Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Indeed Very Many: Universalism in the Early Church

by Matthew Distefano in Christian History

That position [Universalism] has consistently been held as heretical by the Church for two-thousand years … You can go back to Athanasius, you can go back to Augustine, you can go back to Huss, and Tyndale, and others.
— Mark Driscoll

While the doctrine of universal reconciliation has indeed been a minority position throughout most of Christian history–albeit not quite two-thousand years!–all one has to do is turn to Augustine, a clear non-Universalist, to see how it was once upon a time a rather popular doctrine. He, in the fifth century, rather dismissively writes:

It is quite in vain, then, that some–indeed very many–yield to merely human feelings and deplore the notion of the eternal punishment of the damned and their interminable and perpetual misery. They do not believe that such things will be. Not that they would go counter to divine Scripture—but, yielding to their own human feelings, they soften what seems harsh and give a milder emphasis to statements they believe are meant more to terrify than to express literal truth.
— Augustine, Enchiridion, sec. 112.

When Augustine described the Universalists as “indeed very many” (immo quam plurimi), what he meant is that they were a “vast majority” (Ramelli, Christian Doctrine, 11). That is what the Latin word plurimi, from the adjective plurimus, implies. And though Augustine himself didn’t affirm this doctrine (although he did in the beginning [Ibid.].), he… [Read more…] about Indeed Very Many: Universalism in the Early Church

An Open Letter from the Syrian Border

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Current Events

This guest post is by Sheri Faye Rosendahl.

Dear America,

Self-proclaimed Christian nation, I wish the lives of others mattered to you as much as Starbucks coffee cups. I know the guy you call savior instructed you to love others as yourselves, but that seems to have become more of a catchy phrase than an actual command to live by.

A few days ago, a handful of miles north of where I am sitting right now, a chemical attack massacred innocent Syrian children as they slept. As the Internet floods with yet more images of small, limp, lifeless bodies piling up, my heart falls apart knowing this just adds to the atrocities the world watches, yet refuses to respond to with love.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with one of the most beautiful and kind families I have ever encountered. They are refugees from Syria and, like millions of others, they have lost everything while going through the unimaginable. After fleeing their homes and everything they have ever known, they are now stranded on the border of Jordan since the majority of the world doesn’t seem to care more than expressing a shallow sense of sorrow at what “those poor people” have to go through.

Where is our true compassion? If we were able to find any speck of empathy within our souls, we would quickly sacrifice what we Americans so often cling to: time, money, refuge, and our self-absorbed fears. However, our shallow comforts and our privilege of apathy are taking precedent over the lives of others.

If… [Read more…] about An Open Letter from the Syrian Border

One God

by Sandy Brunsting in Christian Issues

Several years ago, after going through a very troubling church experience, I went through a time of intense examination of what I actually believed. I had come to a place where I needed to figure out if my faith was real or if it was just an institutional construct. At one point, I read four or five books in about a month in which the authors either went through a significant season of doubt, or they deconstructed their traditional way of doing church and rebuilt it into a more authentic expression. Those books, and the friends who traveled that difficult road with us, were instrumental in reshaping the landscape of my faith. What I believe now looks very different, more expansive and much more inclusive, than it did before.

God hasn’t changed, obviously, but the way I think about him has. My view of him is bigger, less traditionally boxed-in, and contains more mystery. While I believe that the best way to understand him is to look at Jesus, I also believe that he reveals himself a lot more widely than I ever believed before.

For example, if God is the one and only god and he created the whole universe, then nothing in all of creation is beyond him. He is the Source, the Creator and the Energy inherent in everything, and he reveals himself and can be found everywhere (Deut 6:4, Gen 1:1). And also, we can get to know him, at least in part, by just looking at the world around us in all its beauty, complexity and intricacy(Rom 1:20).

If God created all of us in his image,… [Read more…] about One God

Jesus, the Cathedral and Me

by Marguerite Sheehan in Christian Spirituality

Reflections on John 4:5-42

Sometimes when I think about Jesus he seems so far away–someone in a distant time and place, more spiritual than physical, more transcendent than incarnate. I get tired and I wonder if Jesus is really calling me or if I am just hearing my own desire echoing back across the hills. And then, three Sundays into the Lenten journey, he showed up “at about noon” in the Gospel and I was right there with him, thirsty and needing a drink of water to refresh my spirit.

