mikereflects.com
Questions that challenge Christian character and reputation
L1/1 Christianity is too restrictive. Isn't it just about following rules?
L1/2 Christians are meant to be forgiving, so why are they are judgemental?
L1/3 Isn't Christianity sexist, homophobic and tolerant of racism and slavery?
L1/4 How can Christians say that only Christians are going to heaven?
L1/5 Why did Jesus need to die for sins?
L1/6 Why do Christians go on about sin?
L1/1 Christianity is too restrictive. Isn't it just about following a load of outdated rules?
To answer this maybe I would start with the question of rules: my objective being to explain that Christianity is not essentially about rules, rather it is about Jesus Christ bringing us into a new relationship with God, a relationship based on forgiveness and love for God. I would also need to acknowledge that living in a good relationship with God does involve reference to guidelines or rules that these are far from ‘outdated’.
One answer
‘For me, being a Christian is about having a relationship with God. Because I love him, I choose to obey him. It would be the same in any relationship – you know what may please or displease the other person and you willingly choose to make that person happy. We all need some guidelines in place to not only help us but be better for the community we serve. A lot of the so called “rules” Christians choose to follow, are followed by society in general, i.e. do not steal, do not murder, do not lie, be kind to one another, love one another.’
Or,
‘Christianity is essentially about coming into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ who then liberates us into living out God’s love for other people – this in an ongoing process, we don’t start out perfect, but it should result in Christians being fundamentally joyful people even in the face of hardship and suffering.’
‘I don’t find that Christianity’s rules are outdated. The rules are there to keep me from thinking always only about myself and pushing my own interests and agendas, but rather to think about others and to work for their good. The level of relationship breakdown in society suggests to me that many people are in fact running their relationships for their own benefit and are prepared to walk away from them as soon as they feel they are not getting more out than they put in. I think Christianity’s rules are very much up to date!’
I would then try and answer the first part of the question by giving a testimony as to why I find Christianity to be liberating rather than restrictive.
‘Personally, I don’t find Christianity restrictive; on the contrary, I find it liberating. It sets me free from having to give in to the peer pressure that affects many others. I have come across quite a number of people who do or have done things they regret because of giving in to peer pressure, but I never felt the same pressure because everyone around me knew that, as a Christian, there were certain things I wouldn’t do. I know many people who have got regularly drunk because their friends do (and regret it), but I can go out with my friends and no-one expects me even to drink, let alone to get drunk. I have had several people say to me that they wish they hadn’t started having sex so early, but they did it because they felt it was the ‘thing to do’. By contrast, the Christians I know who don’t have sex before marriage are generally much happier and have much deeper relationships both with their friends and with their boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife when they do embark on a serious relationship.’
L1/2 Christians are meant to be forgiving, so how come they are so judgemental?
I may need to explore what the enquirer has in mind; e.g. has she/he recently been upset by the way a Christian has treated them, or are they chaffing at a perception that Christians condemn them for their permissiveness or their abuse of alcohol, drugs etc. My answer needs to be tailored since they may not understand the nature of forgiveness (pardoning and choosing to forget without denying truth) and that being non-judgemental essentially entails not condemning others at the same time as not condoning their actions.
‘Christians aren’t by any means perfect – they do need to keep turning to God for help in correcting their attitudes – and that is what Christianity is about – it is about coming into a good relationship with God and then finding God’s provision to help us live unselfishly and with sympathy for other people.’ ‘Yes Christians should be forgiving but also we are to love and love is sometimes very uncomfortable place to be. Forgiveness as seen by our current culture is to be meek and soft, however forgiving someone but making people live with the consequences of their decisions is a different matter all together.’
L1/3 Isn’t Christianity sexist, homophobic and tolerant of racism and slavery?
