By Jack Irwin (Revised 2.2.2014) I am reading the well-written book The Cross Is Not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection by the Australian theologians Ross Clifford and Philip Johnson, published by Baker Books in 2012. Clifford and Johnson decry the Western Church’s failure to include the resurrection as the major buttress of faith, and they commented that the “heaven” preached by the church at large today is really a Gnostic idea of heaven. In Gnosticism salvation means that what is called the “separate soul” is released from the material body at death to return to the spiritual existence from which it originally came. This view of “heaven” as the place where souls of Christians go after death does not include the idea of the bodily resurrection of believers, which was a basic tenet of early Christianity (for example, see Paul’s emphasis on the bodily resurrection in his letters, especially I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4)). Gnosticism was roundly classified as heresy by the Church Fathers, who fought against its inroads into the Church in the second through fourth centuries AD.
This brings up the question of what in general does the current Western Church teach and preach as the tenets of Christian faith. Is the tenet of heaven talked about today wrong? Is it wrong not to include “resurrection” as one of the tenets of Christian faith? I thought I could use the Apostles Creed as a yardstick to measure what I perceive the Western Church generally preaches and teaches. The Apostles Creed is a good measuring stick. It is an ancient creed that goes back to the second century, and all branches of Christianity -Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and others – have adopted it through the ages to today. It represents the tradition of orthodox Christianity that was developed and fought for by the Apostles and early church Fathers. I have repeated each section of the Apostles Creed below, and appended my comments in capital lettering to distinguish them.
I realize some, perhaps many, will not agree with portions or all of my assessment. I realize that my perceptions may not apply to all preachers, teachers, congregations, and traditions. This is not intended to be a critique of my own church but it is my observation of the general landscape of American Christianity. There is a variety out there of what different preachers, teachers, and churches emphasize from the tenets of orthodox Christian belief. However, I hope my comments raise some awareness that even today we need the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to redirect us from our own prejudices to the truth. So here goes —
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth — WHAT DOES “TO BELIEVE” MEAN? TODAY IT SEEMS TO BE MERELY AN INTELLECTUAL ASSENT TO PROPOSITIONS, NOT A LIFE STYLE. JESUS INVITED PEOPLE TO FOLLOW HIM IN HIS LIFE STYLE.
And in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord — THE WESTERN CHURCH TALKS ABOUT JESUS THE SAVIOR, BUT NOT AS LORD.
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost — THIS TENET IS HARDLY TALKED ABOUT.
Born of the Virgin Mary – WE PREACH MARY WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS. SOME DEBATE THE “VIRGIN” BIRTH. THE WESTERN CHURCH USES THE WORD “ADVENT” TO DESCRIBE THE FOUR WEEK PREPARATION TIME UP TO THE CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS AT CHRISTMAS. BUT BIBLICALLY, ADVENT INCLUDES ALL THE EVENTS OF JESUS’ FIRST COMING – NOT JUST THE BIRTH, BUT ALSO THE MINISTRY, SUFFERING, DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OF JESUS
Suffered under Pontius Pilate — THIS IS SUBSUMED BY THE WESTERN CHURCH INTO ITS CONCENTRATION ON THE CROSS AS THE CENTER OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.
Was crucified, dead and buried — THE CROSS IS THE CENTERPIECE OF WESTERN CHURCH FAITH. OF COURSE, THE CROSS IS CENTRAL, BUT IT SHOULD NOT BE THE SOLE EMPAHSIS TO THE EXCLUSION OF OTHER ORTHODOX TENETS.
Descended into hell — WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? THIS IS HARDLY TALKED ABOUT IN THE WESTERN CHURCH, WHICH FINDS THIS VERY CONFUSING.
On the third day he arose again from the dead — THE WESTERN CHURCH TALKS ABOUT THIS ONLY AT EASTER EVEN THOUGH EACH SUNDAY IS THE “LORD’S DAY” WHEN WE SHOULD CELEBRATE THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD.
He ascended into heaven — THE ASCENSION IS HARDLY TALKED ABOUT TODAY. BUT THE ASCENSION WAS THE NECESSARY PREDECESSOR FOR THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AT PENTECOST.
