doubts and stouts

It still kind of surprises me that 10-15 people show up each month curious to talk about some controversial/theological issue. It reminds me how hungry people are for a connection, for some understanding about who God is and how God is at work in our lives.

Last night we met to talk about the doctrine of election. Predestination - the belief that God predestines some to heaven and some to hell. Over the years, predestination has given Presbyterians a bad rap. In corny church-culture jokes, we're sometimes called the "frozen chosen." Now, gathered with actual church folk I was surprised to learn that they hadn't really heard about this belief through the church, only through history books. It seems our church is so shocked (or shamed) by the stigma that we don't teach about it anymore.

As always, there were more questions raised than possible solutions and as I know this is frustrating to some, it's quite beautiful for me. As Sarah Miles writes in her book Take This Bread, we are perhaps called to be "the personal and institutional capacity to dwell in the ambiguity and unsettledness."

Many of us were uncomfortable with the belief that God chooses some and not others. We struggled with the continuous tension between God's sovereign character (all powerful, all loving, always present) and our own free will.

We did find grace though. We found comfort in knowing God has reached out to us. We found great encouragement in scripture where it is written in Ephesians 1:4 that "God chose us in Jesus Christ before the creation of the world." We found some solace in 20th c. reformed theologian Karl Barth's thoughts who said that Jesus was both the Elect and the Rejected and that through him all are invited to know God. We felt more comfortable with God choosing all of us, granting us free will and then acknowledging that some will turn away. Also acknowledging that justice needs to be part of the equation and we don't need to play judge, but trust that God does.

All sorts of new questions came up for us: What is heaven, really? And what about hell? Are these places or spaces after death or experienced here, too? What about when Jesus talks about the kingdom coming now (on Earth) in the Lord's Prayer...

Well, stay tuned. Next month, that's exactly what we're discussing. Join us and please feel free to continue the conversation by adding your thoughts here.

Is Jesus the ONLY way?

I've been asked by some of you to blog about our last doubts and stouts gathering where we engaged the question - Is Jesus the only way?

It was a really fruitful discussion and not a topic we all agreed on. Some decided a definitive "Yes," others "No," and many stuck in the middle very aware of all that is at risk by claiming a definitive answer either way.

At stake for us in saying "Yes, Jesus is the only way" to God...to heaven...to eternal salvation and peace is 4/5 of the world's population. What about those who haven't heard Jesus' name? What about people devout in other faith traditions? We sacrifice important interfaith dialogue and working together for peace and justice in the world around us. We limit God's freedom to speak in different ways to different people. Sometimes, safety is at stake by making this claim. We've been violent with one another over this issue by not being tolerant of other faith traditions.

At stake for us in saying "No, Jesus is not the only way" is the costliness of the cross. Various faith traditions allow space to reach out to God, yet Christianity is unique in that we believe that God actively reached out to us by coming to us in the form of a human and giving the greatest gift of sacrifice so that we might know God. If we don't claim Christ as unique and essential to our faith, why practice Christianity over any other religion? Do we take the cross in vain when we say that it is not essential for knowing God? Perhaps our scripture is at stake when we say that Jesus is not the only way.

Rev. Susan M. Strouse gives us some historical and literary context for the gospel of John in her article "Is Jesus the Only Way?" She reminds us that John 14:6 was not written as an answer to a 21st century question about other religions. It was written to help those early Christians - and us, too - not to fear what comes after death.

One suggestion brought up in our conversation is the metaphor of God as a large being, say an elephant, and we are situated around the elephant such that we are all seeing a different view. Those of us facing its front may describe it's trunk, those from the side, it's belly, those in the back, it's tail. God's allowed to be complex :)

Another suggestion was to think about who Jesus is for us - what Jesus stands for - and to try substituting a different word. It was suggested that sometimes our words get in our own way of hearing and understanding one another's experience or belief. So, if we believe that Jesus is truth, light, peace, forgiveness, justice, love, reconciliation....we can say "It is through truth/light/peace/forgiveness/justice/love/reconciliation that you come to God/heaven/true peace/eternal life.

The push back here is that Jesus made it so that there is nothing WE can do to enter God's presence. It is a gift. The language substitutions make it seem like we have to live in truth, light, peace, forgiveness, peace...etc. I get it. I also think it wouldn't be bad (and Jesus would even love it) if we lived that way.

