<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In conversation with an atheist friend last night, I found him taking something of the same position as an old internet forum adversary has been taking recently, only much more politely. He wondered how I could possibly be a Christian, the adversary is given to loudly proclaiming that I\u2019m not a Christian (and, commonly, that I\u2019m a dangerous subversive serving \u201canother God\u201d, by which I anticipate that as he\u2019s at least a token monotheist, he must mean the Devil).<\/p>\n
So there we have it. If atheist and somewhat strange fundamentalists both think I\u2019m not a Christian, I\u2019m probably getting something right…<\/p>\n
I suppose the first thing to say is that I don\u2019t believe in any doctrinal statement as an absolute<\/em><\/strong> at all. As per my \u201cThe Heresy of all Doctrines\u201d<\/a> post, I think it necessary not to believe in any of them absolutely, even if as a scientific rationalist (at least in one of my internal personae) I also have to believe that they are all theories and are therefore falsifiable.<\/p>\n I do not have a similar problem with an emotional commitment of love and trust in God, for which the historical word is \u201cFaith\u201d. Nor do I have that problem with Jesus, insofar as he is still a viable object of love distinguishable from God. I can, therefore, comfortably declare my devotion to and following of the way of Jesus insofar as I can, and my faith in God, my love of and trust in God. I can also declare a pervading consciousness of the presence of God, sometimes massively heightened in which case I can use the words \u201cfilled with the Holy Spirit\u201d comfortably.<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t believe in a physical resurrection on the third day (technically I remain open to conviction, but it\u2019s vanishingly unlikely I could be persuaded, particularly as I have myself in the past felt a tangible apparition). I don\u2019t need to; Jesus returned and continues to be with his followers in every way which matters to me without the need for something I can only see as \u201czombie Jesus\u201d shambling around and walking through walls for an indeterminate period after death.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe in an afterlife in the sense that either of my friend or my adversary think of it either. We\u2019ll come back to that.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe in a literal heaven and hell after death either, though I hold out the possibility of something analogous to hell in certain cases.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe that there will at some point in the future be a \u201cLast Judgment\u201d at which a great separation will occur between the \u201csaved\u201d and the \u201cdamned\u201d according to sin, nor that there will be a literal destruction of heaven and earth and a rebuilding of them.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t believe in original sin or, indeed, that sin is a fault in God\u2019s creation (which I remind my readers Genesis 1:31 has God pronouncing to be \u201cvery good\u201d, a chapter and a half before the issue of sin first arrives, but when it is clearly latent and will arise). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What I do believe in connection with those last four is this. There is in me something which is God; there is also in me something which is self-centred and therefore inimical to union with God. That part of me is an inevitable consequence of my having self-consciousness and therefore free will, and this is how I view the parable of the garden in Genesis 3, as a story of the start of self-consciousness in mankind, and it\u2019s unfortunate side-effects.<\/p>\n I have experienced union with God, at least in a partial way, and long to be one with God again; this means that I wish to remove those desires and tendencies I have which are inimical to that union, which is what I regard as \u201csin\u201d (more mundane sins flow from that; in the sense that there is \u201coriginal sin\u201d, that is what it is.) Jesus shows me a way to this, to a significant extent through his \u201cKingdom\u201d<\/a> statements \u2013 and these also show me that this union with God can be sought for here and now and, above all, communally and for the world as a whole, not restricted to humanity as a whole.<\/p>\n I also experience this union with God, this partial entry into the Kingdom as being an entrance into atemporality (rather than eternity); I therefore experience God as being in part atemporal, this being the state of his continuing Kingdom.<\/p>\n Of course, the self-centred part of me can have no place in God\u2019s Kingdom whether on earth or elsewhere. At this point I note the author of the Theologia Germanica writing \u201cNothing burneth in Hell save self-will. Therefore it hath been said \u2018put off thine own will, and there will be no hell\u2019\u201d (from F.C. Happold, \u201cMysticism\u201d p.297).<\/p>\n Now, I have had experiences in the past which have forcibly diminished, if not completely removed, elements of my self-will, and some of these it would not be unreasonable to describe as \u201chell on earth\u201d. They haven\u2019t been forever, as in the worm never dying and the flame never being quenched (Mk. 9:48) but it has sometimes seemed that way.<\/p>\n Having recently stopped being severely clinically depressed overnight, I can also attest to a remarkable feeling of resurrection within myself; one day I was dead to emotion, which might as well have been dead; the next I was as if reborn with heightened emotions, heightened insight into my life, restored consciousness of the presence of God and hope. I also identify that as a deliverance from slavery and a return from exile, and can look to the rebirth, deliverance and return of others and, in time, the world.<\/p>\n As to what happens on death, therefore, I can envisage that sufficient attachment to one\u2019s self-will could at that point lead to something akin to hell; as entry into the Kingdom is entry into atemporality, it could be in some sense eternal. What I expect and long for, however, is reunion with God in that atemporality, with all self-will destroyed.<\/p>\n Which leads me to say that I do not see resurrection in my own body (whether or not \u201cperfected\u201d in some way) or survival as something which can reasonably be called \u201cChris\u201d as a possibility. I therefore have some difficulty in \u201clooking to the resurrection of the dead\u201d as I seem to find myself saying regularly, except in a way so metaphorical as to be unviable.<\/p>\n It follows also that I cannot see the crucifixion as being in any sense whatever a payment to Satan (ransom<\/a>), a sacrifice bringing back honour to God (satisfaction<\/a>) or a substitutionary death and agony substituting for one which is due to us (PSA<\/a>). But I can see it as exemplary in many, many ways, and I can see Jesus dying for our sins in the sense that his death and subsequent events bring to us knowledge of his Way which we now follow, as Jesus dying through or because of our sins in that individual and collective human sin killed him and as Jesus dying with us in sympathy with the human condition.<\/p>\n Now, not only am I confident that all of these views represent authentically Christian ones, I also consider them more thoroughly grounded in scripture than others, and most particularly more thoroughly grounded than the metanarrative which has God create something perfect which is then ruined by one man and one woman\u2019s disobedience, requiring eventually the incarnation of God in human form who dies horribly as a sacrifice to himself to set things right, but only for those of us who believe that to be the case, others being consigned to everlasting torment; then at some time in the future the elect will be restored to a newly created world free from these problems, the old one and everything in it having been destroyed.<\/p>\n So yes, I consider myself a Christian. I also consider the vast majority of Christian doctrine to be in error to at least some extent, and I acknowledge that I would probably not have been accepted as a Christian by most people claiming that title between, say, about 200 CE and now. But I am not yet a very good Christian, and I don\u2019t expect them to be either.<\/p>\n Arguably, there\u2019s only been one Christian, and, as Friedrich Nietzsche<\/span>, said, he died on the cross. Though Nietzsche erred; Jesus was not actually a Christian, he was a Jew.<\/p>\n