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty — THIS IS HARDLY TALKED ABOUT. THIS IS THE SEAT OF SOVEREIGN RULE AND JUDGMENT OVER ALL CREATION. BUT THE WESTERN CHURCH TENDS TO NOT TALK ABOUT IT AND INSTEAD SEES JESUS ROAMING ABOUT IN BLISSFUL HEAVEN WELCOMING ALL THE SOULS.
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead — THIS IS NOT TALKED ABOUT AT ALL. THERE IS LITTLE DISCUSSION OF JESUS’ SECOND COMING, EXCEPT IN THOSE TRADITIONS WHICH EMPHASIZE THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF PROPHESY IN SCRIPTURE. THERE IS NO “JUDGMENT” AT THE END OF THIS AGE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH’S BELIEFS, SINCE THE ONLY IMPORTANCE IS GETTING TO HEAVEN WHEN YOU DIE. IN BIBLICAL TERMS JUDGMENT INCLUDES THE JUDGMENT OF GOOD AND EVIL. EVIL IS NOT AN ISSUE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH — ONLY GETTING TO HEAVEN IS. FURTHERMORE, JUDGMENT IS LIMITED TO THE DESTINY OF THE BELIEVERS AND NON-BELIEVERS. BELIEVERS HAVE ALREADY BEEN JUDGED THROUGH THE CROSS AND FORGIVEN!
I believe in the Holy Ghost — A VERY HARD CONCEPT AND PERSON FOR WESTERN CHRISTIANS TO GRASP. THE WESTERN CHURCH STILL ASKS WHO IS THE HOLY GHOST AND PRESENTS INVENTIVE ANALOGIES TO DESCRIBE THE TRINITY AND THIS THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY, FOR EXAMPLE SEE THE POPULAR BOOK THE SHACK. THE CHURCH IN THE THIRD WORLD, WHICH HAS NOT SO GIVEN IN TO MATERIALISM, STILL BELIEVES IN THE SPIRITUAL.
I believe in the holy Catholic Church — THE WESTERN CHURCH TEACHES A VERY THIN DOCTRINE ON THE UNIVERSAL NATURE OF THE CHURCH. ECUMENISM IS DEAD. FOR THE MOST PART WE SEE OURSELVES AS BELONGING TO SEPARATE TRADITIONS.
I believe in the communion of saints — THIS IS NOT REALLY TALKED ABOUT SINCE THE WESTERN CHURCH PREACHES AND TEACHES A PERSONAL PIETY RELIGION. WHO NEEDS COMMUNITY?
I believe in the forgiveness of sins — THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE APOSTLE’S CREED TO THE WESTERN CHURCH. WE GET TO HEAVEN BY HAVING OUR SINS FORGIVEN THROUGH THE SALVIFIC EVENT OF THE CROSS.
I believe in the resurrection of the body — THE WESTERN CHURCH ONLY TALKS ABOUT JESUS’ RESURRECTION AND NEVER ABOUT OURS. THE BODY IS LEFT OUT OF SALVATION. THE SOUL SURVIVES IN HEAVEN – THAT IS ETERNAL LIFE. SO THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF BELIEVERS IS NOT NEEDED.
And I believe in the life everlasting — THIS IS TALKED ABOUT BY THE WESTERN CHURCH, BUT WHEN IT IS, IT IS INTERPRETED AS THE SOUL SURVIVING DEATH AND TAKEN TO AN ETERNAL EXISTENCE IN HEAVEN, WHICH IS, AGAIN, THE GNOSTIC HERESY. IT IS NOT INTERPRETED AS THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF LIVING IN A FUTURE RESURRECTED BODILY EXISTENCE.
This was a very interesting exercise taking stock in general of Western Christianity. Make you own checklist for the preaching and teaching at your church, in your Christian tradition, or in general, as I have suggested. Every age of the Church needs a reformation. Today, the Western Church at large is in need of another reforming.
