One of the questions that often gets thrown my way by my atheists and others who are not regular participants in a life of faith is WHY people believe things a certain way. The Bible being the beautifully complicated document that it is, why do belief patterns seem to run one way so often?
It's the sort of thing that often gets lampooned by internet memes and the like, where the Bible clearly takes one stance that no one cares about, and vaguely mentions another that is seen to be almost mandatory to the faith.
One simple example: what is your visual picture of Hell? It doesn't even matter if you don't believe in it, it's a prevalent enough cultural concept that you've probably imagined before. So what do you see when you think of it?
Did you imagine a multi-level prison with wards for committers of various sins being punished in ways that were poetic justice for those sins, with the Devil alternately serving as ruler over it or Highest security prisoner?
A lot of people do. It isn't the ONLY cultural representation we have, but it is far and away the most prevalent, to the point that even if a Westerner thinks Hell doesn't look like that, they have at some point rejected it and chosen something else. It is the standard.
But here is the thing about that standard... it is utterly non-Biblical. There is very little Scripture to support it, and virtually nothing that could have built the picture independent of other sources. Building a concept of Hell exclusively from the Scriptures would build varying vague images of an eternal waiting room, a refiners furnace, or simply oblivion.
The image we have was largely crafted by Dante Alighieri for his Inferno, which was then borrowed and modified by countless other writers for their versions. The poetic justice bit seemed to resound the most powerfully and so, for many people, that is simply what Hell is, despite the problematic worldviews that can come from it, most obviously the picture of physical suffering as deserved punishment.
But largely, it's just a detailed picture. No matter what your picture of hell, if you believe in it, you believe it is a thing to be avoided, and so the specifics are largely window dressing. But if such a central tenant of belief can be formed so profoundly without any regard for the actual Biblical record, where else can such things happen?
When I was a teenager, I believed that homosexuality was a sinful lifestyle. So when someone asked me recently about why people believed such a thing, I decided to start with myself... why did -I- believe that?
The most obvious reason would be the Biblical message, right? It's supposed to be where all of this starts, after all. But that wasn't it. The Bible doesn't talk about ANY sexuality as often as you would think considering how fixated the church and Christians can be about it, and homosexuality is being discussed only a fraction of those rather rare instances. And of those instances, none were particular relevant to me in my faith education. I have to look them up... they're not just resting in my head, ready to power my theological understanding. So whatever influenced me that way, it wasn't the Bible.
The next usual suspect would be my childhood pastor, who is easy to track down because he was also my Dad. It probably won't surprise many people to know that Dad is one of the foundational influences of my theology, especially my theology of being a pastor. Nearly everything I do as a pastor is either an acceptance of something I learned from him or a rejection of it. When it comes to homosexuality, though, Dad was also largely silent (except in near constant messages about the importance of loving and respecting EVERYONE, which at last count includes homosexuals) and so my belief that homosexuality was sinful can't be laid at his feet, either.
So I was at a loss. The Bible hadn't taught me to judge homosexuality, neither had my pastor growing up. So who did? Easy. Practically everyone else. The sinfulness of homosexuality was just sort of accepted and talked about, it was a thing people assumed, then when called upon to justify found helpful texts. This even included homosexuals, who whenever they talked about the faith simply assumed that part of them was considered taboo and either rejected faith because of it or continued faith in spite of it.
The origin of such theology likely predates even the Scriptures, hearkening back to a very simple human trait... fear and disgust for the other, a concept that the Scripture Writers struggle with even in the midst of calling upon us to reject it. We feel it, we see it in others, and if we are ever called upon to acknowledge it, we scramble for our justifications wherever we can find them, from a handful of scriptures removed from context to poor understandings of biology to a call to cultural purity.
The fact that many people believe a thing is not a reason to automatically reject it anymore than it is a reason to automatically espouse it, but it is important for people of faith to examine their beliefs and know where, precisely, they come from. Do you believe that the Bible is the basis for your faith? Great. But is it really, or are you simply following the herd?
Christians are called upon to love God with all of their hearts, minds, and strength. That means we can't just take the simpler, easier route. Faith is hard work, not an excuse to stop thinking. Challenge your beliefs, examine their sources, before you find yourself hurting someone else in the name of God, only to learn that God never told you to do what you were doing.
I wonder what level of Hell Dante would craft for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment