One thing I've heard and agree with is that salvation starts now, not later. The new life starts now (even though it might not feel like it, sometimes as in my case, for a very long time!). That's why I can't say salvation is focused primarily on life after death.
Yes! I’ve said what I don’t think is the heart of salvation, but I guess I haven’t said what I think is the heart of salvation. To me, the heart of salvation is our transformation from who we are into who God intends us and wants us to be.
As someone who may recall, I’m fond of quoting Frederick Buechner, and he has this to say about salvation. A few bits from that longer quote that resonate with me and that seem relevant:
Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. . . .
A closer analogy is the experience of love. When you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love who is. You forget yourself. You deny yourself. You give of yourself, so that by all the rules of arithmetical logic there should be less of yourself than there was to start with. Only by a curious paradox there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself.
The experience of salvation involves the same paradox. Jesus put it like this: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).
You give up your old self-seeking self for somebody you love and thereby become yourself at last. . . .
You do not love God and live for him so you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven. . . .
It is a process, not an event.
What happens to me after death is but part of the ongoing experience of salvation.
And I’d add that I think salvation has communal and even creation-wide aspects—the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth. I’m leery of seeing salvation only through an individualistic lens.
Salvation may start now, yes, but the time on Earth, before we die, is literally infinitely shorter than the time after we die—however long the unbodied period in Heaven is, there’s infinite time in the New Heaven and the New Earth after that. “And all of their adventures on earth, and in Narnia, were the title and the cover page, and now the great story that never ends began…” (Quoted from memory, so likely imperfect.)
One thing I've heard and agree with is that salvation starts now, not later. The new life starts now (even though it might not feel like it, sometimes as in my case, for a very long time!). That's why I can't say salvation is focused primarily on life after death.
Yes! I’ve said what I don’t think is the heart of salvation, but I guess I haven’t said what I think is the heart of salvation. To me, the heart of salvation is our transformation from who we are into who God intends us and wants us to be.
As someone who may recall, I’m fond of quoting Frederick Buechner, and he has this to say about salvation. A few bits from that longer quote that resonate with me and that seem relevant:
Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. . . .
A closer analogy is the experience of love. When you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love who is. You forget yourself. You deny yourself. You give of yourself, so that by all the rules of arithmetical logic there should be less of yourself than there was to start with. Only by a curious paradox there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself.
The experience of salvation involves the same paradox. Jesus put it like this: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).
You give up your old self-seeking self for somebody you love and thereby become yourself at last. . . .
You do not love God and live for him so you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven. . . .
It is a process, not an event.
What happens to me after death is but part of the ongoing experience of salvation.
And I’d add that I think salvation has communal and even creation-wide aspects—the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth. I’m leery of seeing salvation only through an individualistic lens.
If praying that the Kingdom of God should be "on earth as it is in heaven" doesn't have a here and now communal meaning, then it has no meaning at all.
One thing I've heard and agree with is that salvation starts now, not later. The new life starts now (even though it might not feel like it, sometimes as in my case, for a very long time!). That's why I can't say salvation is focused primarily on life after death.
Yes! I’ve said what I don’t think is the heart of salvation, but I guess I haven’t said what I think is the heart of salvation. To me, the heart of salvation is our transformation from who we are into who God intends us and wants us to be.
As someone who may recall, I’m fond of quoting Frederick Buechner, and he has this to say about salvation. A few bits from that longer quote that resonate with me and that seem relevant:
Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. . . .
A closer analogy is the experience of love. When you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love who is. You forget yourself. You deny yourself. You give of yourself, so that by all the rules of arithmetical logic there should be less of yourself than there was to start with. Only by a curious paradox there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself.
The experience of salvation involves the same paradox. Jesus put it like this: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).
You give up your old self-seeking self for somebody you love and thereby become yourself at last. . . .
You do not love God and live for him so you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven. . . .
It is a process, not an event.
What happens to me after death is but part of the ongoing experience of salvation.
And I’d add that I think salvation has communal and even creation-wide aspects—the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth. I’m leery of seeing salvation only through an individualistic lens.
