On Salvation

Joie and I had a semi-theological discussion yesterday. (Dangerous, I know, for husbands and wives!)

To understand how amazing this is, you have to know a little about our different ways of faith. Where Joie has in the past tended to be non-critical of scripture ("It says what it says, why try to read more into it?") I have been the one who insists—often wrongly—that there's some deeper meaning there if we just dig for it.

Yesterday in church Reed took us through the end of Galatians 5. His goal was to juxtapose the "works of the flesh" in verse 19 with the "fruit of the Spirit" in verse 22. So this passage, along with its two lists and this proclamation was on Joie's mind:

¹⁹The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

At the same time I've been reading If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Gullley and Mulholland. This book, even in its first chapters, speaks directly to my own innate sense of how God works. To support their bold thesis they quote a number of sources, but three stand out:

Philippians 2:9: ⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jeremiah 31:34:
No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD.

Genesis 12:3, in God's very first conversation with Abraham: ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

I won't try to summarize all their points, but I'll say that I've been profoundly touched by the grandeur and simplicity of their view. A wrote an unpublished article a while ago that included my own simple-minded version of this idea: "Salvation, I began to see, could only be fully realized when we all experienced it together."

So as I described this book to Joie while we were driving around for errands and ice cream she asked a really good question. "What about what Paul says in Galatians? 'I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.'"

So I have to admit I'm stumped. The message behind If Grace is True is powerfully resonant with me, and the idea that no one is left behind matches the way I've come to see my God. But Paul is pretty clear here.

Now, it's possible Paul was growing and changing as we all are. The Galatians passage, according to some timeline, was very early in his ministry, and Philippians may have been the last thing he ever wrote. Maybe he started thinking Galatians-like exclusiveness, but came to see salvation as an all-inclusive, universe-absorbing thing by the time he wrote Philippians.

I don't know. But I'm glad Joie and I are talking about it. I think it means, among other things, that we're both still growing in Christ.

[Note: Why the hawk? I don't know. It was a picture Joie captured one morning outside our living room window and we were both amazed by it. He also looks very wise to me.]

On Faith vs. Religion

I came across an interesting article today. It's from US News and World Report and the headline reads, Many Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Religion, but Not Faith.

This is an interesting discussion for me, as someone who always considered himself adverse to religion but trying to find faith. It wasn't until I turned to Christianity as a thirty-something father of three that I realized how foolish and potentially misleading this point of view might be.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The article says in one place:

That trend has emerged in other recent surveys showing that more-bureaucratic and hierarchical traditions, such as the Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, are hemorrhaging members in the United States while highly personalized evangelical and nondenominational congregations are growing. But the move from religion to spirituality has also fed a surge in Americans identifying themselves as "spiritual but not religious," with more than 5 percent of Americans now describing themselves that way.

I understand fully well how dogmatic, fire-breathing and judgmental church experiences can push people to solemnly claim, "I consider myself a very spiritual person, I'm just not very religious." And I appreciate that they usually accompany this with a humanistic, healing worldview. "If I believe in the sanctity of all life," one might wonder, "and if I always strive to do no harm and to live an embracing and loving life…then why do I also need to be religious?"

Good question. The answer I've found for myself on this question is here, from James 2:16-18:

¹⁶If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

¹⁸But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

I'll be the first to admit that this answer is not for everyone. It wasn't the right answer for Martin Luther, who famously argued that James' letter wasn't even suitable for inclusion in the cannon. Of course he was the founder of the reformation, and insisted that faith alone saves us – none of our works, none of our deeds, none of the things we run about trying to piously accomplish.

But if I could argue against Mr. Luther I'd say that proper religion is faith in action. We can have faith, and we can be spiritual persons. But I don't think we begin to pay back that faith until we start living a religious life, until faith goes out and about in the world, changing hearts and lives. And it's often religion – for better or worse -- that gives us the foundation to go out and act out our faith.

Read the article and let me know what you think.

(Image by Luc Feyman)