Christian Behaviour
I wrote:
The thrust of Hick’s argument in The Non-Absoluteness of Christianity is that if Christianity (or any other religion) is superior to others then it should have a history that compared with other religions produces more saints and fewer embarrassing despots. When looking through religious history he, not surprisingly, finds that “each tradition has contributed its own unique mixture of good and evil”. From this he concludes, “the world traditions seem to be more or less on a par with each other.”-If any group of people is given a code to live by it is inevitable that some will live by this code more successfully than others and some will abuse the code. Those who manage to live by the code will be the saints of that tradition. However, speaking from a Christian angle at least, producing righteous lives is not the ultimate end of religion but rather to be united with God, righteous living is more a desirable side effect. The Christian is not saved through righteous acts but through the redemptive work of Christ. The uniqueness of Christianity is not in the church, which is made up of human beings like any other religion, but in Christ the incarnate saviour who achieved the impossible on behalf of those who would receive him.
I was never entirely happy with it. I'm slightly embarrassed by how orthodox the last two sentences sound. But I'm not sure exactly how to improve it. I was trying to avoid dismissing such people as the crusaders by saying they weren't real Christians. I suspect, if we were look into the history of it, we'd find that they took their faith very seriously, even if their understanding of Christianity seems twisted to us now. Anyway, without wishing to be political, we could look at the example of George Bush, who I'm quite sure takes his faith very seriously, and yet he chose to invade Iraq when he really didn't need to. (But that's just my opinion, and that of quite a few others)
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Anyway, it's probably not very fruitful to look at that negative side of things, there are bad examples in all groups. It may be better to look at the good examples from each of the religions. I haven't done any detailed study in this area, but I have met a Buddhist monk, spoken with Sikhs and shared a house with a Muslim and I think there is a similarity of experience sometimes. I can't say anymore than that but I don't see why God would deny spiritual devotees any sense of him/herself just because they call him/her by the wrong name, or because they have a faulty image of God in their head. If we're really worried about the vocabulary then we should call Jesus 'Yeshua', and I'm not really sure how we should address God; 'Elohim'?, or possibly, 'Yahweh' but maybe this name is too holy, the Israelites thought so, at a later stage at least. And who of us can say we don't have a faulty image of God in our head?
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I have to take issue with myself regarding this claim:
producing righteous lives is not the ultimate end of religion but rather to be united with God, righteous living is more a desirable side effect.
I don't have a problem with the being united with God bit but this protestant tendency to belittle righteous living can be disastrous. At the very least, I should have said that righteous living is a necessary side-effect. Central to Jesus' teaching is bringing about the 'Kingdom of God', we don't really know what this means, but one interpretation, which I think makes sense, goes along the lines of Luke's quotation:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. (Lk. 4:18)
Thus, followers of Jesus seek to bring about the Kingdom of God by bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release for captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. i.e. Christians should make a difference, for good, in the world. Having said that, some of the Christians I've met recently, who aren't all that reformed, are very good at the doing stuff for good causes but they don't appear to be very bothered about living holy lives otherwise. I suspect the Muslims and the Buddhists are better at the holy living thing but so are the evangelicals I bet.
posted by Rowland @ Saturday, May 06, 2006
2 Comments:
Howdy,
Interesting stuff.
I find 'I should have said that righteous living is a necessary side-effect' a bit troublesome. Perhaps not wrong, just troublesome.
I wonder what you mean by 'necessary'. Necessary for salvation in the sense that there is no salvation without righteous living, or necessary for salvation in that your faith can't be real if you aren't living righteously? Or something else entirely?
If there are two possible (competing?) ways to salvation - righteous living and faith - then if you adopt one as the main one, it's always going to be difficult to try to say the other one really does matter.
I suppose, surprisingly, I'm doing a bit of a Desi Maxwell here, not either or...
As Paul seems to have said to the Galatians, 'not works unless also faith' (Gal. 2:15-16)
And as James appears to have said to everyone, 'not faith unless also works' (James 2:14-17)
Or, maybe, I've been slightly catholocised.
I do find your point difficult to dodge though. Is there no salvation without righteous living? I thought I might side-step it by saying it's not related to salvation but James says 'can such faith save him?' (2:14) And I don't really see how we can divorce the idea of justification found in Paul from salvation. I can't imagine any meaningful salvation without justification. But usually I go to sleep when people start talking like this, so I probably don't understand.
I think, when I use the word 'necessary', I mean logically necessary. An appropriate change of attitude and behaviour which is the outward sign of a spiritual encounter. This might take years to manifest itself. But it's difficult to know how much change is enough. I suppose the attitude is the main thing.
Again, I find myself trying to find some space somewhere between the often Calvinist dismissal of social action, and the more liberal dismissal of personal morality. (This statement is neither fair to Calvinists nor liberals. Many Calvinists may be deeply concerned for the plight of the poor, and many people are theologically liberal and socially conservative)
I'm going to go away and rest my head now, I may be back later.
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