This will not include some reference to a Depeche Mode song we all know. Well, I guess it just did…
We got this in the mail this week and I thought I would share it with you in all it's odd glory. It also provoked a theological brainstorm where I asked myself: Why do the theological assumptions of this kind of stuff make me queasy?
The first side seems innocuous enough. Looks like it could be a bit of a scam, but since it's a local company I would think it's more like a pawn shop. No harm no fail. People need cash for Christmas presents and this is a good idea for those who have things of value lying around just gathering dust.
But flip the card over and this is what we find…
In the bottom left corner is an obligatory "sinner's prayer."
If you have never accepted Christ as your personal Savior, please pray this prayer:
Dear God, I affirm I am a sinner on my way to Hell. I believe that you died for me. Please save me from my sin and take me to Heaven when I die. Thank you for saving me. Amen.
This raises a couple of age old theological questions that many people still assume to be true without once asking why. Not only a better reading of the bible, but a better understanding of theology raises questions that we must ask if we are to at all follow Anselm's saying that our faith seeks understanding and is in no way supposed to be blind or ignorant of doubt.
1) Although Jesus made personal contact with people and referred to individuals through metaphor (Luke 15, John 10), this is not the primary focus of his ministry. What Jesus did was reveal the Kingdom of God which was a far more radically universally welcoming place that was directly opposed to all forms of human establishment. He did not die as some "satisfaction" of God's immutable law of condemnation. He died because when Jesus revealed the Kingdom of God to the people whom he loved, they rejected him along with the Kingdom he represented as its very founder. While justification may feel personal, it is not "all about you." It is about a much wider reality that Jesus revealed that may not have your personality and individual ideas and interests about religion in consideration for ultimate redemption. The Kingdom of God that Jesus revealed is not all the way revealed but is only "being revealed" and you can either be a part of that revelation, or not. Either way this not about you, this is about something much bigger reality that lays claim to anything "personal" we may protect in our fragile egos.
2) What is the motivation for even saying the prayer? Fear. It is a fear of hell not a positive reception of the revelation I just discussed. This is about power and those who hold the gnostic secrets to heaven so you don't lose track of your soul after you say the prayer. When people can hold the ultimacy of life's questions over the head's of others threatening ultimate and eternal doom if they lose their way, it fails to achieve what Jesus commanded and that was to love your neighbor and love God above all else. It was not to fear eternal damnation and adhere to laws that would keep one's soul saved for the sole purpose of getting to heaven. This kind of theological mess is the direct result of confusing the eschatological sayings of Jesus with his clear command that through love he revealed the Kingdom of God and it is by the same means that his followers should do. Again, it's not about a bunch of individual souls pining for the great Hale-Bopp comet in the sky to rescue them from the upcoming drama of hell. It's about how the followers of Jesus will continue to reveal the Kingdom of God right now, being revealed in our midst in us and through us, and through others far and wide.
3. Finally, someone show me where it sways we go to Heaven as soon as we die? To continue to assert this again requires hermeneutical gymnastics that are not helpful. It helps those who grieve for loved ones who have died. It also helps those who might pray the above prayer forcing them to enter into a state of perpetual mourning for their own pathetic condition. It's also probably not true.
What's frustrating is that it's this doctrinal absolutism hidden within the few sentences of this prayer that so-called fundamentalists say is biblical. But it's not. They force feed doctrine rendering the bible as useful as newspaper clippings to a paranoid schizophrenic.
And all on the back of an ad for a jewelry pawn shop.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow…
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I remember when I first started noticing the "gospel" as the Bible actually presented it, as opposed to the one I was taught. Then I started noticing things like what it really taught about marriage, or heaven, or obedience. Now I am a full-fledged heretic, courtesy of actually reading and studying scripture. Funny how many of us there are now! Maybe we even outnumber pawnshop preachers. Ya think?
Very interesting post, it definitely makes one think.
Very interesting post, it definitely makes one think.