Sunday afternoon I went to the Cathedral in the Light, an outdoor worship service. I went because our church had accepted a request to help with making the meal for the worshipers. Right after our 10 a.m. worship, a group of us gathered around the table downstairs and we made sandwiches to go. Ham and cheese. Peanut butter and jelly. It was fun slapping those sandwiches together. We laughed and we said a prayer that everyone would be blessed by this activity. I said that I would bring the food to the Cathedral. I wanted to be there and I also wanted to be home. It was a long day.

I got to the common with my box of sandwiches. It was about 2 p.m. Cold and windy. A storm was on the horizon but it held off. People volunteered to take different parts in the worship service. The musician played “Sanctuary” on his guitar and we got ready to be a living sanctuary. We sang and prayed. There was a very drunk person reaching out to everyone he saw and asking “Is this church?” Yes, this is… [Read more…] about Jesus, the Cathedral and Me

"I Just Go by What the Bible Says" and Other Ridiculous Things Pastors Say

by Darrell Lackey in Christian Issues

If you’ve spent any time in a fundamentalist or evangelical church, you’ve probably heard some variation of the following from the pastor or leaders: “I don’t preach my opinions, I just preach God’s word;” or, “I just want to know what the Bible says;” or, “I just believe what the Bible says;” or my favorite, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” You get the idea. And even if you haven’t heard these exact words, you’ve likely heard the similar sentiments. However, these assertions and the ideas they represent are entirely unhelpful and frankly ridiculous.

The primary idea informing the statements above is that we need to remove ourselves from our Bible reading. We need to stand outside the text, at a distance, so that we don’t taint our reading with our own personal subjective opinions and ideas. The Bible just means what it “says” or what is written. Simple. Just open it and read. What’s the problem? Wow–where to begin?

First, no one can step outside themselves and interpret any writing from a purely objective space. No such space exists. We are always persons in context. We exist in specific locations, whether culturally, geographically, philosophically, or theologically. We were and are shaped by a myriad of complex influences, many of which we are hardly even aware. We are the result of a long process of shaping and the influence of others. We are always “situated.” We bring all this to whatever it is we are reading (not just the Bible) and we… [Read more…] about "I Just Go by What the Bible Says" and Other Ridiculous Things Pastors Say

Dust

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.

I am dust; to dust I shall always return.
But don’t assume as you disturb my rest

with your omnipotent kitchen broom that
I am mere debris to be swept up and away.

Remember. We are interfused, you
and I, suspended in each other,

vestigial particles of endless galaxies,
diminishing and becoming, deposited

but for a moment amid yesterday’s dinner
crumbs and dog hair. Tomorrow?

I am cyclonic, demanding skeletal trees
to dance with me through dry valleys;

or I am breathed out by destructive
detonating demons only to settle, leaden,

on a sandal-sheathed foot severed
from the child who sat at grandma’s

table while she cooked the evening meal.
But I am also the cadence of the soil, eternity

dug up in a spade and sown with ordinary
mystery. Still, don’t assume I am magic either,

or that you are, except when in a distant
sun-soaked garden we tango with the departing

light and time’s muted colors bend onto our
backs and we carry life across ancient seas

to fertilize the future. Remember. You are
dust; to dust you shall forever return.

 

Dust was in the news this week. Popular Science reported that dust from Asia might be fertilizing sequoias in California. In stark contrast, another headline from this week reads: “Inside Mosul, a huge blast, then screams, dust and horror.” Bombs flattened houses on a street in Mosul, and citizens were buried beneath the rubble.

Across the globe in Las Vegas, a dust storm… [Read more…] about Dust

This Is Red Letter Love

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Christian Issues

What exactly is red letter Love? I mean, we all know the great command to Love your neighbor–pretty straight-forward, right? Be kind and Love our neighbor as ourselves.

But it’s who that includes where it gets a bit tricky, because, according to Jesus, our neighbor includes our enemy. He even told the famous a story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate his point.

So, what does Loving your neighbor look like according Jesus? In modern terms, it can look something like finding a beat up, half-dead member of ISIS on the side of the road and stopping, taking him in, bandaging his wounds, and spending your own money to have him cared for. Knowing he is your greatest enemy and showing him Love anyway.

