay, but from a slightly different angle. Once again, the objective of this piece is to encourage you when you try to build up people damaged by the rabidly religious Pharisee trolls found scattered liberally across the Internet.

Enjoy!

Would you believe that there are Religious people on the Internet who think of themselves as ‘heresy hunters’?

It’s true. You may even have encountered them yourself.

They are the people who prowl the social media sites, faith sites and forums looking specifically for people with whom they can disagree. They castigate those people who believe different things to what they themselves believe (even if only slightly different!), lambasting their victims with vicious messages of rejection, condemnation and judgmentalism. And usually the occasional threat of ‘hell-fire’ thrown in for good measure, and all ‘said in love, brother’, of course 😉 .

It seems that they see themselves as the people who hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven; imagining they are God’s ‘gatekeepers‘ and that they have the (God-given, of course) right to say who gets in and who doesn’t. They strike hard and fast, hang around for a short argument and then go on their happy way, leaving a trail of bruised and broken people in their wakes.

Some of these people have actually opened their Facebook accounts with the sole purpose of the online hunting down of ‘heretics’ like me. They are easy to spot; you go and look at their Facebook profile and the last time they posted was like May 2017 and that was just a photo of their washing machine or something. Sad, sad people who create their own Hell by living in a world of judgementalism and critical spirit, not finding the joy in their own salvation (which I have no reason to believe is not genuine) and at the same time trying to not allow anyone else to find the joy in their ‘salvations’ either.

Now, we ‘hunted’ heretics are in good Company. Jesus Himself was followed everywhere by groups of Religious heresy hunters – the Pharisees – who did things like this:

“So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him” – Mk 3:2 (NKJV)

Yep, you’ve got it. These people had nothing better to do than to follow Him around all day and pick fault; missing out on the amazing truth that Jesus healed people – and even ignoring it! – they concentrated instead on whether they considered He was following their Religious Rules or not.

Sounds familiar? 😉

I also find it incredible that bad-news mongers will even contradict direct quotations from their Rulebook the Bible, which, remember, they hold to be inerrant and infallible, when those Bible quotations do not reflect their doom-and-gloom mindsets. For instance, last week, I saw on Facebook a post where a chap said that he’d simply posted the famous verses from Romans 8:38-39 on nothing being able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Here’s what he wrote:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“I put no commentary on it, just that. I am frustrated by the fact that multiple people felt the need to reply with things about how WE can separate ourselves from the love of God through unrepentance and so forth. Why do people have this immediate urge to qualify the good news, to make it less than it is?”

As far as the Bible is ever ‘clear’, this verse is about as ‘clear’ as it gets. NOTHING can separate us from God’s Love, not even stuff we do ourself. That’s what makes it unconditional!

Apart from its being incredible, I also find it very sad that such people not only choose to believe (and it is a choice) the worst news about God that they can (while still probably claiming that ‘God is Good, All the Time’ (talk about cognitive dissonance!), but also that they feel the need to get on the Internet and spread their horror and darkness so others can join them in their misery. Misery loves company, as the old adage says!

And I just don’t get that. At least, not from people who are supposed to be spreading the ‘…good news of great joy for all mankind’ (Lk 2:10). Some indeed seem to prefer the bad news over the good, and furthermore they will do all they can to negate whatever good news you try to give to them or to others; they are thus not open to Really Good News at all, and this mindset is therefore one of my definitions of ‘hell’.

As G. K. Chesterton wrote,

“…pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man “falls” into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.”

No, they can’t cope with levity, nor can they lose their seriousness. And so, when they happen across a thread where the idea of Grace (the unearned, light, completely full and free favour of God) is being put forward, they go absolutely ape. Cries of ‘Licence to Sin!‘ ‘Cheap Grace!’ and other such rubbish abound, usually touted by those who haven’t actually read the original post properly anyway.

Who’d want to live like that?

So, I have set out the problem at some considerable length. How to cope with these people?

Well, first up, we need to remember that they are usually in it only for the argument. They are interested only in putting across their point of view and not listening to anyone else’s. Like only the most diehard religious zealots, they are convinced that they are not only right, but that they have a divine commission to ‘go forth’ and fight what they see as heresy. Therefore, arguing/discussion with them is usually pointless, if your reason for participating in the discussion is solely to have the chance of influencing them towards your point of view. But there is another reason why such open and visible ‘discussion’ can be good, as I  will be getting to – eventually!

They mistake courtesy (from their victims) as weakness. They mistake the lack of people biting them back, as being that their victims don’t actually have a proper argument, when in actual fact the Grace-filled person is usually being just that – Graceful (Grace-full). Let your speech always be graceful, seasoned with salt and all that (Col 4:6). They’re giving that heresy hunter the benefit of their Christike gentleness and not sinking – and it would be sinking! – to their level by going back at them with the same sort of stuff. And it’s lost on them. Behaving like this violates so many of the heresy hunters’ ‘Biblical’ Rules, which they feel they can conveniently ignore or justify away with the sorts of argument that only the terminally religious could come up with.

It can be soul-destroying, though, listening to their endless naysaying and negativity all the time. I don’t know how Jesus coped with being followed around by these leeches in His day because, make no mistake, they are exactly the same type of people. Were the concept of reincarnation actually true (I personally am convinced that it’s not!) then these people would simply be the reincarnations of Jesus’s Pharisees 😉 I suppose His attitude was simply to get on with God’s work – doing what He saw Father doing (Jn 5:19) – and if the Pharisees got some of the splash of God’s power and joy, great; if not, He wasn’t going to let that stop Him blessing those who already needed it. When He said that it was the sick that needed a doctor, He meant that the Religious, the Pharisees, didn’t feel that they needed Him because they thought they were ‘all right’ thank you very much; whereas those who realised their need of Him were the ones who actually received the blessing. And so He didn’t let the Religious stop Him blessing those who needed it. Interestingly, some Pharisees actually did become Jesus-followers, and, equally interestingly, were almost as legalistic afterwards as they were before, albeit a little less unbendingly so. Check out their story in Acts chapter 15, where it relates the story of the ‘Council of Jerusalem’.

I have written before on the idea of why Grace-preachers like me continue to post messages of Grace on Internet forums, in the face of people like these bad-news mongers.

The first reason is that our posts bless more people, and bring more people into wholeness, healing and freedom, than we will ever know. I call these people the Invisible Listeners. I would repeat here a comment sent me by someone in New Zealand, that was mentioned in that blog post above; I repeat it here because it applies to you as well as to me:

“One day, when we are in His Presence, you will find out just how many people were encouraged by what you are doing”

The second reason, for me, is that it shows our Invisible Listeners that not all Christians are harsh, disapproving and judgemental. I mention that in my article linked to above, but I have reiterated it here in case you don’t want to follow the link.

I also asked a good friend and fellow Grace-preacher, who regularly engages publicly with Pharisees online (yes, they actually follow him around on his Facebook profile!), how he puts up with the hassle of the online Pharisees.

His reply was firstly that he doesn’t let it bother him, as he realises that they are all at a different stage in their faith-walk. He, like me, is a strong proponent of the various theories of faith development, and this helps him to recognise these faith-stage dynamics and the types of behaviour they elicit.

Secondly, he very wisely told me that he believes that all the naysayers do is to provide a dark backdrop to the beauty of the Good News he preaches; the Good News of Grace, and that dark backdrop makes the precious diamond all the more obvious in its magnificence.

For those ‘invisible listeners’ who read his work without commenting – I estimate that for every person who comments, there are another nine or ten who do not[1] – this is the stuff of life. In fact it’s completely life-changing, in the sense of changing their lives from being nearly empty to being full; full of Life in Christ.

And it’s enhanced, not detracted from, by the negative comments.

I mean, how cool is that? It’s an idea which is utterly, utterly golden!

The idea that the ‘enemy’ – and by that, I do not mean the modern-day Pharisee people themselves, but the ‘accuser of the brethren’ (Rev 12:10 (KJV), be that an actual spirit, a ‘satan’, who actually accuses, or simply the accusing consciences of some believers – the ‘enemy’ has its accusations turned against it and used for the benefit of the saints, for their upbuilding and encouragement – is simply priceless. The love and power and Grace of God are emphasised because of the dark setting in which they are seen! The fury that must exist in the hearts of the heresy hunters when/if they see their judgmentalism turned against them, well, it must burn like Hell, literally Hell, no cuss-word intended. Again, this is part of my definition of Hell (I must do a piece on that some day!)[2]. One hopes that this pain might help them to see sense, but I suppose that in this case most of the good fruit is not visible online because it is borne in those Invisible Listeners I talked about earlier.

So, if you are a Grace-preaching blogger or forum poster, please be encouraged. You are reaching, and blessing, far more people with your Grace message than you will ever know. And all the Pharisees’ comments do is to make your news even more glorious. Boom!

If you are a self-styled ‘heresy-hunter’, firstly kudos to you for reading this far without blowing a gasket; and secondly, remember that every. single. time. you respond to someone bearing a good-news message of hope, healing and reconciliation with one of your condemnatory, judgemental, divisive and possibly infernalist[3] replies, all you are doing is to provide the black background setting that emphasises the beauty of the very diamond you are trying to tarnish. But there is hope for you too – God is nowhere near as mad with you as you imagine, and remember that some Pharisees were actually Christ-followers. He accepts all sorts, and He accepts them unconditionally. He knows how lost you are in your Religious struggles to conform, and He came to offer you His yoke which is easy and light. (Mt 11:28-30 (Message) )

And if you are someone looking for a message of Love, Hope, Healing, Comfort in your weakness or in your sadness; a message of Reconciliation and/or a definite sense of ‘coming back’ to God, then rest assured that He has already accepted and welcomed you, without any cost to yourself, without any conditions (that’s what ‘unconditional’ means), with His arms open wide and a huge grin on His face. Read and believe the Good News messages, and use the Bad News messages, thoughtfully provided by the modern-day Pharisees, simply to highlight just how good the Good News is when compared with the struggle of having to keep up the appearances of Religious ‘good behaviour’ and conditional love that they try to push. Because that’s not the way that God is; not at all!