Sexist? With regard to the charge of sexism it is important to define exactly what is and is not meant by this term. Sexism means treating one gender as less valuable than the other (and consequently not treating them as equals in God’s sight). It is not, therefore, inherently sexist to regard men and women as having different roles to play in society, provided that those different roles are regarded as equal value both in theory and in practice. Christians have different views on the roles of men and women in society – some say there should be no generic difference, while others regard men and women as being generically more suited (physically, psychologically and/or socially) to one role rather than another. Some in this latter category may be sexist to some degree, even if unintentionally, but it is important to note that the view is not in itself inherently sexist by the above definition.
Regardless of the failings of particular Christians, Christian teaching is emphatically non-sexist. Paul, for example, writes that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus treated women with a high degree of respect and dignity (in a culture that often denigrated them) and Paul addressed men and women equally (in a culture that would normally speak only to men and ignore the women, or address women very much as inferiors). Christian teaching therefore values men and women and their respective roles as equally valuable, although there is some disagreement about the roles that men and women should normally expect to perform in society.
Western democracies are based on the Christian culture and have developed equal rights for women in stark contrast to countries based on Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or ancient cultures. Admittedly it has taken 2000 years for women to be emancipated from an often subservient social status that most ancient cultures have held women under. However Christian principles have helped bring about our modern social revolution
Homophobic? Again it is important to define what is meant by this. Homophobic means literally the irrational fear, dislike of and/or prejudice towards those orientated to same sex relationships. This may be manifested in their exclusion from social groups, being insulted, being refused service, and a variety of other forms of discrimination. However, the belief that homosexual/ lesbian practice is wrong is not in itself homophobia, provided that the person is respected and treated as valuable. Nor does it mean for example that those who firmly hold to the unique value of heterosexual marriage are somehow homophobic: they are not! There is homophobia in the church, but this would be against the teaching of Christianity. Jesus teaches us to forgive and welcome all people, and to encourage all people to live a life in submission to Jesus.
However Jesus regarded heterosexual marriage as sacred, and St Paul explained the reason for this being that marriage specifically between a man and a woman demonstrates physically the spiritual union that God expects between the church and himself – and for this reason marriage is to be held as sacred by Christians. This illustrative notion however depends on the presuppositions that a husband should love and exercise leadership in a marriage, and that their marriage is a mutual commitment to lasting loyalty. Hence the Bible proscribes any other sexual unions for Christians, whether it is pre-marital sex, affairs between men and women, or homosexual or lesbian sexual unions – none of these are to be held as sacred and should therefore be avoided by Christians. Changing the meaning of marriage militates against this Biblical notion of the sacredness of marriage.
Despite homophobia being present in the church, it is clearly that Christians are called not to judge non-Christian relationships (inclusive of same sex relationships). Yes Britain as a Christian culture made homosexuality illegal for centuries and sent people to prison, but that reflected a past national desire to be a Christian country by enforcing Christian values on the whole population. You have a similar situation of course in Muslim counties where for example women caught in adultery in Saudi Arabia have been executed in recent decades. Whether such enforcement should ever be regarded as consistent with Jesus teaching is another matter: I think it is not.
Racist? Similarly, it is true that Christians have at times been tolerant of racism, but this is clearly against the plain teaching of the Bible. The quote from Galatians 3 (“there is neither Jew nor Greek”) emphasises this, as does Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and Paul’s assertion that God “made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17).
With respect to Racism, according to Oliver Tambo (the exiled president of the ANC during the Apartheid era, it was the worldwide Christian church that was foremost in bringing the former racist South African regime to its knees – so you can hardly accuse Christianity of racism even if there have been occasional pockets of racist rhetoric and practice done in the name of religion. Racism is against all Christian principles as is sexism.
Slavery? With respect to Slavery we need to be aware that the practice was endemic worldwide until Britain made a stand against it in the eighteenth century. At that time Britain was a slave trading nation, but it was Christians notably Lord Shaftesbury who fought for decades in parliament to recognise the human rights of slaves to be free and it was Christian nations such as ours and USA that then led the way in attempting to abolish slavery worldwide. Sadly slavery still survives in some parts of Africa and India and increasingly within a globalised sex trade.