It is a counter-cultural Love. It is not the way of religion or even American Christianity, but the way of the red letters, of self-sacrificial Love. It is a simple concept, but incredibly difficult to live out, especially in our culture of me-first mentality. It means that Loving others takes priority over Loving yourself in every way: over your fears, your time, your hobbies, your money, your career–above all, Love.

And, for the record, “loving” with a goal of converting others is not truly Love. It has a deeper agenda which often, unknowingly, manifests through subtle manipulation. It’s weird, burdensome, and uncomfortable. The underlying motive for Loving others–in the red letter sense–must simply be the goal of attempting to Love like Jesus. Point blank, no… [Read more…] about This Is Red Letter Love

Is This a Person?

by in Current Events

A bill currently in the Montana legislature seeks to amended the state constitution to define a “person” as “all members of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development, including the stage of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency.”

If passed by the legislature and a subsequent ballot referendum, it would provide full legal protection as “persons” to fertilized eggs, zygotes, and embryos, thus effectively outlawing all forms of abortion, some forms of contraception, as well as in vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Derek Skees, views this as just a small part of the national “pro-life” movement that has been invigorated by Trump’s election. Skees said:

“We just won the presidency with a new president, and his position is pro-life. His vice president is pro-life. The majority of folks in both chambers in Washington, D.C., are Republican, and the majority of them are pro-life … We have some awesome opportunities within Trump’s eight years of presidency. We could have two more Supreme Court justices.”

Regardless of your general views about abortion, the idea that a cell, at the very moment of fertilization, suddenly becomes a person and therefore has a legal right to not be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” is ludicrous. A zygote can’t see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. It can’t feel happiness… [Read more…] about Is This a Person?

What I Believe Doesn't Matter

by Cindy Brandt in Christian Issues

“Cindy Brandt, Do you believe in Hell?” asks the most recent commenter on my blog.

I feel like a little kid whose parent uses my full name because they are upset with me, and I  sense that this question isn’t really seeking an earnest answer but is instead a veiled threat. But I will give the commenter the benefit of the doubt that it is a genuine question and reply:

What I believe does not matter.

I have come to a peaceful place, knowing that if there is a God, then God loves and accepts me for who I am, not for what I believe. I could be a missionary on fire to evangelize the world or a raging heretic, chasing after God or resisting God at arm’s length, but God will always be within my reach.

The people who taunt me with litmus tests of orthodoxy no longer affect me because I simply do not care about a passing grade—like I tell my kids, your grades are just a number, what matters is that you are learning and that you learn to love learning.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that ideas do not matter. Ideas shape our actions and theology drives our ethics. Much of the destruction from religious fundamentalists is a direct result of terrible theology, so it is important to be able to engage theological issues with nuance and academic rigor. Nor do I dismiss the meticulous work of philosophers and theologians throughout the centuries who persisted in critical engagement. Their works were an invaluable resource to me as I wrestled through my existential and faith… [Read more…] about What I Believe Doesn't Matter

I Desire Mercy, Not Masochism

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

In the fourteenth century Europe was struck by the bubonic plague, the deadliest disease outbreak in history. During this time, there emerged a group of Christians called the Flagellants. They would publicly whip themselves and inflict brutal lashings upon their bodies. People in the Middle Ages knew nothing about viruses or how infections worked, so a common religious explanation was that sickness showed God’s wrath toward some sort of misbehavior. The Flagellants believed that if they punished themselves severely enough, then they would win God’s approval, and his punishment would be withdrawn. This belief was rooted in an ancient and primitive spirituality, in which people believed that God or the gods would be angry if they were not satisfied, and must be appeased through endless cycles of sacrifice.

This idea is so deeply embedded in the human psyche that it still shows itself today. In the Western Christian world, God has often been seen as a punishing deity that is easily angered and swiftly hands out discipline. Not remedial discipline to change the behavior of people, but vindictive, punitive judgment that only serves the desire for revenge. This vision of God usually twists people into self-deprecating, guilt-laden zombies with a mindset not that different from the Flagellants. Many religious people today seem to constantly hold themselves in contempt, perpetually highlighting their shortcomings, and denigrating themselves to no end. It is a blatant dishonesty to… [Read more…] about I Desire Mercy, Not Masochism