As my first heady year as a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City was drawing to conclusion, I made a trip upstate to a small town on the west slope of the Catskills. Some clergy and churches in that area had created an innovative field-based studies program in partnership with Union. I was considering spending the next year there in that program.
On that trip, I visited a small church, where I would serve as a student-pastor in the coming year if I entered that program. During my first year of seminary, I had worked at a wonderful, racially diverse congregation on Manhattan's west side. It featured lively, contemporary worship and cutting-edge justice ministries. I loved the joyful exuberance of worship at that church.
The upstate rural church was different. It was quite small. The people were mostly farmers, with a truck driver or teacher thrown in. Others worked in small restaurants, beauty salons and Mom and Pop grocery stores. There was not a thing that was "cutting-edge" about it.
What I remember finding particularly different, and uncomfortable, were the hymns. Back in the city, we were singing the then-popular songs of Avery and Marsh, like "We're Here to Be Happy," and protest songs like, "One Tin Soldier."
The hymns of the little rural congregation were different. We sang "Rock of Ages."
"Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee!
Let the water and the blood, from your wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from its guilt and power."
We wrapped up with "Abide with Me."
"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The shadows deepen, Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me."
After that visit, I returned to the city and the seminary unsure if this was for me. I met with my advisor who suggested I might, if I went, think of myself as a "visiting anthropologist." As it happened, I did spend my next year at that small church in the Catskills. It was a rewarding year full of strange and wondrous experiences.
Over the years, I've continued to ponder my initial reaction to that church and particularly to the hymns. What was it that I found difficult, even embarrassing?
The hymns suggested I needed help. Even more than that, they suggested I needed a Savior. I wasn't so sure. The idea that I was here to help others was fine. I was comfortable with that. In fact, almost everything in my background -- family, scouts, church and college -- had prepared me for the idea that I could and should help others. But the notion that I needed help, that I needed forgiveness or cleansing, that I needed a Savior ("Help of the helpless, O abide with me") was, well, somehow both uncomfortable and embarrassing.
It was also true.
As life went on and my understanding of both Christian faith and life deepened, I realized that the Christian story was, in many ways, at odds with the modern story. I had been socialized into that story as I grew up in 20th-century America. The modern story had taught me that human beings were basically good people who needed education. We only needed to discover the truth and goodness within each of us and live accordingly.
The Christian faith, as I was coming to understand it, said something both different and harder. We aren't simply good people in need of education. We are sinners in need of redemption. We need a Savior.
This was not a particularly comfortable idea or conviction to hold but it did seem to be truer to our situation. It helped to explain a lot that an "I'm OK, you're OK" view of the world didn't. It explained the self-destructive paths people, including me, sometimes followed. It explained how racism and misogyny could be accepted as normal. It explained how a nation could sanction its own violence and aggression while condemning the same in others. It explained how "good people" could be vicious and deceitful.
Still, most people I encountered seemed more at ease with the idea of dividing the world into the enlightened and unenlightened (and, of course, always placing themselves in the former camp). For those who held this view, Jesus was an exemplary human being, a model for us.
I was coming to see Jesus differently, not simply as a model to be imitated and a moral exemplar, but as the Christ, the Messiah of God, in whose ministry, death and resurrection God has invaded a world caught -- snared really -- by the twin ruling powers of Sin and Death. I came to see Jesus' ministry not so much as modeling loving behavior, but rather as a direct assault on the powers that disfigure and distort life. In him, in his ministry, his cross, his resurrection, God has intervened to forgive and free us and to set loose a new creation.
When I understood Jesus as mainly a model and moral exemplar, my life and actions often seemed to be my effort to justify myself, to get on God's good side or to demonstrate to others that I was on God's side. The trouble with that was no matter how much I did, it was never enough. I was crippled by a sense that I had to do and achieve more and more to win God's love and approval.
I see my efforts and contributions differently now. They are not an effort to win God's love or grace. They are a response to a costly grace given freely in Jesus Christ that I could never, on my own, deserve. My efforts to serve and contribute are my grateful response to God's grace and God's love for me. These are offered in response to the one who has broken the dominion of Sin and Death and set me free.
Sometimes still, the old voices of fear and embarrassment linger. They whisper and taunt, "You don't really believe that old story do you?"
I do. With Paul I say, "I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith..." (Romans 1:16). And I join in the old, slightly embarrassing song, "Help of the helpless, O abide with me."
Excerpted from 'The Jesus Diaries: Who Jesus is to Me.'
Ann Voskamp: How To Find The Holy Grail of Joy
You hit the nail on the head! What is happening in modern day Christianity is that the beleivers are yielding to public pressure, "I don't like you Christians because you're too narrow minded.Since you're not going to be liberal, I'm not going to go to your churches and like you any more. So there!" The poor beleiver is being bombarded by esoteric speaking philosphers, Eatern religions, mystics, swamis, "spritual people" and the like who are all saying the same pious thing- man is good-just misunderstood and needs money and education and all the social ills will go away.
