Journal

Is everyone ok?

Posted on March 18th, 2005, in the evening

I have an uneasy relationship with the fact that the Christian story has an agenda written in to it that ultimately draws a distinction within the human race. Uneasy in the sense that I would be much happier in many ways with an "everyone's ok" kind of philosophy. "Everyone's ok" often feels a more natural response to almost everything I have known in my comfortable life.

Some religious people seem to relish distinction. You read too much of "God hates..." or "You're going to hell and I'm not". I really could not feel further away from any kind of delight in that outlook. (And I think that a lot of the bile is perversely misdirected.)

I really can't imagine that God taking any pleasure in it either, this being the God whose passionate desire is 'that none should perish'.

At this point I could become some kind of universalist to resolve the tension within me; an "everyone's ok" kind of Christianity. But what about justice? And I don't mean justice as in 'God smiting the unbelievers'. I mean justice for the oppressed, justice for the raped, the murdered, for the exploited, for the violated, the ethnically cleansed.

If "everyone's ok" and nothing is judged then there is no account for the wronged, no healing for the hurt, no recompense for the exploited. This is not a Shylock's-pound-of-flesh kind of justice, but a justice that takes wrong into account. Some kind of distinction must be made.

I can't remember whose quote this is, and I certainly paraphrase, but, "the line between right and wrong does not divide person from person, but runs right down the middle of every one of us". It's still not about sending the "evil people" off to hell.

I see the distinction as between wanting to make life whole and wanting to destroy life. The distinction is between love and the negation of love (which I don't think is 'hate').

This picture is the Christianity I hold: that God is love, and God who is love is expressed in human terms in the person, Jesus Christ. Tending towards Christ is tending towards love, towards life, wholeness. Tending away from Christ is tending towards not-love, not-life, not-wholeness. The distinction is made there.

I absolutely accept the comeback, "but many people who aren't Christians are more loving than many who are". This is undeniably true, and I sadly count myself among the latter all too often. The question is what sense to make of that fact?

A seemingly consistent move would be to count Christianity out as the source of the 'love' side of the distinction I have suggested. For a brief moment as I typed I despaired of any answer to that challenge. But on reflection it's the same despair I feel if challenged to prove the existence of love at all when so many are unfaithful to love or appear to love but for other motives (which is actually fairly telling incidental evidence).

To take up the first point, the fact that not all lovers are true to love does deny love. It could be said (though it's something of a fudge) that anyone who betrayed love had never loved in the first place. The same things could be said (with the same difficulties in doing so) of Christians and faithfulness to Christ. Much more could be said, but that's my starting point.

To take up the second, some are lovers who insist they aren't. The ground gets even thinner when extending that by analogy to faithfulness to Christ, but I'd like to see whether it supports the weight of the argument (CS Lewis certainly seemed to think it does, see the fate of the servant of Tash in Chapter 15 of 'The Last Battle'). Again, much more could be said, but these arguments are only supporting players.

The challenge is the person, Jesus Christ. Where is there a truer and more beautiful, sacrificing, redeeming expression of love than in God becoming like us to make us like God is?

Phrasing the distinction as tending towards that love (in life and in eternity) or away from that love (likewise) melts my unease. This is my Christianity.