November 2010

The following is Part 3 (Part 1, Part 2) of an e-mail exchange with my older brother, Skip, in which we discuss Christianity/atheism/religion/etc.

As much as possible, the e-mails are presented completely un-edited, except for the occasional addition of hyperlinks and/or redaction of personal information. Enjoy. [Above image courtesy of Flickr user Joi.]

Below is the final part of this particular email exchange with my brother. In it, he responds to what I said in the previous posts.

From: Skip Bouma
To: Jake Bouma
Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 11:33 AM

Thanks for teaching me a new word. Soteriological. Had to look that one up. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.

I don’t disagree with anything that you said. So I’m just going to roll through and maybe clarify a few things on my end.

Okay, I re-read the article and no, the author didn’t make the claim that the afterlife didn’t exist... directly. I guess I just inferred that from what he was saying. I suppose the part that really leapt out at me was this one: He said, "Notwithstanding the fact that Jesus is more than 1900 years late on his promise to return, this means, according to Jesus, all that are dead are still taking the eternal dirt nap. No one has entered, and no person will enter heaven until Jesus descends from heaven..." [I’ll just go ahead and cut off the offensive, logic-failing words because they are dumb and not important.]

So, to reword my question, are all the Christians that have died since Christ’s time still waiting for Jesus to return to let them into heaven? What I meant by run-of-the-mill people wasn’t non-Christians or the Jews of the time, but more like people like you and me who aren’t prophets. I got that from somewhere in his text… here: "There is no afterlife in the Old Testament. While there is Heaven, the celestial realm is reserved for God, his angels, and his prophets. 'The heavens are the LORD’S, but the earth He has given to men' -Psalm 115:16." [Emphasis mine]

Obviousy, JC was a game changer so the old testament take may be obsolete here. But I think I may have been confusing in my original question so I wanted to clarify. And I’ve probably set up another right/wrong dichotomy with my question rephrasing above which brings me to...

Touché on the hermeneutics angle. I agree that I set up the question in a right/wrong sort of way. That’s not what I was going for. I was wondering more if the idea had any traction or support from any respectable theologists (hmmm, MS Word doesn’t like theologist. Theologians? Success.) theologians? Can a theologian be respected if she supports such an idea? Anyways, I am digressing. I’d never heard anyone express this interpretation before and I was wondering if you had come across it before and had anything to throw at it. Which I think you did quite well.

I totally agree on the picking and choosing front as well. after I sent you the link I read the entire chapter [of Matthew] and I found the no one knows when the apocalypse is coming text. So I kinda punctured that balloon on my own. Fun side note -- have you seen the pictures of the anti-gay dude that tattooed the Leviticus verse about not lying with another man? That’s not that funny but what is funny is that the next chapter in Leviticus forbids tattooing oneself. Irony.

As for your part 3, I agree as well. Are you noticing a theme? You mentioned Brian Greene. Have you read either of his books?

And you go on to rip on the author’s logic, or lack thereof. And again, agreed. I did say to ignore all those bits but I’m sure it was just too much to resist. Much like my original email. But I thoroughly enjoyed reading your arguments, so thank you.

Oh, I just remember something about picking and choosing. Luke 19:27. Some guy cited it in his rant about something (I think the guy got a email forward from his aunt about how Islam is an awful religion of hatred and Christianity is a religion of peace -- something like that) and I was totally taken aback. That didn’t sound like something JC would be saying. So I had to check it out. Wow. So far out of context. Context is a distant memory here. Just thought I’d share.

That’s it from me. Thanks for responding. I appreciated it and enjoyed it.

Skip

{ 7 comments }

The following is Part 2 (Part 1, Part 3) of an e-mail exchange with my older brother, Skip, in which we discuss Christianity/atheism/religion/etc.

As much as possible, the e-mails are presented completely un-edited, except for the occasional addition of hyperlinks and/or redaction of personal information. Enjoy. [Above image courtesy of Flickr user Joi.]

Below is the second part of my response to Skip's email (again, this will make much more sense if you read the blog post that Skip referred to):

From: Jake Bouma
To: Skip Bouma
Date: Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 10:10 PM

3) Part of what pissed you off (and rightly so) in what I believe we're referring to as "Round 1" [a prior email exchange] was the fact that a non-scientist was making authoritative scientific claims. So why should I not be pissed when a non-theologian makes authoritative theological claims? I'm not, but you get the point. If atheists are allowed to get upset when Christians denounce evolution without having read Darwin, I'll get upset when this guy makes soteriological claims without having read Moltmann. The point is: For the most part, theologians make shitty scientists and scientists make shitty theologians (John Polkinghorne is an exception that comes to mind). The problem is that both groups think they're in essentially the same business: making sense of the universe. Anyway, it wouldn't be beneficial for me to read E.O. Wilson or Steven Jay Gould or Brian Greene with the intent of ripping them apart theologically in the same way it wouldn't be beneficial to you to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer or John Caputo or Ched Myers with the intent of ripping them apart scientifically. It would be beneficial to read them expecting to learn something, even though we might disagree with some things.

