Heaven and People
Len over at Next Reformation reacts to a sign he saw at a church:
Seen on a large sign in Kelowna,
"Jesus came to earth to take us to heaven."
The reasons I dislike this sign are many, but are summed up well by Dallas Willard in "Renovation of the Heart."
The western church "takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible into heaven. It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people." He explains why this strategy is self-defeating:
".. it creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but clearly are not ready to live. They rarely can get along with one another, much less those "outside." Often their most intimate relations are tangles of reciprocal harm, coldness, and resentment. They have found ways of being Christian without being Christlike. As a result, they actually fall far short of getting as many people as possible ready to die, because the lives of the "converted" testify against the reality of "the life that is life indeed..."
Just as I do with an earlier post in which Len voiced the same thoughts on the Christmas theme from the same sign:
This year I am really feeling tired of the prevailing "Christian" slant on Christmas. One local church has hung the typical sign: "He came to earth to take us to heaven." Oh, it's true enough.. like the four spiritual laws are true, but a narrow distortion and simplification at the same time. Jesus' life and death and resurrection are SO MUCH MORE... God becomes poor, and identifies with weakness. God becomes flesh, and calls all things "VERY GOOD" in the ultimate affirmation of the physical world.
When Mary is filled with the Spirit and sings her song in the early chapters of Luke, we know that the descent of the King into our world has thrown the established order of things topsy-turvy. No longer will the strong rule; no longer will rich be on top and the poor on the bottom... now it is the poor who are blessed, the hungry who are filled, and the rich who are in trouble. This jarring message of justice and of transformation is at the heart of Christmas. To really hear that message we nearly have to step out of our own skins. Tom Sine comments,
"In other words, I believe, the established church has largely settled for a very compartmentalized faith in which we allow modern culture to define our sense of what is important and of value. For too many of us the real focus of our life has little to do with our faith and much more to do with getting ahead economically... getting ahead in our careers and in the suburbs. Too many of our churches tend to sanction this kind of compartmentalized accommodated faith and are content with discipleship on a two-legged stool. What kind of discipleship is taught in your church?"
By the way: I am coming to realize that Dallas Willard may well be one of the most impressive and important spiritual writers of our day. He is not as concise as say, Henri Nouwen. Yet he is as powerful as Nouwen in a profound way. No one will ever be another Henri Nouwen, but neither will there be another Dallas Willard!
Weather Warning
When this PMPilgrim is traveling on vacation, may this be a warning- don't believe the weather forecasts. I have this reputation in the past 18 months (which my secretary has been quick to build on) that when I go somewhere at least two of the three possibilities happen:
** A cold front moves through (almost a certainty)
** It gets cloudy.
** It precipitates (the least likely, by only a small margin.)
My apologies to the Tampa area where a cold front moved through last night that had not been on the forecasts earlier this past weekend and gave a cloudy day today. I hear it is supposed to be sunny sometime. Sorry, Tampa. You now join Los Angeles where it rained, Palm Springs, CA where the daily high temp dropped unexpectedly from 105 to 80 in less than 24 hours when we visited, and Sturgeon Bay, WI, where a major rain storm went through in October. In the future, perhaps I need to make prior arrangements to warn people of such happenings, or keep my whereabouts secret. ;>o
