Which Cable Gets you to Heaven?
I spent my 58th birthday organizing my USB cables and engaging, half-heartedly, in a theological debate on Facebook. I wasn’t “all in,” because you get the sense, sometimes, that some fellow believers just don’t share the same assumptions, even remotely, about the faith, and so there is very little hope of rational discourse. At various points in the discussion, some version of the following arguments were being made:
- Don’t trust anything Paul wrote. Only go by the red letters.
- The “war in heaven” explains the “chosen” people.
- “There’s a particular brand of being ‘baptized by the Holy Spirit’ you will need to experience, and you haven’t had it, if you don’t agree with me.”
- Christianity “evolves” by making mistakes and recovering from them.
- Don’t treat scripture as an “idol.”
One fellow went so far as to describe specific angels who had visited him and their effect, through him, on recent world history. He named three spiritual enemies he was contending with right now — Bael, Yizbael and Asmodeus.
Of course, this could be a troll. But trolls play on remotely credible personality types, and I’ve seen enough strange charismatics to understand that some of them actually mean every word they utter. Once you believe you’re actually taking orders from God, why should you limit yourself to some ancient text? How can the Bible stand against your very inventive prayer life?
Just a few years ago, a former Seventh Day Adventist pastor, Wayne Bent, set up shop in the New Mexico dessert and claimed he needed to sleep with seven virgins in order to usher in the final age. Wayne speaks in a low, kindly voice and gives every appearance of believing every damn word he speaks. That may be why several of his followers offered up their wives and daughters to him. (Claiming to be the new Messiah might help too.)
Of course, it’s easy to brush off outright quacks and cult leaders, but a lot of folks, in the faith, don’t go far enough to make it easy. They draw strength from some assembly of the like-minded somewhere, some golden glitter hovering over the pulpit, and—more likely—a new, secretly understood vocabulary shared by enough people to give it strength. One fellow, in a theological debate, kept referring to “My Dad,” or “My Dad is big enough to” (solve my problems, answer my questions, settle political disputes). Whenever he used the term “My Dad,” I got the feeling he was testing everyone else, to see whether they really had the same God or not.
This could all be dismissed were it not for the fact all Christians share a reverence for the approved miracles — the virgin birth, fishes and loaves, Jesus ascending to the Father. The modern day miracle worker is always ready to question your faith in those miracles if you don’t believe in his.
As I say, it’s easy to knock him off your porch if he’s asking to sleep with your daughter. It’s the subtle, spiritual-pride version that annoys me. The “gentler” version of denominational devotion can be far more difficult to abide: the Baptist who worries about your eternal salvation when you have a glass of wine, the Catholic who internally laments your want of his seven sacraments, the Pentecostal who doesn’t think you’re there if you haven’t shouted something incomprehensible in church. Even among some reformed people, I get the sense they believe Jesus will be administering a series of exams on the various catechisms and expecting a very precise answer on paedocommunion.
Things you ponder over the USB cables..
The different denominations and factions all have made it so confusing.
I wish it was easier, but maybe it isn’t supposed to be. Modern life makes it too easy to get distracted and diverted.
Still, I wish there were a simpler path like becoming a Templar. Knight and going forth to battle the Godless. Single path, single goal.
I think, by design, the confusion is there so as to encourage us to seek. It’s a bitch sometimes though.
Berry, it is easy. Easy and Hard. Acts 16:30. What must you do? Believe. Period. To be or to do is the great question. God does not accept our doing until we get the “to be” part right. You cannot “do” enough to be accepted. The belief is first then comes the doing which is the proof of the belief. We work out our salvation naturally because we are different. Any “denomination” that inverts or subverts that order is incorrect, thank you very much Roman Catholicism, etc etc. That is the single path and goal, to travel the narrow way regenerated and acting out our faith.
I am going to make the reasonable assumption that all Christians share a fundamental aspiration, which is to go to Heaven after we die. The necessary corollary of that assumption is that we ought to seek to understand what God wants us to do here on earth in order to achieve that goal, and to make our best efforts to satisfy those requirements.
What is your understanding of what we need to do – concretely, in terms of one’s own personal conduct – to attain eternal life? At this point I am primarily interested in what you think that we need to do, as opposed to a theological justification of why we need to do it, but of course you can answer in more depth if you care to.
Connect to the source. Believe in the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace and the Lord of Hosts. This belief, if true, will begin to change our lives. Our understanding of scripture, the world, His church, His people, will deepen. We will be filled with insatiable curiosity, and hope, if we nurture that faith in Him. This belief is born in an instance, one we may not even remember, but it grows over a lifetime. I think it’s a journey full of battle, injury, and ecstasy. That’s why it doesn’t ever seem “easy” at any one moment, or at least at every moment.
My guess is that almost everyone that you mentioned in your post – the guy who says “Don’t trust Paul”, the “baptized by the Holy Spirit” guy, the guy who talks to angels, the Baptist, the Catholic, the Pentecostal – would say that they believe that Jesus is the Son of God; and with the exception of Pastor Bent, the odds are that they are sincere enough to pass a lie detector test.
And yet, they have come to different understandings of “scripture, the world, and His church”, and sometimes radically different understandings from you and from each other. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if our understandings are different, in which case there is no point in dwelling on them, but I suspect you would agree that they are consequential to some extent. In your opinion, is there something beyond holding a sincere belief in Jesus that Christians are obliged to do in order to go to Heaven when they die? For example, do you think that the way that we choose to treat other people matters?
The sincere belief in Jesus should change behavior yes, and not just understanding, as probably implied in my first answer. We should get more patient, more loving, and even a bit more angry when anger is called for. When Paul preached to the Galatians, he declared that anyone who preached a different Jesus should be considered cursed.