Be encouraged! Grace is there for the taking; it’s freedom, it’s light, it’s life in its fulness!

And it never ends!

Grace and Peace to you

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 I estimate it by looking at website statistics. Am I sad or what 😉
⇧2 I do not believe in Hell as an afterlife place of burning torment for those who do not [insert Religion-based qualification/requirement for not being thrown into Hell] before they die 😉
⇧3 That is, someone who does believe in Hell as that afterlife place of burning torment for those who do not [insert Religion-based qualification/requirement for not being thrown into Hell] before they die 😉

The Invisible Listeners – Reblog

Insights, Ministry, Reblogs
This entry is part 20 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism
An Essay to encourage gentle souls blighted by online Pharisee trolls

A good few years ago now, I wrote a blog piece that, later, also featured as a guest essay on the ‘Unfundamentalist’ website.

Because my present series on the Problems of Evangelicalism is very much a critique of the way in which Religious people, by their actions and attitudes, drive away those who might otherwise come to faith in Christ, I have reblogged the essay here because it is just so relevant, and may hopefully give encouragement to those engaged in ‘blogsphere combat'[1] with online Pharisee trolls who would ‘shut the doors of Heaven in men’s faces’

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people ‘s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in!” – Mt 23:13 (ESV)

These kinds of people are a proper pain in the rear end. They are ‘blind guides'[2] and they themselves deserve all the misery that they try to dish out to others from the wellspring of darkness in their own hearts. “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” Lk 6:45 (ESV); Mt 12:35 (ESV). It is easy to tell where the evil lies just by looking at its fruit (Mt 12:33)[3]: the evil treasure produces rejection, sadness, despair, darkness, guilt, condemnation, hopelessness, and above all fear; whereas the good treasure produces light, hope, healing, love, freedom, laughter, lightness, righteousness, peace, faith and joy. This is easy for everyone to see; everyone, that is, apart from the blind guides themselves. You could almost have taken that from the list of the two lists of the fruits of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit, found in in Galatians 5:19-23; although the lists are largely different, the principle is there as plain as day.

And so, I would like to re-present this essay for you today, hopefully as an encouragement for those who come across this ‘brood of vipers’ (Mt 3:7 and Mt 12:34)[4] on a regular basis. As you read this essay, I recommend that you keep in mind the good and wholesome fruit that your comments produce in your readers, as opposed to the rotten and putrid fruit that the Pharisees’ comments produce. And the obvious gentleness of your own comments when compared with the hard, unbending harshness of those Pharisees’ comments. In that way, you will see the good you are doing, and be encouraged in the process.

Be blessed!

This post is written to those believers who write on the Internet about Grace. People who write to encourage others, to build them up, not tear them down.

I am a member of several Facebook groups where people of the Spirit voice things from God, things new and old. Old widsom, and new wisdom. Things for the building up of the Saints (Eph 4:12). Jesus Himself said that there was so much more He wanted to tell us (Jn 16:12), and this kind of publishing is part of that. Much of this stuff is the prophetic Word of God for today. You can tell by the fruits manifested in their readers that these words are bringing life to those that read them.

But there is also huge discouragement, and often even despair, for those who write. If you are one of these writers, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. On public posts, you are torn to shreds by (sometimes well-meaning) Religious people who don’t like what they read. The Scripture says that people would be offended by the message of Jesus, and this is for several reasons. Mostly, though, the offence is found in the simplicity of the Gospel message, where St. Paul simply preached Christ crucified. Jesus has accomplished all that is necessary for the way to be open to God, and He invites us into His Presence. And this is counterintuitive. We humans naturally feel that surely there must be something we have to do, some sacrifice we have to make, something we can feel, think, do or say that somehow will make God more pleased with us.

But, actually, no, there isn’t. He’s already more pleased with you than you can possibly imagine! And that’s what is so offensive to people: that nothing they can do – or not do – will make them any more or less acceptable to God.

And so, I would like to encourage all my readers here today who write for Jesus.

People like me, who share regular blog posts containing what we believe to be the truth about God and how much He loves us, and how especially fond He is of us. People who write occasional pieces just expressing how they are feeling and how God is meeting them right where they are at. Or people who just build up others by sharing simple, gentle encouragement, whether in forum replies such as on the Patheos website (my favourite channel being ‘Unfundamentalist Christians‘[5] ), or even just in gentle Facebook replies.

To all such people I would say this:

Listen: your posts are encouraging far more people than you realise!

You are blessing hundreds and thousands of people simply by writing your gentle words of Grace!

When I post on the Patheos forums, and my posts are torn to shreds by the Religious gatekeepers; the Pharisees, or maybe just those who are secretly uncertain of their faith and feel that my words shake their foundations – and reply with violence because they feel threatened – I don’t worry about it.

Because I know that my posts have been read by my intended audience – not the Pharisees, but those who are broken, hurting, feeling rejected by the prim-and-proper religious elite. Those of ‘different’ sexualities. Those who have received abuse at the hands of those who should have been healing them: corrupt church leaders; antagonistic judgemental people pointing out their ‘sin’; ‘Sin-police’; those who deem themselves ‘fruit inspectors’. I take these people on, not to try to turn them or convince them – God will do that for them in His own time; indeed, only He can do it anyway – but to let those thousands of ‘invisible listeners’ and ‘lurkers’ know that not all Christians are like those people who cause harm. There are indeed Christians who gently manifest the presence of Jesus in their writings, and, to those bloggers like me who want to be that gentle, I would say, “Keep it up!” You are touching many more people with God’s love than you can possibly realise!

I leave you with a comment that was sent me by a man in New Zealand, to encourage me about my other website, ‘VintageWorshipTapes‘. On that site, I restore and make available electronic recordings of old worship tapes from the seventies, eighties and nineties. The comment still moves me to tears even now. Here’s what he said:

“One day, when we are in His Presence, you will find out just how many people were encouraged by what you are doing”

Wow! And I think that’s today’s take-home message 🙂

An edited version of this post was published on the Unfundamentalist website on 7th May 2018. Click here to see it on that site.

The next essay in this series will reinforce these concepts with ideas from a slightly different angle. Something to look forward to 😉

Grace and Peace to you!

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Ok, ok, I just made that phrase up, but I’m sure it will mean something to those who have the ears to hear!
⇧2 “…so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” – Mt 15:14 (NLT), emphasis mine.
⇧3 Note how these three verses I have used from Matthew’s Gospel are all from the same context. So: fruit; overflow of the heart; treasure
⇧4 That Matthew 12 context again!
⇧5 Which sadly now appears to be defunct; there have been no new posts for quite some time now – Ed.

Apocalypse – Reblog

Insights, Others' stuff, Reblogs
This entry is part 33 of 34 in the series About the Bible - Inerrancy, Infallibility, Inspiration and Revelation

Some years ago, I published an essay on the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. At that time, I referred to the ideas of the early Church Fathers, where I said that,

“The early Church fathers, in considering whether to include the book of Revelation into the Canon, took the decision to include it only under the following strict conditions: 1) It was not to be used for any major doctrine or in any liturgy of the church; 2) It did not have the canonical authority of the other New Testament writings; and 3) It was never to be taken literally in any way, but only metaphorically, as an encouragement for Christians about to undergo major persecution and bloodshed”.

Since that time, I have read and discussed this concept with other believers, and have also discovered a source for the concept from Canadian teacher and scholar Dr. Brad Jersak, where he kindly gave me his rationale for those ideas. I reproduce the rationale in a footnote below[1], and I have also modified the essay slightly to allow for that sourcing.

But still, the essay is worth looking at again. It is good to re-publish such good and informative essays so that my readership can see once again the useful things that God gives us. So, here is the essay once again, tidied up a little and also with a bit of new text in there too.

Enjoy!

The book of Revelation, sometimes also called ‘Apocalypse’, ‘The Revelation of John’, or even (incorrectly) ‘Revelations’ (like ‘Trivial Pursuits’, ‘Cliff Richards’, or ‘Tescos’; all pluralised words that definitely shouldn’t be 😉 ) is probably the most confusing book in the entire Bible, and it is certainly the most confusing in the New Testament.

Its weird imagery often reads more like a nightmare than anything else. And, in fact, so uncertain were the early Church as to its origins or relevance, that it was almost left out of the Canon of Scripture that we know today. Indeed, many early canons did not include the book at all.[2]. The early Church fathers, in considering whether to include the book of Revelation into the Canon, took the decision to include it only under the following strict conditions: 1) It was not to be used for any major doctrine or in any liturgy of the church; 2) It did not have the canonical authority of the other New Testament writings; and 3) It was never to be taken literally in any way, but only metaphorically, as an encouragement for Christians about to undergo major persecution and bloodshed. Naturally, these conditions have been conveniently forgotten, or more likely never even heard of, by those in the church today who love to misuse this book to the detriment of others.

Of course, because of what I call ‘Chalke’s Law’, which states:

“There are some people who will always find the angry verses in the Bible to confirm their obsession with anger and exclusion” (Steve Chalke)

…the book, with its weird and (on the surface) violent imagery is just perfect for those certain Christians who rejoice in – and indeed savour with eager and gleeful anticipation – the idea of the horrific mutilation, deaths, slaughter, and then endless torment of those who don’t agree with them, to the tune of rivers of the blood of the ‘unrighteous’ to the depth of a horse’s stirrups[3]. Yes, that imagery is there in Revelation, but of course it doesn’t mean what it says on the surface.

