The Teetering Scales of Justice and Mercy
March 29, 2010
Monday morning. Gray skies with a chance of rain.
And me at the computer with a cup of lukewarm coffee and a mishmash of questions on sin, judgment and hell swirling around in my head. I usually just have my caffeine with a splash of milk and a spoon of sweetener.
In my post on hell, I offered several key reasons for why I find the concept of eternal punishment or damnation unacceptable but rather I believe in the fullness of time all people will be reconciled back to God. This led to some challenging questions and while I’ll do my best to reply to them I do so knowing that anything I share will have little chance of satisfying the questions for anyone else, and I hope not! I hope not because as my faith is continually being shaped by an ongoing, internal conversation between the Scriptures, church teaching, the Spirit’s moving, and my personal experience of God, I would trust the same is happening in your own life as well.
So here I go.
Can heaven really include brutal tyrants who are directly responsible for the death of thousands if not millions of people and those who for their own greed have robbed the poor when Jesus represented a God who stood up for the poor and oppressed and defended the persecuted? How could it ever be right and just for those who have mocked God and caused immeasurable harm to God’s own, to stand side by side with those who have suffered at their hands?
Last week our Lutheran congregation met with the congregation of the nearby Jewish temple for a shared Seder. It seemed only fitting to share this special meal together since for the Jews the Passover commemorates their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt into freedom and for Christians we recognize that it was at the Passover meal 2000 years ago that the sacrament of the Last Supper began.
There’s a story in the Talmud that says when God caused the Red Sea to close down upon the pursuing armies of Pharoah so that they had all perished, the angels began to celebrate their destruction with song but God rebuked them saying “Will you chant hymns while the work of my hands is being drowned in the sea?” Even though the Eqyptians had been the torturous captors of His people and had made themselves into pursuing enemies, they were still counted among God’s creation and as such God suffered because they were suffering. Over bowls of sweet haroset and the story alive in us we wondered over the question, “Are we vengeful people because we’re made in the image of a vengeful God or do we worship a God of vengeance because we are vengeful people?” Among Jew and Christian we all came to the conclusion that it seemed more likely we have a vengeful God because as people we need to believe that there is divine vengeance for evil doing.
According to Scripture and ancient oral tradition, Pharoah and his armies committed hideous acts of cruelty and oppression against the people of Israel and though we lack black and white footage documenting the atrocities and there are no survivors to give first-hand account of the torture and human degradation meted out by Egyptian hands, we know of comparable crimes against humanity in more recent history. The Christian Crusades. Slavery. The witch hunts. The Holocaust. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Apartheid.
There’s no question God stands on the side of the oppressed for Scriptures abound, declaring that God will defend the poor, the widowed, and the oppressed. In the Old Testament, God judges the oppressor and executes justice where there has been injustice and when God is shown as angry it’s injustice toward the poor and oppressed that serves as the kindling to God’s fury.
I believe God will avenge the oppressed. I believe God will judge the oppressor. I not only need that to be true but I believe it is true and right and just, but where I can find no compassion in my heart or soul for those who have brought such cruelty onto the human stage I worship a God who as judge holds justice in one hand and mercy in the other and is a judge who exercises both according to His good and perfect will. If I must see God in the black robes of a judge, then I must envision Him as one who looks down from His seat of judgment and recognizes in the face of both the abused and the abuser, the persecuted and the persecutor, the oppressed and the oppressor, the face of His very own, created by His hand, born out of His love. The suffering of either past, present, or future is suffering shared by God.
I didn’t say hell doesn’t exist or that there would be no divine judgment cast or no price to be paid for wrongdoing. What I said was I don’t believe in eternal punishment and as much as it runs contrary to my desires to say this, neither do I believe there will be divine punishment for the sake of punishment alone but when God punishes it is for the purpose of bringing correction, repentance, reconciliation and restoration of all God’s creation. I will take it as far as Philip Gulley does in If God is Love:
I believe God will accomplish the salvation of every person, in this life or the next, no matter how long we resist. If Satan does exist, he will one day repent, be forgiven, and take his proper place in the divine order. If hell exists, it won’t be the final destination for anyone. It will merely be another tool in God’s work to purify and redeem.
Like I already said, I don’t think my answer will satisfy anyone who believes in heaven for the righteous and hell for the sinner. I just know that I can no longer believe any differently than this and coming to this understanding, even though it’s still evolving, has done nothing but enrich and increase my faith and relationship with God. Believing what I believe has changed me and the change has been for the better.
Posted in Love and Grace, Theology
March 29th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Thank you for taking the time to clarify some of your points and ask important questions. I think I understand better where you’re coming from and it’s given me a lot to think about. Thanks!
March 29th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
That story from the Talmud: pure gold!
And you know what? I really can see why the notion of purgatory (or a place of purification, just to make that idea sound a bit more neutral) would appeal… because there would be a place to get rid of the nastiness, so to speak, in the afterlife.
OTOH, I can’t help thinking that people who were monstrous IRL (like Hitler and Stalin) would (assuming a deathbed profession of faith) be in the “Depart from me. I never knew you?” category?