Nice. Like the quote.
My understanding of the greek root (soter) implied to make whole.
I've always seen salvation as making us whole (because we are broken), saving us from ourselves.
One thing I've heard and agree with is that salvation starts now, not later. The new life starts now (even though it might not feel like it, sometimes as in my case, for a very long time!). That's why I can't say salvation is focused primarily on life after death.
Yes! I’ve said what I don’t think is the heart of salvation, but I guess I haven’t said what I think is the heart of salvation. To me, the heart of salvation is our transformation from who we are into who God intends us and wants us to be.
As someone who may recall, I’m fond of quoting Frederick Buechner, and he has this to say about salvation. A few bits from that longer quote that resonate with me and that seem relevant:
Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. . . .
A closer analogy is the experience of love. When you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love who is. You forget yourself. You deny yourself. You give of yourself, so that by all the rules of arithmetical logic there should be less of yourself than there was to start with. Only by a curious paradox there is more. You feel that at last you really are yourself.
The experience of salvation involves the same paradox. Jesus put it like this: "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).
You give up your old self-seeking self for somebody you love and thereby become yourself at last. . . .
You do not love God and live for him so you will go to heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and live for him is heaven. . . .
It is a process, not an event.
What happens to me after death is but part of the ongoing experience of salvation.
And I’d add that I think salvation has communal and even creation-wide aspects—the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth. I’m leery of seeing salvation only through an individualistic lens.
Nice. Like the quote.
My understanding of the greek root (soter) implied to make whole.
I've always seen salvation as making us whole (because we are broken), saving us from ourselves.
I agree with your last sentence, and with the post you quote. I need to be saved from myself; it goes on and on, certainly a process (or even a lifestyle - I have no sense of a trajectory, which would be more hopeful) rather than a singular event. 'Who will rescue me from this body (and mind, and (my)spirit) which is leading me to damnation'. I know Paul can be interpreted as playing the part there of someone who is just prior to praying the prayer, and bish bash bosh; but that's not my experience.
This, I suppose, is what makes me a liberal. I don't believe I need saving from myself. I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow. This is entirely in concert with my true nature, but not with the things that constantly get in the way. By this process God within meets God outside, and the two grow into union. This is the process which was perfected in Christ, whose example we follow.
Thanks for that perspective - it makes sense to me. But for me - knowing I need saving from myself is very often the only bit of knowing I have on which I feel I can depend. That would be crushing, if it were not accompanied by the promise of salvation. It might be the only way God can reach me, and stay in touch with me; I often suspect that were I more sorted, I would just drift off. We're all different.
They may be, but the imply absolutely opposite processes. One is essentially inhibitory and the other developmental. I'm extremely good at inhibiting myself already - my need is to learn how to grow.
I think in Augustinian Christianity, in theory, being saved from oneself and growing should in fact be the same thing, Augustinian Christianity believing that evil is privation. (Though to be sure the tradition often doesn't translate that into spiritual practice.)
They may be, but the imply absolutely opposite processes.
To me they don’t; to me they are different ways of describing the same process.
One is essentially inhibitory and the other developmental. I'm extremely good at inhibiting myself already - my need is to learn how to grow.
Yes. From my perspective, that “I’m extremely good at inhibiting myself” and “I need saving from myself” are two complimentary descriptions of the same phenomenon. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
I still think that the process being described is opposite. If one is being saved from oneself, one is becoming something other than oneself. If one is learning how not to inhibit oneself, one is learning how to be more fully oneself. I see what you mean, to some extent, but I still think that the difference is essential, and the similarity peripheral.
I still think that the process being described is opposite. If one is being saved from oneself, one is becoming something other than oneself. If one is learning how not to inhibit oneself, one is learning how to be more fully oneself. I see what you mean, to some extent, but I still think that the difference is essential, and the similarity peripheral.
Ah, I can see where you’re seeing a distinction.
I would see it as being saved from who I am in order to be who God created me to be and intends to me to be, in order to be more fully myself. In other words, I would see who I am now as not my true self.