In Biblical times the Roman economy for example was totally based on slavery, and converts to Christianity who were born slaves and others who were slave masters all joined the Christian church, and so St Paul in his letters to the churches encourages slave owners to treat slaves as equals in God’s sight. Those who took his words seriously would have felt strong pressure to set slaves free, and equally without encouraging church members to break the Roman law, St Paul encouraged those slaves who had the opportunity to gain their freedom. However St Paul did emphasise that Christians whether slave or freemen should always show the love of Christ to people and do all their work as if they were working for God not human masters. That might appear to some people living today as being tolerant of slavery, but was it really? I don’t think that ultimately it was.
Even in the OT book of Genesis God told Abram his people would be slaves for four hundred years, but he also said “he would punish the nation that held them as slaves”. This implies that God does not agree with slavery. Although the Bible does not condemn this economic institution, it never commends or commands slavery and the whole thrust of the Bible’s vision is to bring liberation for all (freedom from slavery in Egypt; the laws commanding the release of slaves after seven years’ service; Jesus’ mission to “proclaim freedom for the captives and to release the oppressed” (Luke 4); the purpose of the Atonement to set us free from slavery to sin; Paul’s admonition to slaves to gain their freedom if they can and to freemen not to allow themselves to become enslaved (1 Corinthians 7)). Therefore, the abolition of slavery was entirely consistent with Christian teaching, and those who tried to defend and continue slavery by using the Bible as justification were misinterpreting and/or abusing its meaning.
Prayer: Thank you Lord for helping your church to combat social evils arising out of prejudice and the desire to hold power over others: help us in humility to glorify your name.
L1/4 How can Christians say that only Christians are going to heaven?
The questioner has apparently heard Christians make this claim. However what I need to get across to the enquirer is something about the nature of God rather than define who will be with God in heaven. So I need to start with a statement about God necessarily being perfect self-sacrificial love that is creative in self-sacrificial love, i.e. citizens of heaven are those who are allowing God to help them grow in self-sacrificial love. God has shown us such love to humanity in and through Jesus Christ, however the Biblical text does not support the claim that only Christians are destined for heaven. For example it is quite clear from the New Testament that all the Old Testament saints (who were devout Judaists, not Christians) were already in heaven when Jesus was alive on earth. Further St Peter states that following his death, Jesus preached to the unbelievers of Noah’s generation amongst others, and this must imply that he at least believed that the dead are still capable of repentance. Jesus parables, e.g., about the rich man and Lazarus, and about the sheep and goats do not suggest that all citizens of heaven were Christians on earth. So in answering this question we must not claim more than is clear from the Biblical text and not be afraid to disclaim this simplistic statement.
‘The Bible makes it quite clear that God’s desires that everyone should come into a good and eternal relationship with him and that this is why Jesus died for the sins of all humanity, whatever nation or religion anyone is born into. God is perfect self-sacrificial love and wants to create a community of beings who will share in that creative self-sacrificial love here on earth as well as in eternity. On this basis it would be wrong to suggest that God is ever going to stop people who have not as yet joined his family from turning to God in faith and being accepted into God’s kingdom.
Christians believe that God has clearly shown us how we may enter eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ and since Jesus is God’s answer for all humanity. So Christians may come across as believing that only Christians on earth are going to heaven. It is quite clear from the New Testament that all the Old Testament saints (who were devout Judaists, not Christians) were already in heaven when Jesus was alive on earth. Further St Peter states that following his death, Jesus preached to the unbelievers of Noah’s generation amongst others, and this must imply that he at least believed that the dead are still capable of repentance. Jesus parables, e.g., about the rich man and Lazarus, and about the sheep and goats do not suggest that all citizens of heaven were Christians on earth. The fact is that we can’t know now who will be in heaven, but we can know that heaven is where God is and where perfect love will be worked out in the new lives of its citizens and if it is possible for God to be merciful to anyone who wants to be perfected in God’s love after their death, he most definitely will be merciful.
