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No Man is an Island” and Christian Theology

Posted on 24 March 2015, 12:21

Last blog, I made the case for saying that Consciousness studies and Science in general demand that the Spiritual/Physical universe is seen as One Whole, in which all is “entangled” with all else; that “God” must be seen as “In all, through all, and above all.” The idea of a separate God “in the sky” so to speak, is nonsense. Likewise the idea of a separate Devil “under the ground”, so to speak, is also nonsense. We can find plenty of Bible quotes in the Gospels, especially John, and in the writings of St Paul consistent with seeing God as in all, through all, and above all. But it is true that we can also find quotes saying the opposite, and that is why we need to appeal to spiritual experience and science.

Although there may be differing answers, let us ask what is the essence of the teaching of Jesus? John Morreall, in his Questions for Christians [2014], suggests that the teaching of Jesus can be summarised in “Ten Tenets”:

1. “Love ethic: Love God and all people.

2. God’s children. All human beings are brothers and sisters, with God as their Father.

3. Equality: Each person counts the same.

4. Socialism: From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

5. Servant Leadership: Leading people should not be dominating them, but serving them.

6. Festivity: Celebrating your loving relationships.

7. Antilegalism: Minimize the number of rules. Apply them flexibly to benefit people.

8.Divine Judgement: God alone is judge.

9. Forgiveness: Be ready to forgive anyone or anything.

10. Pacifism: Do not resist an evildoer.”

If readers know their Gospels, they will be readily able to think of stories and teachings supporting this idea of the Ten Tenets. But Jesus’ teaching went further.

Morreall is excellent in his analysis of the weaknesses of several Christian dogmas, but unaccountably fails to see the evidence for the afterlife both in the scriptures and in contemporary literature. There are many examples of this failure in his book, but now is not the time to address them. He fails to grasp the other main teaching of Jesus relating to the Kingdom of Heaven, where God rules, embracing both the spiritual and material dimensions. It is the fact that we are, if you like, participants in God, that underlies, undergirds the Ten Tenets. We are participants both in the physical world, and the eternal world of Spirit. That is the basic fact underlying all else.

But if we could accept these tenets, as well as Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven and the afterlife, we might well have sufficient operational theology to have in mind with the psychical research, or studies of exceptional human experiences, that are pursued in books published by White Crow. We might even find that the Ten Tenets plus the teachings about the Kingdom of God, would be acceptable to other world religions.

If we were to think deeply about all this, would we need to come up with further doctrines? Do we needs theories about Ransom and Atonement, the Last Judgement, the Trinity, Transubstantiation, Homoousian versus Homoiousian, Justification by Faith, Mortal Sins, and Venial Sins, the Apostolic Succession, and other doctrines which at various times in the last 2000 years have been the subject of deep divisions in the 34,000 Christian denominations, often resulting in massacres in physical military warfare? Exactly how do they help to make the Ten Tenets a reality in our lives?

These doctrines “draw a circle to shut others out”. There is a need for a theology that can “draw a circle to include others in.” Such a theology can be found in those Tenets of Jesus, and his teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. (In defence of the many churches who do largely follow these Tenets: while not denying such doctrines as I have listed, they often allow them to fade into the background. People going to church also differ widely in what they believe privately, so one has to be careful about generalising.)