Okay.... what were we talking about? You'll have to forgive my digression.

Ah yes, on to this: You said, "Are there other verses that do provide a heaven for normal people?"

Yeah. Plenty. Ephesians 2:8, for example, says "For by grace you have been saved through faith." (In most cases in the New Testamant, you can assume that "saved" has something to do with heaven/the afterlife) But, again, tossing out-of-context Bible verses about mostly does more harm than good. And to make my position clear, I am not 100% certain where I land on the salvation-for-all-or-some continuum, but I am pretty certain that it's the wrong way to frame things... Christianity is (read: should be) concerned with bringing about God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I have no use or tolerance for religious escapism in the form of "accept Jesus and you can go to heaven when you die!". I call bull$#@%. But again, I digress.

I'll get to what CJ said in the blog post now, and I'll try to keep it short.

He says, "Notwithstanding the well meaning intentions of the respective clergy, that preside over funerals, my question is why do they lie to us? Is it their intention to deceive, or have they failed to read of understood the Bible?"

If you need me to point out why this is stupid, I will, but I think you know.

Next, he says, "The Bible is very clear on the terms and conditions in respect to the afterlife:"

No, it's not, CJ. Not only is it not "very clear", but very dedicated Christian theologians are still filling volumes and volumes of books debating the nature of salvation and the afterlife. For some reason I doubt CJ has read any.

He says, "There is no afterlife in the Old Testament."

While it is true that early (and I mean eeeeaaaarly) Jews didn't believe in the afterlife, the concept of Sheol as a place-after-life developed slowly throughout Jewish history. That's why you can find both the non-existence of an afterlife and the existence (i.e., Sheol) in the OT. And then Jesus came along and messed everything up, soteriologically speaking.

He says, "Like many Jewish priests, rabbis, or teachers of the first century – Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew. He saw the world in terms of good and evil, an Old Testament worldview of sorts, whereby God presses the ‘NUKE’ button whenever the sin barometer climbs too high vis-a-vis the Flood, and Sodom & Gomorrah. Jesus saw evidence of sin and the Jewish people turning away from God, 'adulterous generation', and therefore he firmly believed that the end times were coming, and soon. ('Before the current generation would taste death.' (Matt 24:34)"

Yeah, Jesus talked about the apocalyptic. What most people fail to see is that Jesus uses apocalyptic language, a language necessary to understand the radical transformation that God's kingdom names, to announce that the kingdom has come and is present. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says of this particular passage, "Apocalyptic language suffuses the story Matthew tells because such dramatic language signals the difficult task that Matthew takes to help us discover how we must learn to see and live in the world under the lordship of Christ."¹ Again with the understanding-things-in-context-of-the-entire-narrative.

He says, "Notwithstanding the fact that Jesus is more than 1900 years late on his promise to return, this means, according to Jesus, all that are dead are still taking the eternal dirt nap. No one has entered, and no person will enter heaven until Jesus descends from heaven riding a white fluffy cloud, and do you really believe that will happen? The primary fuel for my cynicism is Jesus’ false promise. He has already proved himself, in regards to his second coming, to be a false prophet."

See the point above, but did this dude fail Logic 101? Jesus hasn't returned, therefore he never will, therefore he's a false prophet. Impeccable. Yes, Christians are still waiting for Christ to return. Interestingly, 12 verses later (from the verse CJ quoted), Jesus says "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (see Matthew 24:36). Seems like CJ knows. Should I worship him?

Finally, he says, "My question being, why can’t our church leaders find words of solace and comfort for the bereaved without the theological dishonesty?"

Really? After all of that shoddy faux-theology you want church leaders to simply comfort people sans Jesus? If he's so gung-ho about Jesus being a false prophet, why is he still expecting that the grieving should even go to church leaders? And what would theological honesty be (for CJ)? "Yeah, sorry your husband died. I hope it comforts you to know that there's no such thing as heaven." Theological honesty wouldn't exist, because the "honesty" part of it necessitates that the "theological" part of it doesn't even exist, what with Jesus being a hoax.

Anyway, I'm done. Feel free to rip this apart where you find faults.

Jake

That's it for my response to his email. Next up is Skip's response to my response.

1. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006. 24. [↩]

{ 4 comments }