I have often been amazed at how God would use someone like me--very much less whole--- to work for the wholeness of the world I am in. I look at the peace of God (shalom) is not about perfection, but about connection: healed relationships, restored dignity, belonging, justice, and right ordered love. Maybe my brokenness helps me be more attuned.
@Nick Tamen - so you are saying it's 'both/and' ... ?
I'll get me coat ...
More seriously yes, I can see the distinction you are making @ThunderBunk but equally can see these things as facets of the same diamond as it were rather than mutually exclusive opposites.
Or, put another way, it's like the old image of the people getting hold of different parts of an elephant, the trunk, ears, legs, tail etc.
This, I suppose, is what makes me a liberal. I don't believe I need saving from myself. I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow. This is entirely in concert with my true nature, but not with the things that constantly get in the way. By this process God within meets God outside, and the two grow into union. This is the process which was perfected in Christ, whose example we follow.
What does "I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow" mean?
I still think that the process being described is opposite. If one is being saved from oneself, one is becoming something other than oneself. If one is learning how not to inhibit oneself, one is learning how to be more fully oneself. I see what you mean, to some extent, but I still think that the difference is essential, and the similarity peripheral.
Ah, I can see where you’re seeing a distinction.
I would see it as being saved from who I am in order to be who God created me to be and intends to me to be, in order to be more fully myself. In other words, I would see who I am now as not my true self.
This, I suppose, is what makes me a liberal. I don't believe I need saving from myself. I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow. This is entirely in concert with my true nature, but not with the things that constantly get in the way. By this process God within meets God outside, and the two grow into union. This is the process which was perfected in Christ, whose example we follow.
What does "I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow" mean?
I guess it could mean "I need to allow those parts of my personality that are most pleasing to God to expand."
Or, it could be some self-deifying thing where you think there is an actual god inside you that needs to take fuller control of you.
I know the latter interpretation changes @ThunderBunk's "G" to a "g", but the phrase "the God in me" seems to describe an entity that is replicated on an individual basis in other people as well.
They may be, but the imply absolutely opposite processes. One is essentially inhibitory and the other developmental. I'm extremely good at inhibiting myself already - my need is to learn how to grow.
Our discussion reminds me of something I heard a Christian speaker say once, which (I was young) was quite impactful at the time. It's possible that God lies between us, a bit like B'ham lies between Manchester and London, and two people might need to set out in opposite directions to get there.
I don't trust myself, and 'owning' the God-in-me feels much less safe (to me) than trusting him to be very strongly 'other'. Our selves are so many-more-dimensional than the two-ish (it's fairly flat between Manchester and London ) of getting around the country on a map. It might not surprise us that your direction looks very much different to mine, even if we acknowledge we both want to end up in the one, good, place. I'm sure that's a cliche, but perhaps there might be something in it for somebody.
I think in Ibsen's Peer Gynt there's a distinction between what in one translation is 'man to thyself be true' and the troll motto 'be true to thy self-ish'; between the self as the bundle of cravings that is the centre of its own world, and the genuinely desiring and loving self that is one self in the world among others.
I suspect that my take on this comes down to the formative experience of discovering my sexuality and the roots of my adult faith together at the age of 19/20. I had to burn away a great deal I had been given/inherited, and find what was authentic, in order to be able to live at all. I've never managed this degree of authenticity since, when it comes to organising my life outside my faith, and my sexuality stalled and has never really flourished, out of fear and awkwardness. But I learned at that point that, to be living, to have any authentic life, my faith had to come from what was within me, what I had already been given, and learning to treasure and add to and develop that, rather than trying to graft on an identikit version of faith/church/God. I just wish I could learn to do this in the rest of my life.
They may be, but the imply absolutely opposite processes. One is essentially inhibitory and the other developmental. I'm extremely good at inhibiting myself already - my need is to learn how to grow.
Maybe the inhibitory bit is saving you from yourself? It's part of yourself that you want to outgrow but it is a problem for you?
I get what you mean about the difference in language and direction.
I am a liberal but I discovered the doctrine of original sin hugely freeing in mid life. I didn't like it before that. Too damnation and all that.