Even just taking this at the most basic level – as applied to American Christianity in some of its more extreme forms – is pretty sobering, if only because there’s always a lot of “cultural Christianity” around (and “cultural [fill in name of other religion],” too), but – in our time, there’s a particular conflation of supposed faith and political ideas that I cannot square. (And I know I’m not alone there.)
Will those who profess the name of Christ but hate their fellow humans – whether that fellow human is an illegal immigrant who came here in order to find a better life for their family (to whom they’re sending more than 3/4ths of their meager take-home pay), a refugee, someone not of the same ethnic/racial/religious/you-name-it, we-segregate-for-it group of “Us” – do people who hate deserve to be in the presence of God forever?
which, of course, means that grace and divine love must be part of the answer, and then… well, to quote the King of Siam, “‘Tis a puzzlement.” And I’m puzzling right along with him.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
oh, I meant to say “possibly insincere deathbed profession of faith,” but of course, only God can know who is sincere and who isn’t – and, ultimately, what the word “sincere” means, for that matter. (I kinda think He/She has a better grasp of English grammar than Strunk & White!
)
March 30th, 2010 at 10:32 am
It’s tough to swallow, but the message of Jesus was all about reconciliation and a complete rejection of the notion of punishment in any form, much less for eternity.
Jesus clearly set aside the old “eye for an eye” concept. In it’s place, he taught us to return love for hate, good for evil. Assuming he was, indeed, God’s Expression or The Word of God, he was letting us know that God doesn’t hurt people, not even if they are hurtful, that making people suffer to teach them they should not have made others suffer, doesn’t work but only reinforces the same, sad vicious cycle.
So, you’re right to reject Hell, as Jesus most certainly did.
I’ve actually written an entire book on this topic–Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There’s No Such Place As Hell, (for anyone interested, you can get a free ecopy of Did Jesus Believe in Hell?, one of the most compelling chapters in my book at http://www.thereisnohell.com), but if I may, let me share one more of the many points I make in it to explain why.
If one is willing to look, there’s substantial evidence contained in the gospels to show that Jesus opposed the idea of Hell. For example, in Luke 9:51-56, is a story about his great disappointment with his disciples when they actually suggested imploring God to rain FIRE on a village just because they had rejected him. His response: “You don’t know what spirit is inspiring this kind of talk!” Presumably, it was NOT the Holy Spirit. He went on, trying to explain how he had come to save, heal and relieve suffering, not be the CAUSE of it.
So it only stands to reason that this same Jesus, who was appalled at the very idea of burning a few people, for a few horrific minutes until they were dead, could never, ever burn BILLIONS of people for an ETERNITY!
True, there are a few statements that made their way into the copies of copies of copies of the gospel texts which place “Hell” on Jesus’ lips, but these adulterations came along many decades after his death, most likely due to the Church filling up with Greeks who imported their belief in Hades with them when they converted.
Bear in mind that the historical Protestant doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures applies only to the original autographs, not the copies. But sadly, the interpolations that made their way into those copies have provided a convenient excuse for a lot of people to get around following Jesus’ real message.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Rick, while I appreciate what you’re saying (though I don’t necessarily agree on all points), I wonder … can you show historical proof that texts were deliberately corrupted/altered/etc.? If not, then some of your ideas are suppositions… I mean, Gehenna is in the NT, just as Sheol is in the OT (though I’m *not* saying that either place automatically equals the common Western concept of “hell”as a place of unending punishment and suffering).
To me, what you’re saying in these summaries sounds a lot like “The original texts are corrupted” belief that’s common among Muslims regarding the Bible (both OT and NT). The Qur’an is believed to contain the definitive versions of the lives of all the prophets portrayed, including Jesus (Isa), and yet… where is the evidence that the other People of the Book (Jews and Christians) have inherited severely corrupted and inaccurate manuscripts?
As an aside, it also seems to me that you’re reposting your comment (from an earlier post on this blog) to just maybe drum up some sales? I think that might qualify as spam, though obviously, that’s for Anita to decide, not me.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
* My previous comment was in no way intended to attack or otherwise defame the beliefs of Muslims, btw. (Just bringing up the conflict re. supposedly corrupted texts in reply to Rick’s assertions.)
anita, please feel free to edit or merge or whatever, should this stuff get published.
March 30th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
e2c–> “Depart from me. I never knew you” is a hard one to get around, I realize. It’s one of those statements in the Scriptures that I have to look out through a much heavier body of passages that would say just the opposite; that whoever we are, whatever we’ve done, God knows each us intimately. That kind of absolute and total rejection to the point of saying “don’t know you, never knew you” of the Creator to His creation doesn’t work; not if love is the predominant attribute of the character of God. As to “do people who hate deserve to be in the presence of God forever?” I’d say no, they don’t. I would also say that if any of us could fully grasp the majesty and glory of God we’d say the same thing about ourselves.
March 30th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
As to “do people who hate deserve to be in the presence of God forever?” I’d say no, they don’t. I would also say that if any of us could fully grasp the majesty and glory of God we’d say the same thing about ourselves.
And therein lies the paradox, I’m thinking. (Just as the “I never knew you” statement is part of that paradox.)