This is because we need to remember that much of Revelation is written in the ‘apocalyptic’ style (which is why in some quarters it’s referred to as the ‘Apocalypse'[4]), and as such it is written in a sort of code, some of which has been lost to antiquity, but some of which can be inferred by its historical context, and from whom the book was written to. In fact I think this is why, in some apocalyptic writings, the author is instructed to ‘seal up what is written'[5], because it concerns things that need to be worked out properly. A good example of this would be in Daniel 12:4; the second half of the book of Daniel is written in the apocalyptic style, as are parts of Ezekiel. For more on this subject, I would far rather defer to more learned scholars than myself, who know far more about it than I do. For example, N. T. Wright’s ‘Revelation for Everyone’ would be a reasonable starter; it is a very informative book and is written in a style that is very easy to understand.[6]

However, the worst thing that can be done with apocalyptic literature like Revelation is to read it literally, because it was never intended to be read as such, and indeed the misuse of this book by ignorant people (ignorant in both or either senses of a) not knowing, and b) being unimaginably unintelligent) has caused untold harm to millions of people all down through history. Indeed, I would say that no book has been misinterpreted and misapplied to others’ detriment as has Revelation. And all because people haven’t a clue what they are doing with this most lethal, and yet potentially most blessing, of all the books in the Bible. The very last thing we should do with most of this book is to take it literally.

And yet, so much of modern theology, in terms of both ecclesiastical theology and common theology, is based on passages in Revelation. Without discussing these ideas specifically here, the concept of Heaven as an afterlife idea and the concept of ‘hell’ being a lake of burning sulfur, are both concepts which are strongly based on passages from Revelation. Even the ‘Pearly Gates’, where St. Peter is traditionally employed as a receptionist; even they are entirely from Revelation. Reference for the Pearly Gates? Revelation 21:21 is where that comes from. Go and take a look 😉

So, read in the light of the idea of an angry, retributive ‘nasty god’ like that found in much of the Old Testament, Revelation will of course be seen as incredibly bad news for most people, most of whom are going to be sorry they were born, according to the gleeful claims of those ‘certain Christians’ I mentioned above.

However, read in the light of Jesus, the Prince of Peace and the King of Love, the book can in fact instead be seen as excellent news for everyone. Again, I have here neither the time, the knowledge, nor indeed the inclination to expound on why this is the case; instead I would again refer you to people who really know what they are talking about. However, I would like to share with you today a brilliant piece by my friend Mo Thomas, where he presents an opposite view to the Evangelically-accepted ‘violent’ view of Revelation. No-one should read Revelation without having to hand several huge pinches of salt, and the definite guidance of the Holy Spirit to glean what it means for us today, and, more relevantly, what it means for you personally today[7]. Formation of major doctrine from Scriptures in Revelation is a serious error, as we have already seen. Personally, I happen to think that formation of any major doctrine, or at least dogma – a doctrine which is considered to be essential and non-negotiable – is also an error, but that’s just me 😉 I’d far rather live a life in the Spirit, completely unbound by others’ doctrines, rules and strictures. I’ll listen to others’ ideas, of course, but let’s just say there’s a lot of bones I spit out while I eat the meat 😉

Anyway, less of the masticatory[8] digressions; I will hand you over to Mo:

The term for “Revelation” is the Greek “Apocalypse”, or the “unveiling”. John’s revelation then in the scripture is primarily about the “unveiling” of the Person and Work of Jesus, not primarily the symbols, timelines, and events. But once seen through this lens…the symbols, timelines and events start coming into focus.

The subversive nature of the apocalypse can trip up many who are looking for a violent overthrow when Christ returns, much like the Messianic expectation of those in the 1st century. This type of overthrow requires a calamity-filled blood-soaked eschatology, which unwittingly fosters a perspective of escapism – with no authentic desire to engage and participate in God’s Kingdom here, now.

Here’s the thing. The book of Revelation may just be the most non-violent war scroll ever recorded in the history of apocalyptic literature. But we can’t ever see this unless we read as it would have been interpreted by those 1st century folks. It would have filled them with hope in the midst of evil Empire, Roman oppression. Victory is achieved – not by the methods of war and violence, but by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

What better way to motivate hope for our role in the Story than to paint an optimistic view of the Shalom and Care of God for all that He reconciled to Himself, for His Cosmos.

The subversive way of the Slain Lamb continues to make its way forward.
________________

“Jesus is not coming back to renounce the Sermon on the Mount and kill 200 million people.

If that’s your reading of Revelation, what can I say? Lord, have mercy.”

– Brian Zahnd
_________________

The brilliant, subversive narrative we find at the end of our Bibles hinges on the throne room scene in Revelation chapter 5, where John hears an announcement for the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He turns, expecting to see a ferocious beast that tears His enemies apart, limb from limb, as Israel had long hoped and expected.

Instead, John turns and sees a tiny Lamb, looking as if it had just been slain. Ahhhh… the crucified Christ! From that point on, we no longer see ANY mention of a lion. But 29 more times, we see the Lamb of God, the prevailing theme of the Story.

This is masterful apocalyptic literature.

Yes, this King is victorious, and He reigns in power. Yet, this power is most clearly and succinctly displayed on the Cross, where we see that He would rather die for His enemies than kill them.

The book of Revelation is the Apocalypse, the “unveiling”, of Jesus the Christ, who displays His Power as the Crucified and Risen and Victorious Lamb. Don’t distort the brilliant subversion by making it a literal book about “end times” and Anti-Christ figures and the necessity of bloody violence.

Make it about our Beautiful King, the Crucified One who overcomes.

Rev 5:13. And I heard every created thing in heaven and on earth and under the earth [in Hades, the place of departed spirits] and on the sea and all that is in it, crying out together, To Him Who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb be ascribed the blessing and the honor and the majesty (glory, splendor) and the power (might and dominion) forever and ever (through the eternities of the eternities)!

Come, let us worship.

Shalom

– Mo Thomas

Regarding the return of the ‘Warrior Jesus’, and regarding a couple of other Revelation points, I once put it like this:

“If it is true that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), then it follows that He will be the same Jesus when He returns. The angels at the Ascension said that ‘this same Jesus…’ will return (Acts 1:11); they never said He’d return as someone different. He won’t be, indeed He can’t be, a different Jesus than the gentle, healing and loving Jesus depicted in the Gospels. In addition, the passage (in Revelation 5:6) about the Lamb on the throne describes Him as a Lamb, not as a Lion. He will return as a Lamb, because He left as a Lamb. That whole scene is about the literary bait-and-switch of the throne of a mighty King, the King of the Universe, in fact, being the Lamb looking as if it had been slain in the centre of the throne. The power and right to rule comes from the power of God, which is the power of the Cross – as in, the submission of the Lamb to the point of death, thus showing where true power actually lies, in the self-giving nature of God and NOT the desire to lord it over others.

“Furthermore, Revelation is very much a book of metaphysical imagery and weird Apocalyptic, coded writing. To interpret it literally would be a mistake, for most of the book at any rate. I personally think that Revelation is something where John was seeing things that were very hard to describe from a human point of view, and so they need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Or a dose of magic mushrooms”.

As one final comment, and as a general tip for reading Revelation, I would say that if you come across a passage in that book that the Spirit does not make come alive for you[9], then by all means feel free to set that passage aside until such time as She does make it come alive for you. Some of it you may never understand, and this is not surprising as the book was in fact not written to you anyway (Rev 1:4). But that’s all right. We don’t have to ‘get’ it all; not by a long chalk.

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Yes, the way I wrote that (probably in an appendix to a book by Hardin?) makes it sound very deliberate and collaborative, but I’m really distilling something quite messy, so in citing that, I would recommend saying that this is Bradley Jersak’s interpretation of a series of important factors that are not proof-texted directly.

Where I draw them from is from logical inference (some completely airtight) and from what we are warranted to say from what we know of various Fathers.

For example, we KNOW that the Nicene Creed (the dogma of the church) was finalized in 381. And we also know that while various significant theologians (like Origen and Athanasius) include it in their personal lists of NT Scripture, others (like Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril of Alexandria) did not. This latter point is very important because Gregory also presided at the second council where the Nicene Creed was finalized. Here’s a bit of the messiness:

‘Chrysostom never quotes from Revelation, leaving the modern world no clue to his thoughts on the book of Revelation. Gregory of Nanzianus and Cyril leave it out of their listings of the canon. Moreover, the Nestorian churches still leave Revelation out of their canon. Revelation has never held a very secure place in the Eastern Orthodox canon. The Syriac Peshitta omits it, and the Council of Laodicea did not recognize it. As late as 850, the Eastern Church listed the book as disputed. They still do not read from Revelation regularly. [It is not at the altar with the Gospel or the reader’s stand with the Epistles].

(canonicity – What historical reasons resulted in Revelation being included in most Christian canons? – Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange)

Thus, the church did not collectively recognize it as canonical (complicated: Canonicity and Acceptance of Revelation (in Revelation) – Anabaptistwiki) until AFTER the Creed, meaning that the dogmas of the faith were settled BEFORE the book was received as authoritative, and therefore, the Book of Revelation CANNOT have been used to establish the dogmas that came before its reception.

The rest of the story are the sort of details one can read between lines or by reading the sermons and liturgies of the church.

BUT my point is NOT that we reject Revelation as canonical. It is now recognized as part of our canon. My point was that the church did not use it to generate the essentials of Christian doctrine and therefore, must not be used that way today. Any doctrinal statement drawn from Revelation would be derivative of and in alignment with the Gospels or Epistles that were used to establish that doctrine in the first place.

– Brad Jersak

⇧2 I think I’m right in saying that there are some of today’s denominations that still regard Revelation as not being canonical, although I could be wrong.
⇧3 Which would be about 1.0 to 1.2 metres or so
⇧4 The modern word ‘apocalypse’ and its derivatives such as ‘apocalyptic’ means things that are of world-ending, or at least world-shaking, importance or magnitude. This is because Revelation is seen by most literalistic interpreters as describing the end of the world, or at least ‘end-times’ stuff, and indeed to the general reader it really does read like that!
⇧5 Yes, that’s why there’s a sealed scroll for the header image. Much of Revelation is still sealed for many people, including myself, and the ‘Secret of the Lord‘ notwithstanding 😉
⇧6 Even then, you should always ask the Spirit to explain, interpret (for your upbuilding!) and apply anything that you read in that book, or indeed any other source – including this blog! Always remember that God speaks to everyone in different ways, and it is perfectly ok to ‘eat the meat and spit out the bones’. If something doesn’t sit right with your spirit, then feel free to set that thing aside.
⇧7 Technically, really, all Bible reading where you actually want God to speak to you through the Scriptures; all of that should be done under the tutelage of the Spirit anyway. Why risk missing out on His riches?!
⇧8 Related to chewing. Just so you know.
⇧9 Another reason for reading the Bible under the Spirit’s guidance!

