JUNE 2005
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Why would God have only one way to heaven?
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Could you please explain what the differences are between spirituality and religion?
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When
someone dies, they say, "Do not put a question mark where God has put a period." It is also said when someone dies, God has called them home, it was his Will, and it was their time. What
about when someone dies a violent death, either by torture
or by a senseless murder? Why does God allow that person to die like that if it was his time, instead of dying peacefully? Is every death called by God or is it not always God’s
will when someone dies, especially in a violent death?
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I
am a woman in my 50s and about to lead the next lesson
from the "2004-05 Horizons Bible Study" in
our Bible Circle. The debate centers on the leadership
role of women (then and now) which contradicts the silence
in the church imposed by ancient society and the words
of Paul in the New Testament. What is your understanding
of the context and meaning of the Gospels?
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How can I make God proud of me?
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My
mother recently passed away and a lot of questions
and concerns have been going through my mind. Mom was a very good and decent person. Is she in heaven? Is she being taken care of? Is she whole again? Will she be sick anymore? I loved my mother very much, and I miss her dearly. I have had so many thoughts that I want to be with her because I need her. I am 35 and she was my best friend. I am so lost without her. She has been gone since 2-26, and I cry every day. Am I being selfish? I have a hole in my heart, and I feel it is getting bigger. What shall I do?
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Why
does my faith go up and down? At times I feel close to
God and Jesus, other times I question all of it. Why
are Americans the "chosen" and other people
and countries so poor? Does God favor us more? I want
so hard to believe, but sometimes it is so hard. I was
baptized a Catholic after I was married for 2 years.
All my children were also baptized. But none of us now
goes to the Catholic Church, or any Church for that matter.
I just want to find peace and faith. I find myself jealous
of those who have found the answer, and I have not.
Why would God have only one way to heaven?
This is a matter of debate within the faith communities. Each of the world’s primary faiths would claim that it is the one way to God. I prefer to think of God as one and our responses to God as partial and inevitably flawed. Each faith, then, might have a piece of the truth. Although English Biblical translators inserted “the” into the text, in the original Greek manuscript Jesus described himself as “way,” not “the way,” suggesting that we could come to God through him, but that other ways might exist, as well. That idea is offensive to some Christians.
It seems to me that we each make our choice as to which way we will follow. What matters then isn’t that our way be absolutely correct, but that we make a sustained and faithful effort to follow our chosen path to God. Our way must withstand scrutiny – we can’t just create a faith that suits our fancy – but it need not be the way that others follow.
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Could you please explain what the differences are between
spirituality and religion?
Terms like “spirituality,” “faith,” and “religion” mean different things to different people and often are used interchangeably. I will tell you what they mean to me.
I think “faith” refers to our response to God’s love. It is belief in a divine being whom we cannot see or adequately understand, and the hope that is God’s gift to us. Faith has some element of decision to it, but at its core, faith is like a child crying out to a parent.
“Religion” refers to the customs and practices (such as prayer, worship, sacraments) that enable us to act out our faith.
“Spirituality,” as I understand it, refers to some of those customs and practices, such as prayer and praise, as opposed to study and mission work.
The distinctions can seem artificial, and I wouldn’t suggest making too much of them.
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When someone dies, they say, "Do not put a question mark where God has put a period." It is also said when someone dies, God has called them home, it was his Will, and it was their time. What about when someone dies a violent death, either by torture or by a senseless murder? Why does God allow that person to die like that if it was his time, instead of dying peacefully? Is every death called by God or is it not always God’s will when someone dies, especially in a violent death?
I refer to comments like those you mentioned as “pastel phrases.” They are platitudes by which we push away someone else’s suffering. We might think such comments are soothing and reassuring, but in fact, they deny the pain being felt and make light of their loss.
Why would we say such hurtful things? Because death frightens us. We would rather paint God as a monster, taking lives whenever he feels like it, than deal with the sobering and confusing fact that life ends, not because God was ready for a specific death to occur, but because death just happens. God made us mortal.
We can hasten our demise by living poorly. Other people can hasten our demise by violence. Some people just die earlier than others.
Rather than blame God for death, I think we should rejoice that death isn’t the end. God loves us eternally.
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I am a woman in my 50s and about to lead the next lesson from the "2004-05 Horizons Bible Study" in our Bible Circle. The debate centers on the leadership role of women (then and now) which contradicts the silence in the church imposed by ancient society and the words of Paul in the New Testament. What is your understanding of the context and meaning of the Gospels?
The Gospels make it clear that Jesus welcomed women to his inner circle and not as a “ladies’ auxiliary” to the twelve male disciples. They were leaders in their own right, it appears, and were close to Jesus. But even before the end of the New Testament era, women were being pushed to the side and a male hierarchy being established. Later, entire books and ways of thinking were banished by the early Church, perhaps because they were too feminine and intuitive.