L1/5. Why did Jesus need to die for sins? Couldn't God just forgive us?
I approach this answer by providing ‘practical reasons’ why Jesus needed to die for our sins.
None of us ever lives a selfless life in relation to other people let alone God. So, once we are aware that it is God’s intention that we should live a life here and now of obedience to him (Jesus said, ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!’), we come to know we have sinned and we feel unable to do much about changing our nature. Not knowing whether we can be forgiven or not by God is unlikely to help us to change. But knowing that God will forgive us our sins might not change us either – we might conclude that we may as well continue with sins anyway – besides which would we really believe such a message! If you came to believe as some Muslim extremists do that by dying as a martyr when killing fellow less committed Muslims, or killing Christians or Jews that you are so showing you really love God and that by so doing you would be going straight to heaven with all your sins forgiven, then you might mistakenly take that course of action (despite the fact that the Koran in Surah 3 states that God regards Christians and Jews as his children well as Muslims).
So how can we really believe that God has truly forgiven us? For example would a statement given by Moses or Confucius or Mohammed stating ‘God has forgiven you all your sins’ be likely to change you? I think not because however much you revered the prophet as a man of God, you would still only have the prophet’s word for it. The fact is that none of these three men made any such statement. Mohammad for example, as recorded in the Muslim Haddith, stated that he ‘prayed ninety nine times a day for the forgiveness of his own sins.’ This admission alone shows that even the great prophet of Islam himself humble as he was, did not feel confident about the forgiveness of sins.
However really knowing that God has loved us so much that he has personally carried all the penalty we deserve for our unbelief is the only practical way we might come to ‘fall in love with God’ and then start to believe that we can change with his grace working in us and through us. And that is exactly what Jesus Christ has showed us by his death. This was not just theoretical –you might ask how has God who is all perfect really suffered the loss and sorrow of our imperfection? Well Christians believe that God was in Jesus Christ and because the eternal God is spirit, the separation Jesus felt from his Father when offering himself for our sins on the cross, wasn’t just an event of 2000 years ago. It is also a permanent and spiritually painful marker in the heart of God. It was not that Jesus carried in his body the physical death that we deserve as some believe: it is rather that Jesus (complemented by God his Heavenly Father) carried in himself the spiritual separation that our sin deserves. If we come to God accepting Christ’s sacrifice was personal for us, we will really find God’s grace to change us!
Theological reasons
Of course there are also theological reasons for why Jesus needed to die. There are at least five valid theological reasons, but suffice to mention one that Evangelicals love to quote, viz. that all sin carries a penalty and since God is the God of justice, the only way we can be saved from the eternal death of separation from God that our sins deserve, is for God himself to carry the sentence which is prescribed. And this is what Isaiah prophesied (Is.53) and what Jesus fulfilled.
Other answers
God just forgiving us would undermine what he wants to achieve with us. The two greatest commandments are all about relationships with Him and then with each other. God wants an eternal relationship however he has left us free to decide for ourselves. Nor does God want in his presence, the dirty and damaged creation we have caused both in relation to ourselves, others and our environment. The only way to cleanse ourselves individually so we can present ourselves to him is through Jesus and then we need God’s Spirit to get us into shape for an ongoing relationship with God. Suppose you were a professional footballer and presented yourself as being fully fit to the manager when you were not only unfit but injured, thus putting your team at risk of losing. Essentially we are that injured and unfit footballer until we accept Jesus as our medic and God’s Spirit as our trainer to get us both well and into shape to be ready to perform for God.
Paul writes (Rom.3:25) that “God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” St. Paul is here saying that we are aware of God’s righteousness and that he will judge us for our sins (and we should tremble at the prospect!): however, the Gospel is that God has provided a way for the just deserts of our wrong doings to be met. God presents us (Paul declares) with Jesus sacrifice for us and this is an all sufficient sacrifice to cleanse us from the guilt of our sin. Our only response needed is to turn from our own way to God and to believe that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to cleanse us from all sin.