Prayer and Parking Spots

Insights, Others' stuff

I don’t need to add anything to this great little essay by my friend Heather. There’s so much meaning and so much to think about in here that I think it’s better if I just leave it alone and let you chew it over for yourself![1]

Over to Heather:

I’ve been thinking lately about how people criticize people who pray for a good parking spot. And I think that the criticism CAN be justified, if people are just always praying about selfish, petty things and don’t care about anyone else. And I get how it can seem to an observer to be really messed up to think that “God gave you a parking spot but God didn’t heal that kid from cancer.”

But I think more often the people who are bothered by people who share they were grateful God gave them a good parking spot are misunderstanding the inclination and heart of people who weave prayer into mundane things of life.

So let me turn this around and share my perspective on silly little prayers like praying for a parking spot.

First, it might not always be proper to pray for a parking lot close to the store, sometimes it might be more fitting to pray for a parking spot near a neighbor you need to meet or that gets you the right amount of exercise for the afternoon. But sometimes we really need one close to the store too, so YMMV.

But I think learning to pray about random little things in an ongoing way is actually a way to align yourself in obedience to the Lord. And a mode of consecration.

It’s consecration to learn to involve God in everything, and to refuse to leave Him on the sidelines until cancer shows up or until Sunday morning. It’s consecration to cultivate our mind towards recognizing God in potential randomness, and it’s obedience to recognize the scriptural injunction that believers are called to learn to live a life where conversation and communion with God is meant to encompass everything in life.

And it’s daring to learn to act like God cares about hearing you, and loves you enough to entertain your mundane life details; but it’s an expression of faith in a God who would send His very own Son for each and every one of us to act like your every day life concerns are worth His ear.

So in fact, asking for a parking spot can be a declaration of faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord.

But most of all, it’s an expression that is meant to be humbling. That when we share our personal joy that God showed up to us in something seemingly ridiculous, mundane, and even selfish, and others don’t understand, we are choosing to testify anyway. We are naming where we have seen Him glorified in moments that would otherwise pass as meaningless and forgettable. And we are willing to do that even when others try to collapse that glory back into coincidence, or render it insignificant altogether.

But as believers we are joined spiritually to the Lord. And to proceed through life without involving Him would be to deny that connection. So when we pray for a parking spot, we are ready to look foolish to ourself, to any invisible spirit listening, and to anyone else in the car, that we won’t even do something as simple as park without involving the One we love and who loves us.

Our joy when suddenly the parking spot is there is not because we can’t bear to walk a few more feet to the store, but our joy is seeing God peek His head out into the random background noise of small details.

And when the parking spot doesn’t show up? At least His name was remembered on our lips for one more moment than it would have been had we just depended on our own selves to park.

That, in and of itself, is worth it.

– Heather

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Except maybe to add a little background: some Christians like to share the little things that they believe that God has done in their lives, like finding them a parking spot, and others feel this sort of sharing – or indeed, this sort of praying – is frivolous, trivial and unimportant. And maybe it’s because they themselves can never seem to find a parking spot … 😉

Ideas…

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 19 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

As part of my series on the Problems of Evangelicalism, here’s a slightly different approach to the subject.

This post is comprised of an eclectic collection of ideas about common Evangelical misconceptions, and some responses to such misconceptions which show up the misconceptions[1] in their own right. They are a bit like the Proverbs in the Bible; seemingly random and unrelated sayings and concepts which nevertheless have a common, underlying theme.

Many if not most of them are my ideas; nevertheless, maybe think of it like one of my ‘Quotes’ pieces; indeed, some of the ideas are taken from such articles.

Enjoy!

For so many, the thing that ruined Jesus for them wasn’t the lure of sin, but the lovelessness of Christians.
– Chris Kratzer

I have to jokingly say that [a preacher from a church I used to attend] would be a preacher I would invite to speak if I thought the congregation was getting too happy. He’d soon put the kibosh on that.
– Me

I hate when they talk about ‘hyper-grace’, when they want to teach about grace but don’t like the idea of it being freely given without asking anything in return. The idea of grace is too much for the religious mind; it cannot comprehend grace, because grace is free, and religion is work. There’s no such thing as hyper-grace; there’s only grace. Grace is by essence hyper. It’s like the “color” white. White is white. There’s no hyper-white, there’s just white. If you add anything to white, it becomes something else, it becomes a shade of an other color. Grace is grace; if you add anything else it’s not grace anymore.
– Yorick Videlson

Plus they are likely trying to twist [a Bible verse’s] meaning to their own ends. How many churches’ signs have we seen where they are called ‘Grace [whatever] Church’ but of course it’s a bait-and-switch for a den of legalism.
– Me

Religious people are good at using terms they don’t understand. Actually, using terms at all to describe and define the spiritual comes from a religious mind. A free spirit doesn’t have words to share the divine experience, because it’s precisely that: an experience. You can only let people see the fruits and the effects; you know, like the wind.
– Yorick Videlson

I define Religion [as opposed to faith – Ed] as being the concept of humans trying to please, appease or otherwise placate ‘the gods’ (including the God of the Bible) so that said humans will not be subject to those gods’ wrath, whatever form that wrath may take – volcanoes, famine, flood, going to Hell, or even just plain and simple ‘bad luck’. Usually, Religion involves performance of some kind: doing rituals, magic spells, sacrifices, obeying rules either written or tacitly inferred. Religious people are people who feel that this ‘doing stuff’ is necessary in order for them to be able to approach God/the gods. Personally, I think that’s just a modern form of superstition.
– Me

“If you find that your heart has grown bigger than your doctrine, know that it is the doctrine that needs to go, not the heart that needs to be restricted.”
– Jeff Turner

If God desires us to love Him in any serious way, He would be stupid to threaten us with Hell. Or any other punishment. Once punishment is introduced, any action comes from fear, not love.
– Susie

If wrath would be a property of God it would be the 10th fruit of the Spirit. It is not.
– Anon

The Bible worshippers think God stopped speaking after the last word in the book of Revelation. Then they limit God to just be a sign poster pointing you back at the Bible.
– Kehinde

“Christianity is like a swimming-pool. All the noise comes from the shallow end.”
– Quote from a US theologian.

[Speaking of a photo of a legalism preacher who doesn’t look all that happy] No wonder he’s looking so fed up. He’s missed that the Kingdom of God is not about following rules, but about righteousness, peace and joy. One is a set of behaviours. The other is a state of being. I know where I’d rather live
– Me

The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. It’s the religious mindset destroying and tainting everything it touches, and thus steals joy. People who are in that mindset have my pity, but not my sympathy. The gates of hell are locked from the inside, said CS Lewis, and they are in there by their own choice. The hell of religion, that is. All it takes is the decision to call BS on the whole thing, and they can escape.
– Me

Can we get it wrong if we follow the Spirit? Of course. And you don’t have to look very hard to see a few thousand years of people getting it wrong by following the Book, either.
– Keith Giles

Unfortunately, sometimes the grey religious NPC types twist the ‘unmerited’ idea [that is, the idea of Grace being the unmerited favour of God] into ‘unworthy’ and ‘undeserved’. This is wrong. All it means is that Grace is unearned – you don’t have to *do* anything in order to obtain it or to keep it. You haven’t received it through any merit, but just as a gift. But they like to mask that by saying that it is something we are actually not worthy of receiving. More Pharisees shutting the door of heaven in others’ faces.
– Me

You will not heal by going back to what broke you.
– Anon

The reason that Evangelical attack dogs attack mystical experiences is that they themselves lack such experience. [The people who do that kind of attacking of others] have likely never knowingly known the Presence of God. In the same way as miserable people love to drag others down to their level, so too these Evangelical attack dogs try to deny all valid mystical experiences, so that they think they’ll feel better about their own lack of such experiences. But a) it doesn’t make them feel any better; and b) nothing they can say or do can ever erase the reality experienced by those they attack. The caveat is that not all Evangelicals are like that, fortunately.
– Me

…non-Christians are asking the L.G.B.T.Q. question before they even enter the door as a litmus test as to whether they will even come in the first place. We can argue about whether that’s fair or not, but we can’t argue about whether that’s reality. They simply will only come to a church that is welcoming of L.G.B.T.Q. people, and not what they call “pretend” welcoming into what they call “second-class citizenship.”
– Bill White

What [Evangelicals] do is yes, they claim the Bible leads them to Jesus, just as Jesus says (John 5:39), but their job is to lead them back from Jesus to the Bible, it seems!
– Me

A god who saves you from himself is a god in whose presence you will never truly feel safe.  – Jeff Turner

I didn’t want to bring people to my old church precisely because I didn’t want them to hear about the loving God I personally know, in such terrible terms [as one who would send people to burn forever in hell]. I see that now. I wasn’t sure back then why I was so reluctant, but this is why.
– Me

I’ve also noticed that when you start to enthuse about your freedom while talking with a Legalist – whether they know they are one or not! – the first thing they will do is to try to explain to you why you should not be free. It’s usually couched in Bible verses, and [possibly] from a good heart, but still that’s what they are doing. “He gave His word for freedom; you use it to enslave“. And they will claim that they are under Grace but their lives will not show this. I sometimes wonder if this is simple insecurity; they feel threatened to see someone operating out of freedom instead of Law.
– Me

I think [legalists] need the ‘security’ afforded by having clear rules by which to live… Even if they consistently fail to live by them (and consequently live stunted lives of fear and self-loathing). It’s pretty sad really, especially when all the ‘evidence’ needed to live a life of freedom is readily available.
– Phil Hendry

[It’s] so sad; [legalists] are still clinging to the side of their swimming pool, shouting unheeded and unnecessary warnings to those who are out in the deep waters of faith and living life to the full.
– Me