Apart from what I have seen as major flaws in Moreall’s work, he is very helpful when he surveys the history of Christian doctrine. A theme running through much of what he writes, is how those formulating doctrines persistently saw beautiful Biblical poetry and metaphors as some kinds of logical and literal statements. An example of this is to be found in my former blog ,“An interesting story from the Fourth Book of Maccabees.” There, I discuss the Gospel quote on which such a vast edifice of Christian theology has been built, that Christ’s death on the cross was “a ransom for many.” The phrase has been the cornerstone of Christian doctrines of the Atonement. It was a metaphor, a poetic picture, but literal minded people saw it implying some kind of money transaction, or some kind of barter. The death on the cross, was some kind of payment, cash or barter. But that metaphor of “ransom” had its origin in a story well known to contemporaries of Jesus. In my blog I mentioned a story in 4 Maccabees that was well known to the contemporaries of Jesus: namely, that a priest’s widow and her seven sons had all allowed themselves to be burnt alive, rather than submit to Greek Tyrant Antiochus’ demand that they eat pork. When the graphic account of their prolonged sufferings was concluded, we read the remark that “their death was, as it were, a ransom for many, a propitiatory sacrifice whereby the nation of Israel was preserved in the true faith, and did not submit to the will of the conqueror.” We should note the words, “as it were”. Those words specifically say that “ransom” and “propitiatory sacrifice” are metaphors. Good metaphors, powerful metaphors, but metaphors none-the-less. An early interpretation of the ransom theory was to see Jesus as a sacrificial lamb. As sacrifices were offered in the temple in Jerusalem to appease a God angry at sin, so Jesus the sacrificial lamb was offered. Not money, but a gift in kind, to mollify God’s anger at the sin of mankind. Largely confined, in their thinking to the world of space and time, the early theologians have the World, and a separated God, and a separated Devil. Jesus’ death on the cross was a literal ransom. Through sin, humanity had incurred something like a monetary debt to God. This “debt” had to be paid in some way. Augustine put it like this: When Adam bit into that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, he consigned all of humanity that followed him into the power of Satan, of the Devil. Until the time of Jesus, all humanity was under Satan. How did Augustine suppose Jesus death was a saving transaction? Augustine developed what was called the Mousetrap theory. A “separate” God allowed his son to die on the cross, which cross was like a mousetrap to catch Satan. “The devil jumped with joy when Christ died, and by the very death of Christ the devil was overcome: he took as it were, the bait in the mousetrap. He rejoiced at the death thinking himself death’s commander. But that which caused his joy dangled the bait before him. The Lord’s cross was the devil’s mousetrap: the bait which caught him was the death of the Lord.” [Sermones] This “mousetrap” doctrine became the official doctrine of the atonement for the Catholic church until the 1100’s when Anselm felt that the doctrine gave too much power to Satan. His theory was that God being a just God must punish sinners for their sins. Punishment must occur. So what happened when Jesus died on the cross was that he took all the sins of humanity onto his back, and suffered the punishment for those sins, thereby fulfilling God’s will that all sins must be punished, and thus giving humanity the chance of making a new start. I am not clear how Anselm came to the conclusion that God had to punish all sins, but that’s roughly what he said. The Anselm theory became the doctrine of the Catholic church, and fundamentalist Protestant sects since that time. (There were other theories, but this was by far the most popular.)

Jesus’ own teaching about Atonement is to be found in the story of the Prodigal Son. It implies: When we repent and turn to God we find him coming to us with open arms. This has been the experience of many throughout the ages. God is our rock and our salvation. God is a God of love, slow to wrath and of infinite mercy. How the doctrines of Atonement avoid this simple truth!

People suffering from autism do find it difficult to understand metaphors, and interpret them literally. We could unkindly diagnose Augustine and his successors as suffering from autism. Moreall points out the Hebrew and Aramaic, and indeed Semitic culture in general is rich in symbolism, metaphor and poetry, and also hyperbole. “Better to hang a millstone around the neck of one who offends” against little children, “better to cut off your hand… pluck out your eye” than to do something that would exclude us from the Kingdom fo Heaven. Jesus did not mean these things literally, he was just making an emphatic point. This is Semitic thinking. Moreall notes that when the Greek Christians started theologising about the Gospel, that they started logic-chopping, taking things literally, and then making up strange explanations, like the “mousetrap” theory/doctrine. The Greek language lends itself well for the purposes of logical analysis.

But in thinking about the Christian Gospel they used their logic to ill effect. They created doctrines which in the time of Constantine became a threat to the lives of those who disagreed with them.

It happened like this. The Roman Emperor Constantine wanted a state religion which would bind his empire together. He would have seen that the Ten Tenets of Jesus would be an admirable basis for life together in society. So he declared Christianity to be the state religion, and decreed that those who worshiped other gods in other ways should be punished. He called together a series of church councils to work out what should be said about Christian belief, and what was decided at these councils, by vote, became the new orthodoxy. Heretics ( people who disagreed with the new orthodoxy) were punished severely.