I bring tidings of great good news (it comes at the end of this letter). Jack is correct in bemoaning our abandonment of the ancient creeds (and their strange teachings) in favor of a much more comfortable and familiar mythology of heaven. Why put so much emphasis on the testimony of the eyewitnesses and their immediate successors? Why spend do much time and effort trying to figure out the origins of the church? Because something very uncomfortable happened 2000 years ago and it had such an IMPACT on those who were there such that the course of human history was abruptly halted and sent off in an entirely different direction—a direction that has resulted in the IMPACT of the death and resurrection of the risen Messiah of Israel (Christ) being felt in 2014 in every corner of the globe. How could we ever explain the origin, rise, expansion, penetration and perseverance of the Christian faith unless something really did happen back there and back then? (The chicanery and machinations of his devoted followers won’t do it; who remembers any of the other failed messiahs? How is bar Kokhba-ism faring today?) To make sense of all of this apart from the ancient witness is simple folly.
I have come to understand the bible differently than what I was taught. I have been trying for some time to convey these notions of Covenant/Kingdom/Resurrection and Restoration in apposition and opposition to the near-exclusive emphasis on the (biblically crucial truth of the) Cross and and the (non-biblical and unsupported) myth of American or Western Heaven. If the paradigm of CKRR is how the entire bible should be read as a unified whole and is how the entirety of scripture all comes together and makes “Ah Hah!” sense and is what the Church Fathers believed and taught, then we should ask, “Why did we stop believing this way?”
This is my answer: We are still children of the Enlightenment and stepchildren of both Modernity and Post-modernity. If we say, “Our souls go to heaven when we die” we are patted on the heads and told we are either true believers or good people, but in any event, harmless to the powers who currently reign. But if we say, “But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.” (Dan 12:13) or “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died….For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thess 4) or, God forbid, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and …. the home of God is among mortals…and he will wipe every tear from their eyes….death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” (Rev 21) [Excurses: I have always wondered, if we waft immediately to heaven and don’t really die, then how can God promise us that the last enemy to be conquered will be death? In other words, How can God defeat death in the future if we don’t die in the present?]—if we say these things how will we be viewed? As Left Behind kooks? As neo-zombieists with visions of dead bodies bursting through muddy graves? As a rogue, perverted sect which has strayed woefully from the church’s teachings? Certainly not as anything worthy of the heirs of the rational minds that founded our country or the “hearts strangely warmed” by new and more appropriate ways of reading the bible in a brave new world of individualism and adventure. Certainly not as heirs to the Westminster Confession.
What would happen if we actually tried to teach the gospel as Paul instructed us to teach it: “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”? (1 Cor 15) We would be warned by mega-pastors to be very careful of the safety of our eternal souls!
So I should be pessimistic about the chances that CKRR will finally win out, right? To borrow from Paul, “NO!” I have thought for quite some time that, in fifty years, we will rediscover the Church Fathers (as Josiah rediscovered the Torah scrolls) and there will be yet another half-millennial shift in how we read the bible. As the Great Reformers taught us, the Word of God is so powerful that it will eventually come bursting through the ramparts of any citadel built by human minds to tame it and contain it. These (currently) strange and alien views will be re-discovered as the life blood of God’s plan. We will be jolted awake from our comfortable slumber to the majestic truths that inspired the witnesses—that created a movement and a shift like none ever seen before in the history of the world. The Christian Hope will then become larger, brighter and more glorious than our current, small gospels. We will then back down Calvary hill and see with new eyes what it ALL means—not just selected and disjointed (and comfortable) parts.
Now, the good news—it may be that this is all happening ahead of my predictions. According to John Murawski| of Religion News Service, ““This represents an instance of two top scholars [NT Wright and Christopher Morse of Union Theological Seminary in New York] who have apparently grown tired of talk of heaven on the part of Christians that is neither consistent with the New Testament nor theologically coherent,” said Trevor Eppehimer of Hood Theological Seminary in North Carolina. The majority of Christian theologians today would recognize that Wright and Morse’s views on heaven represent, for the most part, the basic New Testament perspective on heaven.”
Read that last sentence again. The Huns are at the gates.
Roland
While I’m sure many would argue such a blog is unnecessary and may in fact go unnoticed by many, I have to say this theological geek enjoyed reading Jack’s pontificating and Roland’s thoughtful response. Well done my friends. A glass of wine in hand around a fire pit in Roland’s back yard would be ideal, but this was nice for me. Thanks guys!