When some people talk about the gospel, you’d think that John 3:16 said: “God so hated the world that he killed his only Son.” Sometimes people say: “That picture is important—wrath and sin and hell and all the rest of it, and it’s because God loves us.” But simply adding the word “love” onto the end of that story can actually be even worse. It is like what abusers do when they say, “I love you so much”—it’s hideous.
– N.T. (‘Tom’) Wright

To Pharisees[2] condemning the ministry of inclusion[3]: “You are just the jealous older brother (from the Prodigal story). You have worked hard to earn the Father’s favour, only to be told that you had His favour all along. And now you want to deny it to the Prodigals out there. Well, shame on you”.
– Me

For me, I know how much the unclean have besmirched the name of my faith. But I refuse to let them steal my birthright: I am a Christian; I was a Christian before they stole the name and I will still claim that title for the rest of my life. I am a Prince of the Kingdom of Heaven; a child of God and He is my Father. I was crucified with Christ and have been raised up with Him to heavenly places. These things have been revealed to me over and above what a mere book says, and I know them as part of my make-up, as you say. It’s part of who I am, too, and, like you, no-one can take that away. Even (and especially) the Thief and his children.
– Me

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 If I was playing a game of Radio 4’s ‘Just A Minute’, I’d already have been buzzed for repeated use of a word. Sorry about that. But it was supposed to be used to emphasise a point….
⇧2 That is, self-righteous people in today’s Christianity, not the ancient sect of first-century Judaism – although they are of the same spirit!
⇧3 That is, the inclusion of everyone into Jesus, not just those who agree with certain doctrines, are of a certain sexuality, or have said the ‘right’ prayer

Casting Down the Imaginations – Reblog

Insights, Reblogs
This entry is part 18 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Some years ago now, I published an essay describing how I felt that God is being misrepresented by the Church because of various doctrines that make Him seem somehow ‘less attractive’ to people outside the Church[1]. Doctrines that give people a really good set of reasons why they would never ‘darken the doors’ of a church building – and I really don’t blame them.

Not much has changed since that essay was written. Church attitudes change at a less-than-glacial pace; I think it’s true that, in religious circles, ideas, attitudes and doctrines remain more set-in-stone more than in any other part of society. That said, when I say that  not much has changed, it’s probably more accurate to say that this is really true only in the most hardened churches, where the inmates are partly deaf to the Voice of the Spirit. Encouragingly, in some places, people are coming to realise more and more that past attidues should be left behind and more ‘modified’ attitudes adopted in the light of things that God has said to them. I suppose that this is what church growth actually looks like in practice; as the individuals in a given congregation have their attitudes slowly and gently modified by the Spirit, so then the congregation as a whole gradually reflects those attitudes in increasing measure. And if I can change, despite having once been one of those apparently hardened people, then I guess anyone can[2]. It’s also quite instructive to me in that, in the past, I have usually majored on what individual spiritual growth looks like, and not really said much about what it looks like at a congregational level. I’m still learning!

At any rate, the essay is still applicable today, and even more so in that I now have a series going – my series ‘The Problems of Evangelicalism ‘ – for which it is particularly relevant. And so here’s the essay, unchanged from its first publication, except for my usual tidying-up of asterisked footnotes into properly-indexed ones.

Here is the essay:

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” 2Cor10:5 (KJV)

I’ve recently identified the driving force behind my contentious blog posts, my forum postings (usually contesting posts by religious hard-liners) and my attitudes in general towards things spiritual.

It’s simply this: I feel passionately that the God that I love has been grossly misrepresented by certain current Church doctrines and attitudes. It is apparent to me that the Gospel of a God Who loves everyone, and saves people entirely by Grace, has been watered-down by several seriously-flawed, man-made ideas.

Jesus said, “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat 15:9 (KJV)) – in other words, things from men’s imaginations being taught as if they are truths worth stating as part of your belief structure (which is basically what a doctrine is).

Now, St. Paul wrote of ‘the weapons of our warfare’ being mighty in God for the destruction of [spiritual] strongholds (2Cor10:4). And the current spiritual strongholds that are in place are that God is seen as a horrible, evil, vicious, judgemental dictator; partly because of how certain people portray Him, and partly because of doctrines that have been held as true – in my opinion, erroneously – by the Church.

And it’s time to tear down these strongholds – these ‘imaginations’ – and that’s why I post as I do. These horrible man-made ideas, that malign the name of God and besmirch His Character, are indeed the ‘imaginations’ that need to be torn down, and the reason they need that is because, as the verse above says, they exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.

Let’s look at the verse again:

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” 2Cor10:5 (KJV)

‘Exalting’ means ‘lifting up’, so what we are saying here is that these ‘imaginations’ – doctrines made up by men – are lifted up against the knowledge of God; they give Him a bad name, if you like, and skew humanity’s perception of Him. They portray Him in ways that are simply untrue.

And so I am completely fed up with my wonderful God being portrayed as horrible, by these ‘imaginations’, and by people who really should know better.

Let me be more specific, and use a few examples.

The Doctrine of Hell

Of course, the first up is the doctrine of Hell, as espoused by most people in the current Evangelical branch of the Church. This doctrine states that if a person does not believe in Jesus in this life, then when they die they go to Hell where they will be tortured forever.

This awful doctrine speaks of a cold, heartless god who, quite arbitrarily, sends people who have never heard the gospel, to this Hell place.

To quote from Rob Bell,

“Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the Gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly Father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony. Does God become somebody totally different the moment you die?

“That kind of God is simply devastating. Psychologically crushing. We can’t bear it. No one can. And that is the secret deep in the heart of many people, especially Christians: they don’t love God. They can’t, because the God they’ve been presented with and taught about can’t be loved. That God is terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable.

“And so there are conferences about how churches can be more “relevant” and “missional” and “welcoming,” and there are vast resources, many, many books and films, for those who want to “reach out” and “connect” and “build relationships” with people who aren’t part of the church. And that can be helpful. But at the heart of it, we have to ask: Just what kind of God is behind all this?

“Because if something is wrong with your God, if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all of eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, unacceptable, awful reality.”

– Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

Everything that exists was created by God. If Hell exists, then it too must have been created by Him. But I find it hard, nay, impossible, to believe that God has indeed created Hell. It’s quite simple to tell, really: we’ve just said that by Him all things were created (Col 1:16); and without Him nothing was created that has been created (John 1:3) and, put simply, God cannot have created Hell because in Him there is no darkness. And he’d have to be a pretty dark person to have created Hell, but of course He’s not. And therefore Hell does not exist, or at least not the Hell that is portrayed in modern Christian doctrine.

this-is-the-message-in-him-there-is-no-darkness

(1Jn1:5)
You see, that Hell doctrine has to have increasingly complex arguments put in place to defend it, where really it (the doctrine) should not exist at all and it is simpler and far more realistic to simply discard the whole doctrine.

I too was brought up in the faith believing in the doctrine of Hell, and would you believe that I almost rejoiced in thinking that those who did not agree with me were destined to burn there. How sick was I? And yet I do think that some people believe this but without really thinking it through. They are just parroting what they have been told. There are so many other arguments I could make on this subject, but this is not the place for them. Click here for my blog’s resource page on Hell, which also includes my own personal opinions, for what they’re worth.

And, in fact, there are encouraging signs that individuals like me in the Church are ‘privately’ coming around to the point of view that God does not, and never has, condemned people to eternal suffering based on their theology. Here’s an interesting article on that subject.

‘Angry God’

The next travesty and slur on the Character of  God is the Doctrine of ‘Angry God’. Now it’s not named as such in any doctrinal handbook, but it’s inferred by most Christian doctrine that god’s holiness is so pure that he can’t bear to look upon sin, and his ‘wrath’ is so great that he has to ‘punish’ people for sin. He’s a god of destruction, one that kills women and children and commands his servants to hamstring all their enemy’s donkeys. Over to Jeff Turner for a good summary of the way that God is seen by most people – and what Jesus does to banish that notion:

“The sad truth is that we have all inherited a portrait of God that looks far more like Mt. Olympus than Mt. Zion, and it’s an inheritance that most are too terrified to discard. In our Western traditions God is often presented as being cold, austere, distant and judgmental. We imagine Him surrounded by dark clouds, with a scowl sprawled across his angry mug.

angry-god-wtf

“He’s very eager to be pleased, but, unfortunately, extremely difficult to please. He is a hermit that is notoriously difficult to coax out of hiding and even harder to keep around because the slightest scent of sin can send him bolting for the hills in a rage. In fact, one of our imagined deity’s greatest weaknesses is His sin allergy. Wherever there are humans behaving badly, you can be sure he’ll be absent. Where there are broken people doing broken things with their broken lives, God will not be present, for in our mythology human sin works like Kryptonite against him, forcing Him to retreat and separate Himself from us.

“He is mostly sad andAngryGod1 mad, and rarely, perhaps when his enemies bite the dust, glad. He is heartbroken over our lack of devotion and disinterest in prayer, but is himself quite disinterested in the everyday events of our lives. He is a demented Santa Claus of sorts, who tightly clenches the naughty list – which we’ve all landed on, by the way – and dreams of filling our spiritual stockings with the burning coals of judgment. When he looks at [a nation], he doesn’t see individual people who desperately need love and mercy, but a widespread, faceless blob of darkness, deserving judgment. He’s sickened by our lack of fervency, repulsed by our spotty church attendance records, and gets all up in arms when our summer vacation extends over a Sunday morning. To put it simply, He’s angry.

“The God that a large percentage of us imagine and pay homage to is disgruntled, disappointed, and disapproving. While some may be fortunate enough to have imagined Him in His true state, my experience has been that 9 out of 10 people, myself included, do not see Him rightly. We’ve been subjected to hours of teachings that have subtly sown into our minds the idea that He is primarily a legal deity concerned with rights and wrongs, and this subconscious programming is absolutely killing us. I would even venture to say that it is the leading cause of anxiety, fear, discontentment, and depression among Christians. In all of this fear, turmoil, and mythology, however, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, still stands in our midst, combatting these false ideologies, and seeking to shine the light of Grace upon the face of His Daddy.”

