DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

– “AM I A ‘FLAWED’ CHRISTIAN?”

Although not a full member of the Episcopal Church I enjoy worshipping at St Cuthbert’s on a fairly regular basis. The atmosphere is worshipful and the congregation friendly towards people from other denominations.   In the Church of Scotland the sermon is the high point of the service and having heard over seventy years of sermons I have noticed a steady deterioration in their quality.  In the Episcopal Church the liturgy would appear to be the bedrock of the service and consequently the sermon is less important.  But to me the Creed includes statements with which I find difficult to comprehend and some aspects of my faith are now causing me much thought.

Take ‘heaven’ for instance and the fixation that heaven’s locus is above the clouds.  We talk of Christ ascending and being carried upwards into space.  Surely this kind of language misses the point and does not encourage thoughtful young people to join the church?  Should we emphasise more frequently that many bible stories must be regarded as allegorical?

A literal interpretation of the afterlife puts us in deeper waters still.  Do we really believe that the faithful shall rise after death and meet with all those who have gone before, including the many we have let down or deceived?  We might find that quite an embarrassing prospect.  Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts in following Christ’s example and strive to lead a good life in this world.  I am content to leave the theologians to argue about the possibility of an afterlife.

The virgin birth is emphasised in the Creed but how important is it really?  If we find this story difficult to accept it does not in my opinion take away from the mystery and glory of Christ.  I believe he was unique and was the Son of God and he came to earth as a very special and wonderful being.  That his life and example have illuminated the centuries cannot be denied.

And what of the resurrection of Christ, said to be the very core of our faith and the high point of the Christian year.  How do we explain the empty tomb?  Is it literal or allegorical? Was it a real human body that appeared to the disciples or could we say in modern terms that this was a paranormal event?  Is it sacrilege to suggest that Christ’s reappearance after death might fall into this category of mystery?  Is it not enough to affirm that through the Holy Spirit we can sense the presence of Christ in our lives each day?

There is the question of the forgiveness of sins.  We are told that Christ died in order that we might be pardoned and given eternal life through the Father.  This is a difficult concept for the man in the street to grasp.  Why this cruel torture and suffering on the Cross in order that we might be redeemed?  As we sing in the Messiah, “He was wounded for our transgressions.  And with his stripes we are healed.”  The relief of the heavy burden of sin can bring profound relief to all, but the theological explanations of redemption are beyond simple Christians like me.

Although some devout churchgoers may be very upset at some of the questions I have raised, others may have shared with me similar feelings but have not dared to express them.  Our faith should be based on deep religious belief not on doubtful historical origins which may have become distorted as they are passed down over the centuries.

Modernising our faith does not mean ignoring its essential truth, but unless we do express it in a way that is more acceptable to the younger generation the church may slowly wither away.  The statistics presented yearly at the Church of Scotland General Assembly make gloomy reading and cannot be ignored.  Yet amongst many there is a yearning for things spiritual and a rejection of a materialistic society

Having queried certain difficult theological tenets, what are we left with?  We could start with a firm belief in God which protects us from the cynicism of the humanists around us.  Is God omniscient?  Is He all-powerful?  If so, why are there wars, disease and famine?  Why did He forsake his own Son on the Cross?  What kind of a God is this?

We may seek the answer to this dilemma in the personal testimonies of those like myself who, during their lives, have found that the love of God has been an endless source of strength in trouble.  If Christ came amongst us to show us the face of God, then we can glimpse through his life a sense that God is love and his love for us cannot be denied.  This amazing force of love is the strongest of all human emotions and if we accept that God made us in his image then love must be a reflection of his glory.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God and He should be seen as standing alongside us in times of trial.  Therefore the kernel of our faith should be simply to love God and love one another.  This essence of our faith is all we require to cope with life’s journey. And we need to express this in straightforward, modern language.

Where do these ruminations leave me?  Am I an unbelieving believer?  Am I the firm holder of a very simple faith?  Or am I really a flawed Christian? 

R.

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…..and a letter from Stephen in reply, addressed not only to R., but to all fellow travellers seeking to understand:

“THE PATH TO TRUTH”

Dear R.