Why was that happening? Why were they abandoning the way of Jesus and reverting to the precedents of ancient culture? I don’t think we know. Back to normal, perhaps. Fear of the feminine. An inevitable byproduct of the shift from suffering servanthood to institution-building. Or perhaps a consequence of remembering what Jesus did a generation or more before the accounts were written down, but not remembering why. In the 40 years between Jesus’ brief ministry and the first Gospel (Mark), much was lost.
I don’t think marginalizing women has served the Church well. It has been unjust to women, and it has deprived us of the fullness that Jesus evidently intended. In going against tradition, Jesus had something in mind. We need to know what that was.
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How can I make God proud of me?
Interesting question. In Scripture, pride is usually referred to as a human failing. I suspect that what you mean by pride is the way a parent feels toward a child when the parent is pleased with the child. When I feel pride in my sons, I am delighting in their character, their handling of adversity, their compassion for other people, and their leadership qualities.
Assuming that this is more or less what you have in mind, I would say two things. First, God loves you no matter what. There is nothing that can diminish God’s love for you. Nor can you add to that love. It just is. It is the ground of your being. However, you can stray from God by the choices you make and the ways you treat other people. That alienation from God is an awful place to be. It can feel like God’s displeasure or rejection.
Second, how to “make God proud,” in the sense above, or put another way, how to be in right relationship with God? That path is clearly marked. Love God, love your neighbor, walk humbly before God, and be an agent of mercy and justice in a harsh world. That calls for us to get outside ourselves and to notice, care about and respond to the needs of other people.
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I have many friends in high school, but hardly any are Christians. How can I be friends with a non-Christian when the Bible says not to be yoked together with unbelievers? What does that mean? How can I avoid them without them thinking I am "too good" to hang out with them? Help!
I don’t understand why you would want to avoid your friends. If they are decent people and you enjoy their company, why not be friends with them? Yes, there are some passages in the Bible that suggest we ought to be stand-offish, keep to ourselves, avoid contact with others. People tried to impose those very rules on Jesus. But he insisted on welcoming women into his circle, even though religious tradition said not to do so. He touched lepers, went into Gentile lands, took water from a Gentile woman, ate with sinners, called a tax collector to be a disciple, and established a circle of radical openness – all in direct violation of established tradition. Why? Because his commandment was to “love God and love your neighbor.” As you use the Bible to chart your own course, I urge you to read more than a few citations, to delve into the entire story, especially the Gospels’ accounts of the priorities that Jesus set.
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My mother recently passed away and a lot of questions and concerns have been going through my mind. Mom was a very good and decent person. Is she in heaven? Is she being taken care of? Is she whole again? Will she be sick anymore? I loved my mother very much, and I miss her dearly. I have had so many thoughts that I want to be with her because I need her. I am 35 and she was my best friend. I am so lost without her. She has been gone since 2-26, and I cry every day. Am I being selfish? I have a hole in my heart, and I feel it is getting bigger. What shall I do?
As you are discovering, grief is a powerful emotion. It has been likened to waves at the ocean: they wash over you, and then along comes a big one and almost knocks you down. They key to grieving is, first, to understand that it is normal and healthy, and second, that the way to work through it is to be as open as you are being in this e-mail. Allow yourself to feel the loss, to name the pain, and to miss someone you loved. Grieving takes time, and it isn’t easy.
I believe that God welcomes us close when we die. What that closeness is like we don’t know. But we can trust God to love us beyond death, even as he loved us in life. I encourage you to leave the specifics to God, and to go about the hard work of grieving, and then continue on in life as the best daughter and person you can be.
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Why does my faith go up and down? At times I feel close to God and Jesus, other times I question all of it. Why are Americans the "chosen" and other people and countries so poor? Does God favor us more? I want so hard to believe, but sometimes it is so hard. I was baptized a Catholic after I was married for 2 years. All my children were also baptized. But none of us now goes to the Catholic Church, or any Church for that matter. I just want to find peace and faith. I find myself jealous of those who have found the answer, and I have not.
Some people believe that their religion is the only true religion, and that all other religions are heresy and their followers doomed. This belief is convenient for them, but it isn’t the way God works. Over the years of humanity’s journey, God has revealed himself in many ways. The Old Testament alone uses at least four different names for God, and it has dozens of images of God. The New Testament conveys several different accounts of Jesus’ life and what followed from his ministry.
The reason for that has to do with us. We hear different things, we see different things. Even the same event, like the crucifixion, gets remembered in different ways. That testifies both to our limitations in understanding God and to the richness and mystery of God’s being. Those who proclaim their way as the only way generally are presenting a small and narrow God.
When you add to that the many ways people perceive God outside the Jewish and Christian traditions, you realize what a vast, complex and mysterious God we worship.
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