– (From Saints in the Arms of a Happy God: Recovering the Image of God and Man, by Jeff Turner, and quoted in better context in my previous article ‘The Ultimate ‘Bad Witness’‘)

And as beautifully written by someone I know on Facebook,

“Many people live their lives in depression and anxiety from the theology through which they find their existential meaning, fearful of the future, confused about God and thus about themselves, walking around believing they are rotten to the core, and that God is disgusted with them and would wrathfully destroy them except that he sees them through the appeasing violence done to Jesus. This is a prison for the mind and heart. It is not the Abba that Jesus revealed, nor is it the revelation of the sons and daughters of God, nor is it the life abundantly Jesus came to give, nor is it the power of the kingdom of heaven that dwells within us.

“Now my goal is to help Christians deconstruct this false, baseless idea of existence, and the structures of reasoning that have imprisoned their mind, and give them permission to break free of fear and believe and trust in an extravagantly good Father, who is revealed in the Son, [Whose] love is an endless ocean that you cannot escape as long as you exist, because your existence is energized by nothing less than infinite love. There is no other reason for you to exist except for love” [emphasis mine]

Yes, be assured that Father God is good – as represented by Jesus. Anything else is a complete misconception. Want to know what Father God is like? He’s just like Jesus: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) and “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” – (Heb 1:3).  And in Him there is no darkness – none whatsoever! Let’s read that Scripture (1Jn1:5) again:

this-is-the-message-in-him-there-is-no-darkness

‘God Hates Gays’

I’ve written about this many times before, but the principle of persecution of, well, not just gay/lesbian/transgender (LGBTQ) people, but other ‘minorities’ too, is just the tip of the iceberg. The Old Testament is full of lists of people who, supposedly, God will not permit in the ‘assembly’, that is, people who are not allowed to worship him. This list includes all those who are not of the tribes of Israel, and even within those tribes, there are many minorities – lepers, those who have been ’emasculated by cutting or crushing’, those with various skin conditions, women on their menstrual cycles – the list goes on. And it’s no different in today’s church – people are ostracised for all kinds of offences, the main ones of course being those that can be ‘supported’ by mistranslated and/or out-of-context Scripture verses (which basically anyone who knows their Bible can do; it’s easy to find a Scripture somewhere that will seem to support your point of view!). Oh, and those who do not toe the party line! Basically, anyone who is different, anyone who does not ‘fit in’; that person is ripe for ostracism. While this is not always a doctrine as such (although the gay persecution stuff is; there are at least six Scriptures that are misinterpreted so that gay people can be ‘scripturally’ discriminated against), it is still a major black mark against my Loving Father in the eyes of the world. What the world sees is that Christians – and therefore God – hate gays. The Church does not properly represent God on this matter! “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” – (Hosea 6:6) – God would rather people were good to each other instead of being religious! More of my musings on how the Church treats LGBTQ people can be found here, here, here, and here. But the point is that these practices are a major stumbling-block as perceived by someone considering coming to faith. And it’s a stronghold; an ‘imagination’. I understand that people are afraid of ‘differences’, but surely in the Church Family, there must be a better way than the dysfunctional practice of ostracism. Whatever happened to ‘live and let live’?

The ‘Bad Witness’

Then there’s the question of the people who profess Christianity but who come across as all harsh, judgemental[3], vindictive and unbending. Like those I describe in my article – ‘Bad Witness’. These people see the Holy Spirit as a Convictor[4]) (actually only one step from an Accuser) rather than a Comforter, and Jesus as yet another Lawgiver rather than Him being the end of the Law (Rom 10:4 (KJV)). These people can be found in their droves on religious forums. They portray Father as an angry Dictator, as we have already seen. So, all three Persons of the Godhead are maligned at the same time! And I therefore go on the forums to present the alternative view: that actually God likes the people He has created (including the harsh people!). Sometimes these people claim that I am not a Christian, and one forumite in particular was rather dischuffed that I didn’t support him at all, despite me claiming to be a believer and from that he concluded my salvation state was nil. But of course I’m not going to support him in his transmitting opinions that I feel to be toxic to others. How can I support someone I don’t agree with? But if he was ill, in need, hungry or in need of encouragement, I’d be right there beside him (except I think he lives in America so he’s too far away!)

In some ways, these people are living examples of what a person would have to become like if they are to mirror their heavenly father as they actually see him, if they believe that he’s like that too. If their god is harsh and judgemental, then they are going to portray him as harsh and judgemental. So in a way, they are just representing god in the best way they can; the problem is that, in the eyes of the world, they represent the real, loving, living God, and what the world see is, of course, awful! In a very real way, this ‘Bad Witness’ is actually an extension of the ‘Angry God’ doctrine above; what we are seeing here is merely the manifestation of that image of god to the world for them to see, and for them to be disillusioned with. Who would want to come to Church when they think it will be populated by people such as these? Naturally, these nasty types are just in the minority – most churches, including mine, are full of the sweetest, Christlike people – but can you really blame outsiders for tarring us all with the same brush?

So, that’s just four of these entrenched ideas and concepts – Imaginations – in the Church that are so destructive; there are more but these will do for now.

You see, if we really examine our doctrines on these ideas, they all, without exception, portray our loving Father God in a very bad, harsh and horrible light. Light that is as much darkness as it is light, in fact. I would even go as far as saying that this represents a Pagan, yin/yang, Karma-style (what goes round, comes round) god than a living, loving Creator.

Just because everyone believes in a particular doctrine, does not mean that that doctrine is correct. Acceptance of the majority opinion does not make a doctrine true; it is simply more likely that nobody has questioned it! Ironically, here’s a Rick Warren saying which states exactly that (the irony being that Rick is, as far as I know, one of the people who believes in Hell, and is probably against same-sex marriage 😉 )

rick_warren_carrot_lie truth

I believe that a new revival is slowly and carefully making its way through the Church in this day. A revival where people are waking up to seeing just how fantastic God is, how loving, kind and inclusive. Jesus’s message was not just for the people of Israel in the First Century; it was for all men everywhere and in every time (John 17:20). In this time, we in the Church need to include everyone in the message of Good News which is that God loves us and sent Jesus to show us that, in all that He did and suffered, He will stop at nothing to show us this amazing Truth.

Please be assured: this isn’t supposed to be a rant in any way. I’m just explaining where I’m coming from in my writings. You know, God is so much ‘nicer’ than how many believers – even sincere ones – portray Him, or at least, who believe these untrue things about Him because they haven’t really thought them through in any great depth, and/or they have simply believed what they’ve been told without questioning it. Maybe they don’t realise how destructive these ideas are, but let me assure you that the world outside the Church sees the problems caused by these doctrines really clearly. And it’s also counter-intuitive; most people outside the Church, believe it or not, actually think that God is Good. It’s just some of the Christians who claim to represent Him that they have the problem with!

So, these are just some of the ‘Imaginations’ that need to be cast down. If you can see yourself in any of these descriptions, please ask Jesus what He thinks. And let Him change you, in His own good time! And, if you are someone who already knows that God isn’t like these imaginations, please feel free to let everyone know. Although, I appreciate that you probably already do!

Bless you!

 

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 It’s really strange for me to think, today, that when I wrote that essay just over nine years ago, my beloved wife Fiona was still alive; indeed, she had only a month left to live. And that’s a really strange feeling.
⇧2 It’s interesting in that, even though I was wide-open to the Voice of the Spirit, still my heart was hardened to change. I suppose that God had His plans all arranged for His changing of my attitudes, and so the timing of it all was done in His good time, and not mine. That’s part of what happens when Jesus is Lord of a person’s life.
⇧3 The concept of ‘speaking the truth in love’ (a ripped out of context verse from Eph 4:15) is abused regularly as an excuse for telling complete strangers where they are ‘sinning’, supposedly in the hope of correcting their behaviour ‘so that they won’t go to Hell’. This concept does not stand up to scrutiny on many levels: they are spoken to complete strangers so how can there be any love involved; who are we to tell others about their ‘sin’; it’s legalistic when really the governing factor should be Grace; it’s the Spirit Who convicts the world of sin (as we have seen above, in Jn 16:8-9); according to the accusing parties, those people are ‘going to Hell’ anyway, it’ll take much more than just being told that they’re doing something wrong to ‘save’ them!; as everyone knows, this ‘method’ of ‘evangelism’ simply does not work; and, finally, everyone else can see that it’s just people being judgemental and using the Scripture as an excuse. But it’s a repulsive practice, literally, in that it repels people from the beautiful Person of Jesus Who does not judge.
⇧4 The Spirit does convict the world of sin, but in the sense of “He will convict the world in regard to sin … because they do not believe in Me” (Jn 16:8-9). Jesus is talking here about unbelievers, not believers. Those in Christ are no longer under condemnation nor accusation of any kind! (Rom 8:1-2

The Chosen

Insights, Others' stuff, Reviews
This entry is part 32 of 34 in the series About the Bible - Inerrancy, Infallibility, Inspiration and Revelation

Every so often – actually, no; it’s really quite rare, but let’s say occasionally – a really superb and thought-provoking TV or movie series comes along that really makes its watchers think about just Who Jesus was, and what He taught. The better programmes also examine the effect that Jesus had on those who met Him; those whom He healed, and why His enemies hated Him so much.

A great example of this was the series Messiah, which was first aired a few years ago. While not explicitly about Jesus, it was still brilliant and was highly instructive in so many ways. A multifaceted feast of fascinating stories, if you will[1].

Well, only last week, I discovered quite by accident[2] a superb, well I might say ‘new’ series, but actually it had its humble beginnings in 2017 and became more popular in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s called The Chosen and it stars Jonathan Roumie as Jesus. And it’s absolutely brilliant.

Rather than do a 633 Squadron on you, where you have to wait until the end for the best bit[3], I will let you know, here and now, how you can get hold of this superb content for yourself and for anyone else you think might be blessed by it.

