The Tract Lady
by Michael, posted November 7, 2011“Do you know where you’re going when you die?”
My friend and I sat on a bench, overlooking the pond in our local park. We’ve been friends since university, but are now also colleagues, working together at a small engineering company. We were in the park on business: testing a small autonomous watercraft. I had my nose buried in a laptop, making some fixes, while he was absent-mindedly driving the boat.
The unmanned catamaran we have is striking and unusual. We often have people approach us when we’re testing in the park, so I have a brief spiel I give, where I explain how it works, and what it’s for.
This lady was different, though. She was there to talk, not listen.
My friend stared away. “Not interested. Have a nice day.”
~
“Where am I going when I die?”
Dallas Willard calls this the gospel of sin management. In its purest form, it says, “I’m a sinner and deserve eternal punishment; by believing in Jesus, he pays for my sins on the cross, so that when I die, I can go to Heaven.”
For a long time, I would have identified that idea as the kernel of my faith—at least, if asked to think about it. This would have been the key fundamental around which everything else was assembled. “Being good” was important, it just wasn’t the most important. How important was it? That’s hard to say… the main purpose of being good seemed to be so that believers could lead by example, be wordless witnesses, that kind of thing.
~
I don’t think I believe that any more. Or rather, I might… it’s just not the kernel.
Heresy? Here’s your heretic:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 24:34-40)
When does Jesus ever ask someone where they’re going when they die? What he does do is offer physical healing, acceptance, and hope. He offers moral guidance. He says “your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.” He tells people to give their possessions to the poor. He talks about being renewed, being born again. He says that we must be like little children to enter his kingdom.
Jesus talks a lot about his kingdom. Some people think he’s talking about heaven, but when you look at it that way, you start to wonder what the point is of life here on earth, as a Christian. Is it to hand out tracts in the park? Why? So they can join up with us and hand them out too? What’s the point? If that’s all there is, being a Christian is just a waiting game; if that’s it, I’d rather be an atheist who knows his destiny, and knows to make the best of his brief time here on Earth.
~
Works-based salvation gets a bad rap in conservative churches. Christianity’s big differentiator is supposed to be that salvation (“going to heaven”) is a free gift, rather than earned by doing good things.
But no, salvation is by faith alone, we hear, a message typically attached to a passages from Paul’s letters, like Romans 5:1. It’s an empty message, though; it leaves Christian living in the limbo I describe above. If my religion makes me feel like the best-possible scenario is to get hit by a bus tomorrow and skip the whole earth-thing, I think I must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.
The thing is, when Jesus talks about his Kingdom, I don’t think he was meaning a castle off in the clouds somewhere. I think he was talking about something here on earth, now—the kingdom that we as his followers are supposed to be building. The “good news” is not an airy-fairy intellectual message about sin debt repayment, it’s the whole story of Christ, that he made us and loves us and wants us to love him and love each other. It’s that Christ is coming back someday to put the world right, and until he comes, we are his hands and feet to begin that task. The good works that we do are not to earn an after-death salvation, but are to bring his kingdom on Earth. And it’s participating in that kingdom which actually saves us—not from the future penalties or consequences of having committed sins, but the bondage of the sin itself.
How’s that for salvation?
~
What about when we do die? I don’t know, but I’m content to let God sort that one out. I don’t think Jesus put a huge priority on that in his teachings, so I’d rather not either. There are an awful lot of good people in this world who don’t “accept” Christ, and an awful lot more who have lived and died and never even heard of him.
There are also a lot of really rotten, wretched, selfish, materialistic Christians out there.
So I’m not sure what the story is with the afterlife. I believe in it—Jesus tells the other thief that he will join him in paradise. And I also believe in grace, because that thief sure didn’t deserve what he received. God designed and made us, and sees our hearts. I don’t think thoughts of future judgment (or judgment-avoidance) should be the basis of our faith, and nor should they be the basis of how our faith is presented to unbelievers.
