All posts in Salvation

Lesson 15: Summary

by Scott Noon on October 28, 2011 in Salvation with 1 Comment

Looking back over all the biblical pictures of salvation you find many similarities. For one they are primarily about healing what is rather than escaping from this world. They reflect our craving for something better that the suffering of our society. In that sense, they not only report what God promises to do but also point to what we should be doing as we participate with God in making a better world.

Uppermost they promise good government. Throughout the Bible government does not have a good name. In the Old Testament God protests when people want to have a king rather than living in simple community under his leadership. And maybe 95% of the references to worldly government are about how lousy they are, because they never deliver on their promises. Sure Paul speaks about obeying the government, because it gives order. But Revelation makes no bones about saying Satan is directing the Rome Empire, Jesus’ words about giving what is Caesar’s to Caesar have to be read as indifference. He’s sort of saying stay out of trouble and work on what is really important.

Salvation offers community rather than government, a community which practices real justice, because everyone cares for one another. There is no longer a need for faith and hope, because now all live in love. All have enough, because all share.

Sometimes reading the Bible is like watching a modern Eastern Europe film where people live through the Nazis, the Communists, Cowboy Capitalism, and finally find happiness and contentment tending their own little gardens. However, the biblical pictures never come across as romantic. They are not hiding from the real world, but participating with God to make a better one.

The Lord’s Prayer echoes these pictures, asking that God’s will be done on earth, that we receive daily bread that is enough but not too much, and that we live safe from evil and temptation. The Communion does the same when it gathers the community around a table to share bread and sing that this is a foretaste of the feast to come.

I learned a lot while writing this course. Let me take off a few weeks to decide what to do next. I plan to start again some time in March. If anyone has any suggestions for another course, let me know.
It seems fitting to end with the picture of the Christian life and its salvation that appears in I John 4: 7-21 . “God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ..No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the Day of Judgment…There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

Amen, Come Lord Jesus. Make all things right, even if it means turning all upside down.

Lesson 14: Challenges

by Scott Noon on October 28, 2011 in Salvation with No comments

A couple of my face- to- face fall classes used Kristen Largen’s What Christians Can Learn from Buddhism: Rethinking Salvation. In her last chapter she suggests four challenges Buddhism offers to our popular Christian picture of salvation. In many ways, the suggestions simply ask us to recognize parts of our tradition that have always been there, even though we presently ignore them.

First, Largen believes Buddhism reminds us of the communal nature of salvation. Most modern Christians see judgment and salvation completely directed at individuals. Some even speak of an individual being raptured out of the relationships of this life. Largen asks Christians to take “into consideration the lives of others who interact with them and shape them on a daily basis.” They have made us who we are. Surely they deserve any blessings we receive.

Her second challenge is related to the first. She asks us recognize “humanity’s fundamental interdependent existence”. When we do, salvation becomes the transformation of our relationships and organizations. It is amazing that many modern people describe themselves as self-made people when they actually depend on others from all over our global village for just about every thing they use. The epitome of this might be the Left Behind series that makes the destruction of our world and our relationships part of the salvation process. When we read the Bible carefully, we find God loves and saves the world.

A third challenge asks us to rethink the possibility of universal salvation. Salvation’s goal always included the blessing or healing of all nations. We tend to overlook texts, such as Colossians 1: 15-20 and Ephesians 2: 10, that imply all will be saved in the end. Whenever we rejoice in God’s unconditional love, we should pause to acknowledge this means there are no exceptions. I’m not sure Jesus meant to exclude anyone when he spoke, “Forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” from the Cross.

Largen’s last challenge calls us to stop concentrating on salvation as something happening only in the future. The Bible speaks of it beginning far back with Abraham. It claims it is offered to us at baptism, describing the sacrament conferring the first fruits of salvation. Largen sees a “now-not yet” scenario here. Marcus Borg hops on board when he claims one of modern Christianity’s primary problems is speaking about salvation as something that happens in another world after we die. He and Largen call us to practice our salvation now rather than later. Now is the time to participate with God in healing the creation. They certainly receive biblical support when Jesus proclaims “The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the good news (Mark 1: 15) or when he observes the Kingdom is among us (Luke 17: 20, 21). Paul acknowledges the same when he writes “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1: 6)

I was genuinely surprised when the classes examined Largen’s challenges. I can not say most of the people rejected the challenges. They seemed to hope maybe she was right. However, they were convinced the Bible did not support any one of the four. I, on the other hand, do not think we need Buddhism to make these challenges. I think they have been right there all the time in our tradition. We have simply ignored them to our loss.

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