The first and main place to look is on the main website. The link is here, and the episodes can be streamed directly from that site free of charge. There’s really little else I need to do to help you on this, except maybe to let you know that there is a phone app too (search for it on your phone’s app store under The Chosen; the correct app has an icon showing a turquoise fish and two grey fishes) in which you can stream all the episodes, there’s a physical DVD set you can buy (I got mine on eBay) and there’s also a gift shop for both the UK and the USA.

And the entire series; the episodes themselves – they are all free of charge. Yowser.

So then, to whet your appetite for this brilliant project, here is my review, such as it is.

One of the things I noticed quite early on when reading about Jesus in the Bible, and reading other stories in the Bible too, is that they are not really written like ‘proper’ stories[4] Mainly, the texts are written as wisdom, stories, histories, personal letters and prophecy – which in terms of Hebrew prophecy, it’s written as poetry. The thing that is missing in most of not all of the Bible texts – and that makes them very different from ‘stories’ as we know them today – is that of description. There are no passages that say anything like, ‘Jesus came out of His tent and stretched with a huge smile on His face’, or ‘The group sat on the shores of Lake Galilee; the tops of distant mountains were glowing in the late evening light’. There’s very little descriptive text at all, some few exceptions being things like where someone ‘went away rejoicing’ (Acts 8:39); or the rich young ruler who ‘went away sad’ (Matt 19:22). Or even for Jesus, where you’re given a tiny glimpse into His heart when He was ‘full of joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Luke 10:21). 

In some ways, that’s understandable, because most of the Biblical texts are not written to be read and ‘enjoyed’ in such a way as the reader is actually placed mentally into the situations depicted, as they are in modern novels. How many times have you read a really good book and, when you ‘come up’ from being ‘in’ the book, you might have experienced a momentary disorientation as you come back in the ‘real world’? Well there’s none of that in the Bible. It’s not a compendium that is intended for ‘escapism'[5] Even Jesus Himself is not properly-described; not really, anyway[6]. Although He was described as wearing brilliantly-shining garments during the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36), even then, this was only in the company of His best friends, and only on the one recorded occasion at any rate – and you can guarantee that He ‘masked’ the glowing stuff before they came down off the mountain! Certainly, if Jesus really had routinely worn brilliantly white shining garments as a matter of course, He definitely wouldn’t have gone around those sporting high-vis threads in public. Nor would He have got away with having a ‘sharp, double-edged sword coming out of His mouth’ (Rev 1:16); the Romans would have arrested Him immediately for sure 🤣. So, we don’t even know what Jesus actually looked like; not from the Bible, anyway. But the real lack of it is that, although Christianity says that Jesus was both God and Human, in some ways the human side of His character is not really all that well-portrayed in the Bible. It never says that He laughs, apart from (you would imagine, anyway) that bit where He was ‘full of joy in the Holy Spirit’. He never hugs anyone; He eats and drinks but the ‘partying’ side of His character, which was so frowned-upon by the Religious elite of His day, can only be inferred from their reaction to it, for example in Luke 7:13, where Jesus’s reply to them is, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, “Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!”  He wouldn’t have had to say that to them unless they were complaining about His behaviour, either openly or secretly in their hearts[7].

For this reason, depictions in audio and visual media, such as plays, movies, screenplays, podcasts and radio programs are really useful because they can bring the stories to life like mere reading – of a categorically non-descriptive text like the Bible – can never do. These media are of course a feature of modern society; they didn’t have things like that in the past, at least not before the invention of moving pictures and then cinema.

And so, when a really good Jesus series comes out, it’s time to – once again – see how different scriptwriters and such interpret His life, His teachings and His actions. 

The Chosen is such a series. I do not make this comparison lightly – for this next thing changed my life – but a quarter of a century ago, the New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson created the stunning, authentic and beyond-epic movie rendition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings‘. Never before, in my experience, had anyone created such a masterpiece in terms of bringing to life a book that I love so much. Granted, for a Tolkien nerd like me, I was just a little bit nonplussed by some of the plot differences, but the visualisations of the places, characters and story that I knew and loved so well were depicted so much better than I ever imagined anyone could ever do, and yet they were exactly as I imagined them – over the fifty years since I first read the books. Words can’t describe.

In the same way, The Chosen depicts the places, the characters, the miracles, the background – in short, everything in the Gospels – in just the way I’d imagined it all, and then some. There are at present five or six seasons[8], each consisting of eight episodes. In The Chosen, Jesus indeed parties with people; He joins in celebrations like at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11); He doesn’t just sit in a corner looking miserable and disapproving, like the Religious would like to think He would have done. No, He’d have joined in. He’d have laughed, danced, drunk wine, hugged people, and even smiled. And He does so – a lot! – in The Chosen. This series is absolutely brilliant. I was going to say that I can’t describe it, but I feel I owe it to you, my dear reader, to attempt to do so!

One of the most striking things is the age of Jesus’s disciples. Jesus looks to be in His early-to-mid 30s or so, and, similarly, His disciples look to be in their late twenties or early thirties. If you do a Google Images search on Jesus’s disciples, you’ll get loads of pictures of hoary old men with long grey beards and turbans. But they wouldn’t have been like that at all. They’d have been young lads, and they are depicted as such in The Chosen. The series also ‘reads between the lines’ a little, in that there’s lots of dialogue between the characters that reflects the wonder of what they are witnessing. Like where Simon Peter says to Mary of Magdala, “Can you believe we are here to see this?”. The freshness and wonder of what Jesus was doing is really brilliantly expressed.

The characters are not fair-skinned, blue-eyed people, as portrayed in much Western artwork and movies depicting Bible stories. Think of the blue-eyed and very white British actor Robert Powell, who played Jesus in the 1978 movie, Jesus of Nazareth, and you’ll understand what I mean:

Robert Powell as Jesus

No, the Israeli characters are played by darker-skinned actors, and they also speak with a rather ersatz[9] ‘Middle Eastern’ accent. Except for the Roman characters, who speak with either an English or mildly American accent. Also really well done is the cosmopolitan nature of first-century Israel. Being at the ‘crossroads’ of many trade routes and central to the land-bridge between Africa, Europe and Asia, ancient Israel was a hotbed of differing cultures, peoples and races. This is why the story of the people who witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost tells this:

“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And when this sound [The disciples speaking ‘in tongues’] rang out, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking his own language. Astounded and amazed, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it then that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism; Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ Astounded and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’ “

(Acts 2:5-12)

And  The Chosen reflects this eclectic mix of peoples really very well; the story-immersion resulting from the authenticity really is remarkable.

There’s lots of really great characterisations, such as the earnest and honest seeking of Nicodemus (brilliantly played by veteran actor Erick Avari), the impulsive, fiery and indeed ‘laddish’ Simon Peter, played by the Israeli actor Shahar Isaac, and Paras Patel‘s superb rendition of the fussy, pernickety, and quite probably Autistic, Matthew the tax collector.

Many nice touches are included too. Simon’s wife[10] ‘Eden’ is a lovely, down-to-earth and honest lady who absolutely adores him, and their on-screen chemistry is a delight to see. The excellent portrayal of decent, sincere-but-misguided yet conscientious and honest Pharisees like Shmuel, as opposed to the High Priest, Caiaphas, who seems to be in it (in the episodes I have seen so far, anyway) just for the prestige and power. Then there’s the Roman Praetor, Quintus, who is ambitious, scheming and cunning, but who has the redeeming quality of recognising Matthew’s ability to think unconventionally (which is why I think he’s supposed to be Autistic)[11] – even if that recognition is only to be used to further his own ambitions[12]. Compare Quintus with the gritty, practical and down-to-Earth Roman Centurion Gaius who nevertheless recognises Jesus for Who He is. He’s the guy whose servant is ‘remotely’ healed by Jesus as per Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. And Elizabeth Tabish‘s Mary of Magdala is simply superb.

There are also some great theological lessons in there too, which are presented in excellent ‘backstory’ scenes – in that they are not of themselves in the Bible, but are placed in the episodes to flesh out the story. A great example is this little excerpt where the Pharisee Nicodemus is tutoring his student Shmuel on God not being a static idea:

I could go on. But it’s far better for me to simply shut up and let you go and look at this, yes, phenomenon, for yourself. There are many clips from The Chosen on YouTube. And I would say that, without exception, every single one has, in its comments section, many testimonies of how The Chosen has brought to life the Gospel stories like nothing that people have ever seen. Granted, there’s a lot of clickbait out there too. But the overwhelming message of those testimonies is that God has touched people’s lives through this series like few recent things have. Jesus has become more real to people who just want more of Him in their lives. People’s faith; people’s personal walk with Jesus, has been transformed by this series.

Of course, there’s also been naysayers who complain that it is not exactly faithful to the Scriptures. People whose hearts are hardened to the amazing thing that this content really is. These people, like the legalists in Matthew 12:22-32, miss out on what Jesus is doing because they are so convinced that they are more right than He is. They miss the things that God is doing because they have their heads so far into their own preconceptions, and what they think the Messianic prophecies will look like when they actually happen. They therefore have neither the eyes to see, nor the ears to hear. Well, it’s their loss, and I have no sympathy for them – except that their precinceptions have likely come partly from others’ influence. God will hopefully give those people too the ears to hear, someday.

But, for myself, even though I already know Jesus personally, and have experienced Him in ways that maybe others haven’t, this series has strengthened even my faith. It’s lit up the Gospels like nothing else. It’s also taught me things about my own thinking that I won’t mention here – the Secret of the Lord and all that.

But I am absolutely sure that, if you watch these series, your faith will be strengthened too.

Peace and Grace to you!