Needless to say this remains a complex issue with no simple answers. Living in the 21st century, experiencing Christianity as a world religion and seeing that we create violence and war over these questions...I think it's important that we seek space for safe conversation, understanding, and tolerance even when we disagree.

We need to claim our faith on our own and not apologize for what we believe. And at the same time we need to be very careful not to play God and use scripture as a weapon to hurt others.

doubts and stouts

You may be surprised to hear that pastors doubt.

I certainly do and I'm ok sharing it with the world because my doubt often allows me to move closer to trusting and loving God. Instead of avoiding that there are hard things in life to reconcile with my faith, I prefer to name them, test them, and debate them. And this process helps me claim my belief in God even more.

Mission Bay Community Church just recently formed a group called "Doubts and Stouts." A member of our community, Joel Bylsma, had this hunger to talk about hard theological/philosophical questions and wondered if others might, too. So, we started this group. He coined the awesome name "Doubts and Stouts" and we met last night for our first gathering at a grill/pub for conversation and craft beer.

Our first topic was theodicy - If God is all powerful and all loving, why is there suffering in the world? I know...start easy, right? The conversation was rich and diverse. More like a brainstorming session than a philosophical argument. We provoked each other and the question and we found ourselves considering history, philosophy, science, scripture, and church culture. We had a lot of fun!

For those of you interested, here are some brief notes from our discussion. You'll notice there are WAY more questions than answers :)

 Theodicy = if God is all powerful and all good/loving, then why does suffering exist?

- Why do we believe that God is all powerful? (God created, Jesus' miracles - power over nature)

- Why do we believe that God is all loving/Good? (The Bible tells us so. Jesus loves us. John 3:16)

- Does God love ALL people? What about when God told the Israelites to kill their enemies. Is God loving then? Contradictory scripture verses. 

- God's justice. Do we comprehend God's justice? Sometimes it feels like God is just unfair. 

- Deism - belief that God created the world and then stepped back and let the world run its course. We don't believe this. We believe God is personal and interacts/cares/provides for us. We believe this through the life, ministry and death of Jesus. 

- What are examples/expressions of pain and suffering that make us question God's character? cancer, natural disasters, suicide, young death, accidents, addictions, genocide.

- What about prayer? Do we believe that God is affected by our prayers? Or is prayer more about changing us and our perspective? What do the psalms do?

- What are some explanations for theodicy? 

(1) God is mysterious/we cannot know God's plan. Some of us are unsatisfied with this answer because it can make us complacent/passive. We think the conversation and action is important. 

(2) God gave us free-will, so suffering is our fault. This explains suffering that we can create, but not illnesses or natural disasters.

(3) The analogy of life being a quilt....the threads underneath don't make sense to us, but are being woven together to create something God-intended/beautiful. It's a perspective thing...we don't see the whole picture. We liked this explanation more, but still believe that God cares about us (little threads, if you will). We are told in scripture that God provides - God cares for the flowers of the fields and feeds the birds ..how much more does God care for us? (Matt. 6) 

- Question of scripture vs. theology came up. Why do we want historically/culturally to affirm that God doesn't change (all powerful/all loving), when in scripture God does change God's mind and sometimes God's character (wrathful, loving)

- Maybe suffering is given. Suffering is life. If this is the known, then how do we live our lives to find joy, hope, truth and love? 

At the end of the discussion, we had not solved this great problem. We affirmed that we only see dimly (1 Corinthians 13) and that faith cannot be built upon facts or philosophical claims. We talked about how some of us are ok accepting the mystery of God, but that we couldn't expect everyone to like or embrace the mystery. Some of us are just like "doubting Thomas" and we need more intellectual discourse and explanation. What I know... is that it is good for us to be faithful to our hunger...to doubt, to question, to debate, to share our life experience, to share our brokenness..and that through all of this, we may catch glimpses of hope in God and in one another.

We're meeting again the first Wednesday in August and will discuss another topic - "If God is all powerful, why did Jesus have to die to forgive our sins?" Thanks to David and Bob Boles for the awesome curiosity and honest question! Join us in person on online and feel free to share questions/doubts of your own!