~
These are not totally new ideas. We’ve been thinking about them a lot more recently, though, in large part prompted by the books Evolving In Monkey Town and The Divine Conspiracy. I don’t think I’m ready to identify myself as a post-evangelical, but a lot of the issues in that movement resonate with me. We both found it very refreshing how Rachel Held Evans (in Monkey Town) chronicles her own growing willingness to entertain doubt, to put aside what were previously unquestionable fundamentals, and to actually wrestle with difficult questions.
Which is really what this is all about. What I’ve got here is just a starting point. What’s exciting is seeing our faith as a dialogue—something we’re working out as we go along, something we’re emotionally and intellectually invested in, and that we can be passionate about. Some worth living in the here and now, for ourselves, for Clara, and for our community.
Filed under: Reflections | 6 Comments »
Hi Mike,
Good thoughts & questions. I ran across a blog post by Brian McLaren today, who has done a lot of thinking about what the gospel is. Here’s a brief excerpt:
from: http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/just-curious-based-on-your.html
Hi Mike,
In our Thursday night cell group we are studying a book Called ‘Surprised by Hope’, by a guy named NT Wright. It is about life after death, resurrection, final judgement second coming etc.
I have always noticed how enthusiastic all the NT writers are about resurrection, and I had trouble understanding this. If my sins are forgiven, and I am going to straight to Heaven, what is the point of ‘resurrection’
This writer believes the early Christians had no idea of a disembodied idyllic life in another place called Heaven. AFter we die, there would be a period of ‘rest’ followed by bodily resurrection which would happen on earth. All the evils on earth will be set right, the earth will be made new and we will live here, and rule here as we were supposed to do in the first place. In other words the Kingdom will come on earth. In this view earth, and bodies are hugely important. Jesus’ resurrection was an event brought out of the future, and the beginning of this whole chain of events. In this era what we do either brings the Kingdom in or opposes it. It really matters what we do–it impacts the earth, the Kingdom, the human race, and ourselves as part of it.
Challenging post, brother.
Isn’t our faith about both bringing the Kingdom of God to earth and also having the curse broken and penalty of our sins paid? I don’t think we can have one without the other.
Don’t forget about the Old testament God who abhors sin and dramatically roots it out of his people (in shocking ways) to demonstrate how he cannot tolerate it among his people…I have a feeling that’s where the basis of the “sin management” idea comes from, and I think the bible is pretty clear about the importance of dealing with sin.
I feel like modern Christians already have a hard enough time confessing their sins and repenting to each other and God. As I see it, its not a lack of understanding the faith or desire for a loving Christ-centered community that causes that ineffective holding-pattern-till-heaven thing, its more a lack of true repentance (turning from) sin and focus on spirit-filled living. Our culture is so entitled, self-righteous and defensive…My worry is that shifting the focus of faith further away from sin atonement to “bringing the kingdom” by our works will make that even more entrenched.
To be honest, the idea of community/kingdom being the key to salvation hits a bit of a raw nerve with me right now. I’m a lonely place spiritually, and finding my efforts to cultivate Christ-centered community around me pretty challenging. Maybe this is me just being defensive though? I dunno I’m pretty sure that I’m in this particular place for a reason and have something to learn… I hope it doesn’t mean my salvation is in jeopardy.
You have to bear with me at the moment if this is poorly written/doesn’t appropriately address what you wrote. I just woke up from sleeping off a night shift so my brain is a little fuzzy still :p
Interesting thoughts, Hannah, and I can see your point. I agree about acknowledging the importance of sin, and reconciliation with God. But I have noticed that people sometimes have to be in a Christian community for a while before they get to the point of realizing their sin. In other words, it is probably right to start following Jesus at whatever point he calls, and then he will bring us to repentance. To grow,eve after repenting a person has to ‘follow’, i.e., obey, do what’s right, use their trust muscles as we used to say at home
N.T. Wright’s books, starting with Surprised by Hope, are helping me grapple with the questions you’ve posed, Mike. Here are a few more thoughts:
1. Since the high middle ages, western Christianity has been preoccupied with the issue of Eternal Destiny and the related issue of Personal Guilt.