But as Chesterton says, it's the one doctrine that can be empirically proven. You just have to look at the world.
The point is everyone is broken. We are not alone in our brokenness. No one is perfect. Absolutely no one this side of the eschaton.
I find that very liberating because I no longer feel like a second class citizen. Everyone is in the same boat.
But I learned at that point that, to be living, to have any authentic life, my faith had to come from what was within me, what I had already been given, and learning to treasure and add to and develop that, rather than trying to graft on an identikit version of faith/church/God.
Thanks for sharing such a personal take. If I may quote the part above - the 'other' God in me is certainly not 'other' in the sense that He belongs to a church who are trying to foist Him on me. My denomination is small, and dying - which is oddly a gift, as it does not really foist anything on anyone. I think we might be similar in 'testing the spirits' of what God is presented to us as, using something internal. I hadn't thought of that internal place to stand and test as being something from Him, but I guess I must believe that (perhaps as you do), as I sure don't want to be trusting me to do it and I wouldn't want the result if I thought I was just 'pleasing myself' - though test, I must.
I have a gay friend who reacts very strongly against the 'scene' (and is somewhat lonely as a result); perhaps your post draws a paralell with rejecting the idea that one must be a GLE to be a Christian, or maybe a rugby boy or some kind of 'player' to be hetero. Keeping it together with my right-wing Christian friends is also kind-of tricky at times. There are a lot of ways to not fit in.
Yes, exactly. The internal place is a gift from God because all of us, everything that we are, is a gift from the God who made us. It does not need cheap IKEA religion.
I would say this, of course, but I find the Orthodox emphasis on the 'otherness' and unknowableness as it were of God in his essence but his immanence and knowability in his energies to be helpful in relation to the things we are discussing here.
I'm sorry, but it's another of these 'both/and' things ...
God is both 'other' and completely transcendent and also immanent.
As the old hymn goes, 'God unknown, he alone/Calls my heart to be his own.'
God is always personal.
@WhimsicalChristian - as you'll probably be aware, the 'Christian East' takes a different view of Original Sin than that traditionally taken by the 'Latin West' - although I think there is more convergence in understandings these days.
The bottom line, though, is that we would agree with you on the 'brokenness' thing and that everyone is in the same boat. One of the analogies we use for the Church is that it is a 'hospital' where broken people can be healed and made whole.
Sadly, as I'm sure we have all experienced one way or another, the 'household of faith' can also inflict damage on people.
Just had some fun. I walked down to the L station downtown and saw two suspiciously well-dressed white guy son the platform, one holding a curious leather-bound book. I overheard their conversation and it seemed like they were getting ready to...yep...pass tracts...
They walked up to me and I said "Episcopalian." They asked if I wanted a tract, I demurred. I asked what their denom was, "Presbyterian." I asked "PCUSA or..." "PCA." Yep, I know what that means. They asked how I thought about the exclusivity of Christ. I said I was post-millennial and universalist, CHrist's work had been done and the work was on us now.* They told me that Jesus of course said that people were going to hell, as if this were some newfangled notion that I had never heard before. You could feel the "Gotcha, liberal!"
At that moment my train arrived, so I boarded and yelled back "Trouble is this isn't a logical game for you to win, it's a heart thing" and I slapped my chest to emphasize the point, highlighting the implied arrogant hatred in their attitude. I'd have been a bit more nuanced and patient, perhaps, had I more time to chat, but I wasn't here to flatter them with a protracted argument. And of course these guys are trained debaters, I wasn't really set up for this kind of conversation.
I don't usually like to pick on proselytizers, but in a nice town like Chicago I think they're giving guys like me a bad reputation. And I did feel myself vaguely glowing after the conversation. It did my heart some good.
* This may not be exactly what I think but I was improvising, and it's not far from my opinion, I think.
Comments
As someone who may recall, I’m fond of quoting Frederick Buechner, and he has this to say about salvation. A few bits from that longer quote that resonate with me and that seem relevant: What happens to me after death is but part of the ongoing experience of salvation.