It is written that Jesus said that broad is the road to perdition but narrow is way to salvation. It is also written how only two of seven churches met his approval (Book of Revealtion) because those 5 failed Christian Churches caved into public pressure. The caues of the compromise in those churches was carnality of the world.
It is written that one cannot be a friend of the world if he or she is of the carnal (flesh) mind (Romans 8:5-8). So, we have a warning about salvation with Jesus; you can lose it by reverting to the carnal mind to please the world.
Be best freinds with Jesus- not special interest people or the alternative lifestyle types that want to twist the minds of beleivers and the Bible to fit their own deviant agenda. Stay strong through the persecution.
It is rare to find someone write in such a winsome way about their journey of discovery of the nature of Jesus Christ and his role as redeemer. Bravo. I appreciate the words of truth, especially the recognition that following Jesus as a moral example puts us in the "never good enough" situation while following Jesus as Savior puts us in the "grateful servant" position.
Thank you.
I think it's sad when people don't really know anything much about the Scripture or theology they make pronouncements about.
Christians follow Jesus, the Son of God. Who are you following?
(Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods")
This interpretaton of Christianity - that we are liberated by accepting our true nature as hopeless sinners - strikes me as one more way the "faithful" alleviate themselves of the responsibility to follow Christ's teachings. It's all about you taking care of you, obtaining your salvation for your personal self. Perhaps this intensely selfish way of looking at Christ explains why virtually none of his American followers make even a pretense at living his word, and why so many actively engage in politics that openly defy every principle he ever preached.
Worse than all this is that they won't even admit that their wealthy, their elites, got that way through exploiting other people's labour. They'd be nowhere without the poor and the labour force they so despise to support them.
The author writes that his focus has flipped from others and trying to do good, to the personal satisfaction he gets from his faith. He has become narcissistic.
They are NOT criticized because they believe that all men are sinners. They can believe whatever they want. Who cares?
They are NOT criticized because they have "faith" in bible stories and fairy tales. All religions do that. Even primitive people did that. It's a human tendency.
They are criticized because they have turned Christianity into a self serving machine where they "win" salvation for themselves merely by having "faith" in their own stories. In the process they ignore the tangible and universally meaningful part of Christ's message - shun wealth, shun violence, do nothing for yourself and everything for others. They have made the tangible and real part of Christ's message secondary to the easy pie in the sky stuff that makes them feel superior to everyone else, but somehow absolves them of all responsibility to DO the things he told them to DO.
It is beyond ridiculous for coddled, fat, rich American Christians to compare themselves to those who were persecuted in ancient times. Many kinds of people have been persecuted throughout history - including many of them BY Christians - and you do them a shameful dishonor by putting yourself in the same category.
You really do believe you're persecuted, don't you? This is astonishing. You are actually comparing being criticized for hypocrisy to being tortured and murdered because of your religion. When I read this, it strikes me again what a pathology this all is.
Most interestingly, it explains why modern American conservatives are so adept at victimizing themselves. It explains Fox News and hate radio and how each day they find a new outrage being committed against the most wealthy and powerful of Americans - themselves. Things like the "war on Christmas" or how whites are being discriminated against. It's always baffled me and now I get it. It's related to this absurd twist you've made, where even as you are the dominant religion in the US, you still consider yourselves persecutied.
It also explains why Christians are the loudest group in favor of discriminating against Muslims, or why Christians are so greedy and selfish, or why Christians are proponents of guns, violence and retribution. It's not about Jesus's message to you - aside from the most selfish form of "salvation" I've ever heard of. It's a form of psychological acting out.
atheists are made not born with logic like this. as I looked around the church while they were singing that song I could not see one person that did not sing out those words that this unconditional loving god demanded atonement and for an only son to die on the worst torture device they the romans could think of.
three ideologies defy logic. religion, politics and materialism. take your pick for the most illogical of the three. my next book is on how to win friends and influence people. :-)
have an open mind to the wrath of god? gotta love that one. you are a perfect example of the power of cherished beliefs becoming paradigm paralysis. sin is only error. wait until the time comes that your belief in original sin does not exist and the adam and eve story is about orginal innocence. maybe a few lives away or tomorrow, we never know when that awaking will occur.
sometime those many years you speak of has more to do with conditioning than simple logic. the holy spirit is always with you as you are an expression of this holy spirit. no one exists outside of spirit. no one. impossible to exist outside infinite spirit.
Your heart has to care about what is true. You cannot be any good to anyone without knowing and teaching what is true.
I guess if you're able to suspend reason to the degree it takes to believe in the Jesus myth as fact, then not feeling shame for buying into it can't be that additionally difficult.
The seed of the woman crushing the serpent's head predates everything.
The evidence of Creation is obvious and the record of the provision that God would make for us Himself was written down before it took place.
The author is right, we cannot be ashamed of the truth. We do need to get the truth out so that people can avoid the potholes in life. That is a virtue we can be proud (the opposite of shame) to have. There are two definitions of "proud". (The opposit of one is shame and the opposite of the other is humility. It is not a shame to be humble and it is not bad not to be ashamed.)
Religious truth is an oxymoron.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.