When Christianity became part of the apparatus of state in the time of Constantine, it paid a bitter price. Grand buildings were provided for worship, church leaders were given power and riches, disobedience to the leaders being punished. Jesus’ tenets about equality and leadership through service were disregarded. Furthermore Constantine is said to have had a vision of a fiery sword-like cross in the sky, with the words In hoc signo vinces. In this sign you will conquer. And conquer he did. So the pacifism of Jesus went out the window. And far from leaving it to God to judge, the church imposed a multitude of rules, like the ancient Pharisees. Christianity became part of the state apparatus throughout the Roman Empire, and when that empire collapsed the church remained, retaining the structure that it had had under the empire. With the Reformation, when churches broke away from the Catholic church centred in Rome, they remained part of the local state apparatus. When northern European countries such as Sweden embraced Christianity a thousand years after the birth of Jesus,as in the case of Constantine, the country became Christian by fiat of the monarch.

Whether or not Christianity would have survived to become a world religion, if it had not been for Constantine and later rulers, one cannot say. But it can be agreed that the Gospel of Jesus in many ways had been diminished.

As an Anglican priest, how do I deal with all this? In our church, there are no thought police, and we tolerate a wide variety of opinions in our midst. We emphasize communion, love, service of each other and the community. We may or may not add to that. But it is indeed painful to see how differing churches over the centuries have often perverted the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus about the God who is Father of all humankind into interpretations that divide and exclude.

The language of spirituality is manifold: tone of voice, fleeting expressions on the face, poetry, music, metaphor, art, humour, play, and often in what we see and here in the present moment. Our dreams too, make their contribution. The organised religions provide much valuable language also, provided that it is not mistreated.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
His forthcoming book, Into the Wider Dream will be published Winter/Spring 2015 by White Crow Books.


Comments

Thank you for this historical clarification on the origins of the doctrine of atonement. It complements John Lash’s research (in Not in His Image) on the cultic and psychological origins of the doctrine in the Old Testament. Swaim in The Death of JudeoChristianity does a good job relating it to trauma bonding. St. Francis’s revelation should have put an end to it, but here we are. BTW, I tried to subscribe to your Ground of Faith newsletter, but the website button wouldn’t work.

Daniel Kealey, Fri 17 Apr, 20:55

I think your friend Stephen’s teachings make more sense out of these matters than anything else I have seen.

I’ve been chagrined to realize that my name links me to Constantine’s wife Helena, also considered a saint—what terrible harms those two did!  But I do have to remember that Christians at the time were fighting to survive and that what now seems like such a bad bargain may have appeared to be the only choice.

It’s wonderful to hear that your church is so open, especially since related bodies in other parts of the world have been bitterly divided over whether to admit gay clergy, an issue which it seems to me would have been a complete non-issue to Jesus himself.  There is no end to the ways humans can find to create division, is there?  It must have been an excellent thing to go to the church where you were pastor. 

I love your phrase “participants in God.”  I have often tried to express that idea, and these words do it with great clarity.

Elene, Mon 30 Mar, 07:31

I too have been puzzled by the idea that some price has to be paid for sin.  I remember the psalm which says “God is provoked every day” and see Jesus’ rejection and suffering as a vivid demonstration of what it is like for God all the time, after all He has done for us. Somehow this needed to be made clear in human terms.  Disciples past and present share in this suffering and some learn to rejoice in it.  “Lifted up” Jesus draws people as demonstrations of power do not.  Resurrection adds another lesson

Jim Hunt, Fri 27 Mar, 08:27


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“Life After Death – The Communicator” by Paul Beard – If the telephone rings, naturally the caller is expected to identify himself. In post-mortem communication, necessitating something far more complex than a telephone, it is not enough to seek the speakers identity. One needs to estimate also as far as is possible his present status and stature. This involves a number of factors, overlapping and hard to keep separate, each bringing its own kind of difficulty. Four such factors can readily be named. Read here
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