2. Medieval Catholicism came up with a framework wherein:
a) Eternal Destiny comprises 3 possible end-points: Heaven, Purgatory & Hell.
b) Because of Personal Guilt under the Wrath of God, every individual has a Default Eternal Destiny of Hell.
c) However, individuals can perhaps avoid Hell if their sins are remitted, via the atoning death of Jesus.
d) The remittance of sins is mediated by the sacraments of the Church.
3. The Protestant Reformers retained a good deal of the Medieval Catholic framework, particularly 2 a), b) & c) above, with the qualification that they rejected Purgatory, such that the accepted only two ultimate destinations — Heaven & Hell. Their only big challenge to Medieval Catholicism was that they strongly rejected 2 d), and instead, they proposed new theories as to an individual is to appropriate the benefits of the atoning death of Jesus.
4. Most importantly, the Protestant Reformers, and their evangelical descendants today, fundamentally agreed with the Medieval Catholics that the Eternal Destiny of individual human beings is the most important issue that the Bible teaches, and likewise, that the most important response which the Bible wants us to make is to accept the Offer of Forgiveness of Sins. As you correctly say in your Blog post, they, like the Catholic Church, taught a Gospel of Sin Management.
5. Thus, when The Tract Lady asked you in the park, “Do you know where you’re going when you die?”, her Question, and the Answer which she would have provided to you, is rooted a framework of 1000 years of western Christian thinking.
6. For many years now, Liberal Christians have rejected the framework in 2., along with their rejection of many other traditional teachings. Recently, Christians who profess a high view of scripture have also been questioning the framework. As you point out in your blog post, Rachel Held Evans and other have specifically questioned item 2 b) of the traditional framework.
7. Wright argues that Jesus largely accepted the Jewish teachings of his day:
a) that there is an intermediate conscious state after death
b) that everyone is judged after death, according to their heart and their deeds
c) that that there will be a future bodily resurrection of God’s people.
8. However, Wright argues that Jesus spent relatively little time addressing the issues in 7. above. Wright feels that the whole framework is misguided and does not reflect the true priorities of either the Old or New Testaments. Regarding Jesus’ teachings, he feels that passages such as Matt 7:13-14, Matt 7:21-23, Matt 7:24-27, Matt 13:24-43, Mark 13:24-27, Luke 13:1-5, etc etc, are not primarily about Eternal Destiny nor are they about The End of the World, and he feels that the reason why many Christians tend to (in his view) misread these and other passages is because of a longstanding habit of reading the scriptures through the lens of the framework in 2. above.
9. Wright feels that the Good News that Jesus and his apostles preached was not primarily about the Eternal Destiny of individuals, but instead, was about God’s promises to establish his Kingdom on earth, to restore justice, and to bring people into a proper and healthy relationship with God and with each other — very much the issues you allude to in your Blog post.
10. I’ve seen that Wright also feels that Protestant Christians misinterpret what Paul is saying about Justification by Faith, for instance, in Romans. I haven’t yet delved into these issues, so I can’t explain his position.
So, in conclusion, it seems that your reflections in this Blog post, about your encounter with The Tract Lady, are going in the same direction as the thinking of one of the most eminent theologians of our day. Keep up the good work, Michael.
Hey Dad,
Yes, I’ve very much been enjoying Surprised by Hope as well. It definitely gets more accessible in the final third of it, where he discusses what the objectives of the modern church should be in light of a more complete understanding of Jesus’ kingdom teachings.
I’m looking forward to going back and re-reading the earlier sections of the book with the greater context of knowing where it’s leading.
I always appreciate our discussions about these kinds of issues: we think in similar ways, and the logical progression you’ve laid out is exactly the kind of way I like to organize my thoughts on complex issues.