 

Header Picture depicts actor Jonathan Roumie as Jesus of Nazareth

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 And please accept apologies for the partial and fully unintentional alliteration!
⇧2 At least, by accident from a human perspective; I am absolutely sure that this was one of those God-appointments. I feel as if I was totally set up… 😉
⇧3 Yes, the 633 Squadron syndrome is my cynical term for making people wait until the end for the best bit. It comes from the epic 1964 movie, 633 Squadron, in which the film builds up, through a series of stories, subplots and other adventures, to the climactic battle at the end. The ‘original’ Star Wars  movie – later called Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope – was also structured like this, and was in fact inspired by 633 Squadron, as openly acknowledged by George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars universe. Both films are excellent, of course, and I only use the term fondly!

The reason the term is cynical is because I see it as a very common tactic used by sports organisers, where they have a lot of build-up before the event itself; by rock concert organisers where they have supporting acts before the main act (which is of course actually good for the supporting act) and especially at churches. This might be for a communion service, where they make you wait until the end before you get your bread and wine. Or, especially, at a baptismal service where you have to sit through all the other stuff and people talking at you before you get to the fun bit at the end. It also happens on clickbait websites where they make you click through pages and pages of preamble before letting you read the news article or whatever that you really came for – if indeed you do actually get to it at all. I very quickly escape from those sites once I realise what’s happening. In short, it’s where they make you sit and wait – rather like being in a school detention – rather than getting around to the bit that everyone has really come to see. And that’s why I have put this as a footnote, so that it gives you the option of not reading it should you so wish!

⇧4 Specifically in the context of this essay, the Gospels, which are really the parts we’re concerned with here as The Chosen is a rendition of the Gospels. The Gospels are written more as a collection of anecdotes and are written as history; Jesus said this, Jesus did that. They are presented more as factual than entertainment.
⇧5 Which probably lends more credence to its authenticity, in fact, because there’s no mechanism in there for suspension of disbelief or immersive description, which in a fiction or propaganda document would be plentiful. There’d be lots of narrative content such as adverbs and adjectives – descriptive words – to draw the reader in. But there’s none of that; not really.
⇧6 Except, notably, at the beginning of the book of Revelation (Rev 1:13-16). The description there, of course, is in an apocalyptic vision and as such the writer is trying to describe the indescribable, and all that while in the apocalyptic mode – which means that it is written in a sort of code. Much of Revelation was – and is – never intended to be taken literally, and it would be a mistake to do so.
⇧7 Knowing the terminally self-righteous mindset, though, they would doubtless have been openly criticising His ‘sinfulness’ because that’s what self-righteous people did back then, and still do nowadays too.
⇧8 I think Season 6, the final season, is currently being filmed at the time of my writing this
⇧9 Although, for some of the actors, they actually are of Middle Eastern origin, and their accents are therefore likely genuine!
⇧10 As far as we know, from church tradition, Simon Peter was the only one of Jesus’s disciples who was married. We know that he was married, or at least possibly widowed, from the Gospel story told in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, in Mt 8:14-15, Mk 1:29-31 and Lk 4:38-39. In addition, 1Cor 9:5 mentions that other Apostles were also married, but it doesn’t say which ones. The reference in 1Cor9:5 refers to ‘Cephas’; this is Simon Peter.
⇧11 [Edit]: Turns out I was right. The chartacter of Matthew, as portrayed in The Chosen, is indeed supposed to he Autistic. Here’s what The Chosen’s Director, Dallas Jenkins, writes about him:

“Dallas Jenkins, the creator and director of the show that has captivated millions, decided to depict the Biblical character of Matthew as a person on the autism spectrum.

“When we were first choosing Matthew to be a featured character, we noticed, ‘Okay, he is a numbers guy because he’s a tax man. He’s a facts guy because the first chapter of his book is a genealogy divided into three sections of 14 names apiece, so he’s very precise,” Jenkins explains to WW.

Jenkins continues, “He chose a profession that made him an outcast. I’m very familiar with the autism community. It’s in my family. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work there, so looking at that I go, ‘Boy, these are traits of Asperger’s or someone the autism spectrum. Wouldn’t that be interesting, very human and relatable to have a character who is like that? Is it factual? I don’t know. It’s plausible, and I think one of the top things that we’ve seen people relate to most with the show is the character of Matthew.”

And Matthew is played to perfection by non-Autistic actor Paras Patel; this role really showcases the guy’s acting ability and has in fact led him into becoming an advocate for the Autism community.

Quotation is from this article on Woman’s World.com

⇧12 I love that quality in Quintus; how he recognises the special ability – call it a ‘superpower’ if you like – that Matthew has of being able to think like that. I too have that superpower and my boss in my last job knew about it, and invited me to participate in certain work meetings specifically because he knew I would bring a unique perspective to things because of that superpower. What a guy.

Attack of the Love Buts

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 17 of 30 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

I’ve written quite a lot on the kind of people – I call them the ‘grey people’ – who try to make the Good News into Bad News; people who deny the fantastic, complete and brilliant salvation[1] that Jesus brought. You tell them why you are full of joy, and they promptly tell you why you shouldn’t be full of joy[2]. We’ve all met these people! And, to me at least, these people – and their negative attitudes – are very much a part of the Problems of Evangelicalism, and thus the article is part of my eponymous series[3].

Well, some six years ago now, the brilliant Keith Giles wrote an article closely related to that subject, and I share it here in its entirety with his kind and indeed enthusiastic permission. Although the article is six years old, it is still fully relevant and timely, as I’m sure you will agree!

Attack of the Love Buts

Try this experiment.

Step 1: Post “God is Love” on Facebook or Twitter.

Step 2: Wait 10 minutes.

Step 3: Read dozens of posts from Christians who are eager to remind you that God is love, BUT God is also a God of wrath.

This is my life. Almost every single week. I get responses from Christians – always Christians – who cannot allow a post like “God is love and all who live in love live in God, and God in them” rest on its own without adding the asterisk about God’s wrath.

Just last week I posted: “For those who say we focus on Love too much, please remember: God IS Love”.

The first comment was from a friend of mine, Leyna Nguyen, who is not a Christian. Her response was: “There are people who say this?!”

And around 5 comments below hers, the wave of wrath started to crash. 115 comments later, the post led us to statements like this one: “God loves and never stops but He also hates. Hate is not the opposite of love and God has shown He does both continuously.”

[sigh]

My friend Glenn Warner calls these people “Love Buts”, because when you remind them that God is love, they must respond by saying, “Yes, God is love, BUT…”

Why is this? Why are some Christians so insistent upon contradicting all the numerous verses in the New Testament that practically gush with the extravagant love of God?

I mean, this is just a small sample of the verses I’m thinking of when it comes to the love of God:

“For God so LOVED the world…” [John 3:16]

“The LOVE of God is higher, wider, longer and deeper than anyone can imagine”[Eph. 3:14-21]

“Nothing will ever separate us from the LOVE of God” [Rom. 8:31-39]
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through LOVE” [Gal. 5:6]

“LOVE is patient. LOVE is kind. LOVE keeps no record of wrongs.” [1 Cor. 13]

“God is LOVE.” [1 John 4:7-21]

Etc.

Do you know what you will never read following any of these pontifications on the amazing, unending, extravagant love of God?

You will never once read anything about the wrath of God to “balance” out this teaching.

You also never once read any statements about how you and I are unworthy of God’s love, or how we can’t earn or deserve God’s love.

Never. Not even once.

Instead, what we read is page after page, verse after verse of the fantastic, endless, transformative LOVE of God that is poured out on us night and day like a never-ending waterfall.

So, like it or not, we are loved.

What I don’t understand is why some Christians are so eager to shut down this love train. Why do they seem so afraid of a God whose character is love? Why are they threatened by a God who IS love?

Worse: Why are some Christians MORE afraid of a God of love than they are of a God of Wrath?

That’s what I legitimately do not comprehend.

Perhaps this is “Big Brother” syndrome? Like when the Prodigal Son returns home and the Father forgives him so completely and quickly and throws the party for him, it’s the older brother who can’t handle it. He hates the idea of this extravagant love being shared with his brother the “sinner” who deserves to sleep outside with the servants.

Maybe that’s the reason why some Christians today want to pencil into the margins of their Bibles a long list of wrathful God examples to balance out the overly-loving verses about a God who reconciles, forgives, embraces, restores, and loves His children no matter what they do.

What’s strange to me is that their New Testament scriptures don’t reflect their bias towards wrath, so they literally have to reach all the way back to the Old Testament – before Jesus came to us with the Gospel [and grace and truth] –  to find the pictures of a God they like better. Then they cut and paste that angry God’s face over the face of Jesus so they can sleep better at night; rest assured that they are loved and those other “sinners” are going to get what’s coming to them in the end.

But, I can’t buy that. I have to take the New Testament and the “Good News” of Jesus for what it is – Good News!

We are LOVED by a God who IS Love! We were created by this God of Love – in God’s image – so this means we are LOVED! Created by Love, in the image of LOVE, to BE Loved.

This is who we are.

Love is who God is.

Love is what God does.

Loved is who we will always be.

There is no “Love But…” verse in the New Testament. There is only love. Endless, boundless, unending, unrelenting, exceptional, amazing, fantastic, glorious love that we can only experience to believe and receive.

Hopefully one day those who call themselves followers of Jesus will relax and get comfortable with the idea of a God who really is love, inside and out. No “ifs”, “ands” or “buts” allowed.

Until then, I’ll just keep posting about the God who loves us more than life itself.

Won’t you join me?

 – Keith Giles, shared with his kind permission

Link to original article is here.

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Salvation here referring to it in its broadest and most complete sense of the complete restoration of relationship with God; the wholeness, peace, healing and freedom that Jesus brought. Not the ‘being saved from Hell’ stuff, because I don’t believe in that theology, but even if Hell exists, then He’s saved us from that too.
⇧2 Jesus spoke of these people in Matthew 7:6, where He suggested that people “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces”. And that is exactly what they do. I will let you ponder the meaning and ramifications of such actions performed even by fellow believers!
⇧3 As usual, the idea of ‘the church is, at the same time, both the best, and the worst, witness for Christ’ is true more in the second case (the worst witness) than the first case. These people are a proper pain; funsuckers, emotional vampires and definitely not people you would want to have ‘encourage’ you. They feature quite heavily in the Biblical book of Job 😉