To overlook sin without dealing with it would make God unjust, because God does not tolerate sin. The sinful attitudes of our hearts must be eradicated with God’s grace for eternal relationships to be possible. So, salvation from sin is not simply about being forgiven, it is about being united with Jesus. God became man so that we could be united with God and share in his life. By dying on the cross Jesus faced God wrath for us and took the spiritual death that we all deserve. God then showed us that judgement and separation are overcome by raising Jesus from the dead and giving us the power to live a new life free from sin – just as Paul also writes in Romans 6:4, “We were buried with Jesus through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
L1-6. Would Christians do better appealing to people’s good nature rather than dwelling on their sins?
‘The issue is twofold. Appealing to a person’s good nature strokes their ego which might encourage their pride. This kind of pride will not help them come into a proper relationship with God which needs to start with our realisation of our utter helplessness and need of God’s grace. Not communicating about the nature of sin gives people a false idea about what being a Christian is about, however conversation about sin needs to be balanced with conversation about grace. PW’
‘The issue of sin is not really understood in our culture. It is not fundamentally about displeasing God by doing this or that misdemeanour. It is about not being in relationship with God’s means of God’s grace, viz., walking by faith in Jesus Christ. If as Christians we walk in step with God’s Spirit, we will hopefully not commit sinful misdemeanours, and will instead be pleasing God.’ MW
‘There are aspects of this suggestion (Q4) that we can agree with, but other aspects that I think we need to disagree with. It is of course true that Jesus avoided passing judgement on those in society that everyone else looked down on. He welcomed, encouraged and restored them, and did not focus on their sins. In presenting the gospel, we should avoid any hint of being judgemental. On the other hand, Jesus did not overlook sin (he said to the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more”). Neither is it true that he never judged anyone – he was ferociously judgemental of the religious leaders’ hypocrisy. Therefore, it may be said that Jesus did not focus on the sins of those who already knew they were sinners and thought God would reject them for it, but on the other hand, for those who believed that they were good and that God would accept them, he blasted their hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Consequently, it seems fair to suggest that there is no gospel without an awareness of sin, and those who are not aware of their sin may need this pointed out to them.
Another aspect of agreement with the suggestion is that we clearly want to make Jesus appealing to people. We have a positive vision of the Kingdom of God to share with people, and more than just a get-out-of-hell-free card. What we are sharing is good news, not simply an avoidance of bad news. If people truly understood the beauty and loveliness of the Kingdom, they would be hammering on its doors. We do not need negative campaigning to win this election! We should share the wonderful possibility of a free, socially just, loving, honest community that Jesus offers. However, it is also important to explain this in such a way that people realise that they need Jesus in order to get there. Most people in our society think of themselves as basically good people – if there’s a heaven, they’ll be in it; if there’s a God, he’ll like them; if there’s a judgement, they’ll be judged on the good side. It is important to portray the vision of the Kingdom in such a way that people realise (ideally, realise it for themselves rather than having us ram it down their throats) that without Jesus they will end up being excluded, that they are incapable by their own efforts of being ‘good enough’. Otherwise we will short-sell the gospel, and also leave the world wondering why they need Jesus to have all the good things we are promoting.
Finally, I think we need to note that our society no longer understands what sin is. In the past, because people had a basically Christian world-view, they understood that they were sinners in need of a saviour, and so evangelistic presentations needed to remind them of this fact. Today, there is groundwork that needs to be laid before we can get to this point. Thus, it is not that we should focus on people’s good nature in the modern world in order to encourage them into the Kingdom; it’s that people in the modern world are so bad that they no longer realise that they are bad. We have to build up from basics an understanding of what sin is and why it is bad, by tapping into the few remaining moral categories that people have – social injustice, broken relationships, dishonesty – and show them that these things that they condemn in others result from moral failings that they have themselves and from which they need to be cured. Then we can point to Jesus’ death and resurrection as the means by which God took on himself our sinful nature and infused us with new life in Christ. AC