CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…
John Wesley kept a
detailed journal through almost all his life. Since he is the originator of my
theology and my church, I read a little of his journal each day.
At one point he lists
three things that will always be necessary for Christian belief. One is a
belief in a future life of reward and punishment. In other words, heaven and
hell.
You’d have to shake a lot
of bushes these days to find any Methodist who believes in a future life of
reward and punishment. Most of us have a vague belief in something more to
come, but we have rejected heaven and hell, mostly because it developed, and is
still used, to keep the downtrodden in line. “It’s okay for you to be poor and
miserable now, because if you are good, meaning doing what we powerful people
tell you, then you’ll get a reward after you’re dead and can’t enjoy it. If
you’re bad, though, and don’t obey us, you’ll roast in a fiery furnace
forever.”
The absolute essentials,
that must be believed at all places and all times, change with some regularity.
When I graduated from
seminary and was appointed to be the Methodist campus minister in Terre Haute,
IN, serving IN State U and Rose Polytechnic [now Rose-Hulman], the Sisters of
Providence, under the “fresh air” approach of Pope John 23, decided they needed
to be ecumenical, and reach out to non-Catholics. For some reason, they decided
the proper way to do this was to have me give a theology lecture to their
assembled student body, faculty, and nuns in residence, an all-female convergence.
In the discussion that
followed, elderly [meaning sixty] history professor Sister Mary Jane, who
became one of our good friends, started by saying that ecumenism was fine, as
long as everybody believed the essentials, such as seven sacraments. Even then,
that idea was fading. The younger nuns, realizing that to insist on ecumenism
that included all of traditional Roman Catholic theology was not exactly
ecumenical, jumped in to try to ameliorate.
The absolute essentials,
that must be believed at all places and all times, change with some regularity.
The problem is that we
become so attached to absolute essentials that we don’t realize they are
neither absolute nor essential. We cling to them even after we have discovered
their feet of clay, both because we have nothing else to trust in, and because
we’ll lose face if we admit our essentials are not essential. I think that’s
why Jesus said there are really only two commandments: No other God [no other
essential] and treat everybody right.
JRMcF
I tweet occasionally as
yooper1721.
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