St Cuthbert’s welcomes all comments about our beliefs and our worship that may help make it better or encourage us to think more deeply about what we are doing.  Having made the journey across from the Church of Scotland to the Episcopalian church you are in a good position to help us think more clearly about what we are doing in worship, listening to sermons, declaring creeds and saying prayers.  This is because you have lived in another church culture, while many of us have lived in a single culture for all our lives.

Most Christians find the Creeds difficult.  Part of the trouble is that they were written a long time ago in a different language and a different culture.  Why do we hang on to Creeds that make difficult and impossible to take literally statements about heaven and hell?  The reason is a simple one.  The divisions of the Church began in 451 AD when two groups, the Nestorians and the Monophysites split off from the main part of the Church over the question as to the nature of Christ.  The so-called Nicene Creed belongs to the year 381, to a moment in church history when all Christians agreed to be united by a single creed.  It would be impossible to produce such a creed now because of all the many divisions that have taken place since then.  But in using it we have to take on board a series of ideas and a number of symbols that are strange to us today.  The best way forward is to try to understand them in their original context.  Of course Christ does not take off like a rocket into the sky anymore than he descends under the earth into hell.  But this is a literal reading of metaphorical language.  Think of all the times we use ‘going up’ language metaphorically.  I used to ‘go up’ to London quite a bit.

The virgin birth is insisted on literally by many Christians but I for one do not think the New Testament evidence very strong.  Mark, John and Paul know nothing of this tradition.  Perhaps the idea of a virgin birth is trying to say what you are saying, that Christ was unique!

There are many problems with the accounts of the resurrection.  The resurrection appears to talk about a ‘new’ body, neither entirely physical nor ‘spiritual’.  The empty tomb tradition does not demand a resuscitation theory.  The body appears to have been raised and changed into a new form that could pass through doors and disappear suddenly.  It is a mystery but perhaps we are glimpsing also the way God takes the material world and transforms it to be the vehicle of eternal meaning and value.

You have raised the part of theology that is most difficult to grasp.  I would need longer than this column to show how the early Christians struggled with the meaning of the Cross.  It is enough to say that the risen Christ gave them a new sense of forgiving accepting power of God which forced to search for models from the Old Testament which could explain how it had happened.  The Old Testament was full of models of sacrifice of many kinds, all of which were efforts to approach God and achieve his acceptance.  That Christ created a bridge between humankind and God which seemed to fulfil all that the sacrifices had tried to do was sufficient to speak of Christ and his life and death as a perfect sacrifice.  Once again we are dealing with concrete metaphorical images which speak of abstract things.  The Jews were not good at abstract thinking.  They wanted pictures and concrete ideas with which to express the inexpressible.

The way forward to understanding the Bible is not to modernise it but to get inside the culture and thought forms of those who wrote it.  That is not easy.  It takes imagination and a recognition that the way we think is not the only of thinking that has ever existed.  The work required to penetrate metaphors and symbols of long ago will always mean that Christianity is not easy.  Modern people reared on so-called scientific fact find the work of imagination and wonder quite difficult.

The path to some kind of belief is to be found in the search for meaning.  The answers in our search for meaning are not designed to take away all problems, all tragedies but in a growing conviction that behind all the mysteries and unanswered questions there is a transcendent being who reaches out to us so that we can reach up to him.  The faith that has all the answers is an immature faith and is more suited to the infant child who cannot deal with any contradictions or uncertainties.  If our searching does stumble upon some meaning for our lives, and I hope it does, then we can live richer and better lives as a result. 

Many of the problems about belief in God centre on the idea of power.  We want to say that God is all powerful yet he does not seem to exercise this power when our sense of fairness suggests that he might.  But the life of Jesus shows us clearly how power is manifested in powerlessness.  This is a paradox with which we have to grapple.  It would seem, R., that all your queries are placing you right at the centre of this paradox of Christian believing.  The one who gets closest to the truth is likely to be the one who is prepared to ask lots of questions and struggle to find the answers. 

There is nothing shameful about this – indeed I am happier to travel with a sceptical questioning believer than a person who has all the answers.  Let us keep up the questioning because truth is more likely to be glimpsed this way!

Stephen Parsons