And I’d add that I think salvation has communal and even creation-wide aspects—the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth. I’m leery of seeing salvation only through an individualistic lens.
If praying that the Kingdom of God should be "on earth as it is in heaven" doesn't have a here and now communal meaning, then it has no meaning at all.
Nice. Like the quote.
My understanding of the greek root (soter) implied to make whole.
I've always seen salvation as making us whole (because we are broken), saving us from ourselves.
I agree with your last sentence, and with the post you quote. I need to be saved from myself; it goes on and on, certainly a process (or even a lifestyle - I have no sense of a trajectory, which would be more hopeful) rather than a singular event. 'Who will rescue me from this body (and mind, and (my)spirit) which is leading me to damnation'. I know Paul can be interpreted as playing the part there of someone who is just prior to praying the prayer, and bish bash bosh; but that's not my experience.
Yes. From my perspective, that “I’m extremely good at inhibiting myself” and “I need saving from myself” are two complimentary descriptions of the same phenomenon. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
I would see it as being saved from who I am in order to be who God created me to be and intends to me to be, in order to be more fully myself. In other words, I would see who I am now as not my true self.
I'll get me coat ...
More seriously yes, I can see the distinction you are making @ThunderBunk but equally can see these things as facets of the same diamond as it were rather than mutually exclusive opposites.
Or, put another way, it's like the old image of the people getting hold of different parts of an elephant, the trunk, ears, legs, tail etc.
What does "I believe I need to allow the God in me to grow" mean?
Amen!
No, both he and everyone else can use it!
I guess it could mean "I need to allow those parts of my personality that are most pleasing to God to expand."
Or, it could be some self-deifying thing where you think there is an actual god inside you that needs to take fuller control of you.
I know the latter interpretation changes @ThunderBunk's "G" to a "g", but the phrase "the God in me" seems to describe an entity that is replicated on an individual basis in other people as well.
Rather like the Quaker principle of discerning and recognising 'that which is of God in everyone.'
That's not an exclusively Quaker concept of course any more than 'both/and' belongs to any particular individual or group.
I might suggest that 'outgrow human nature' be expressed rather as 'allow human nature to grow as God intended.'
Otherwise it could imply some kind of superhuman process.
But I get your drift.
Our discussion reminds me of something I heard a Christian speaker say once, which (I was young) was quite impactful at the time. It's possible that God lies between us, a bit like B'ham lies between Manchester and London, and two people might need to set out in opposite directions to get there.
I don't trust myself, and 'owning' the God-in-me feels much less safe (to me) than trusting him to be very strongly 'other'. Our selves are so many-more-dimensional than the two-ish (it's fairly flat between Manchester and London
Maybe the inhibitory bit is saving you from yourself? It's part of yourself that you want to outgrow but it is a problem for you?
I get what you mean about the difference in language and direction.
I am a liberal but I discovered the doctrine of original sin hugely freeing in mid life. I didn't like it before that. Too damnation and all that.
But as Chesterton says, it's the one doctrine that can be empirically proven. You just have to look at the world.
The point is everyone is broken. We are not alone in our brokenness. No one is perfect. Absolutely no one this side of the eschaton.
I find that very liberating because I no longer feel like a second class citizen. Everyone is in the same boat.
Thanks for sharing such a personal take. If I may quote the part above - the 'other' God in me is certainly not 'other' in the sense that He belongs to a church who are trying to foist Him on me. My denomination is small, and dying - which is oddly a gift, as it does not really foist anything on anyone. I think we might be similar in 'testing the spirits' of what God is presented to us as, using something internal. I hadn't thought of that internal place to stand and test as being something from Him, but I guess I must believe that (perhaps as you do), as I sure don't want to be trusting me to do it and I wouldn't want the result if I thought I was just 'pleasing myself' - though test, I must.
I have a gay friend who reacts very strongly against the 'scene' (and is somewhat lonely as a result); perhaps your post draws a paralell with rejecting the idea that one must be a GLE to be a Christian, or maybe a rugby boy or some kind of 'player' to be hetero. Keeping it together with my right-wing Christian friends is also kind-of tricky at times. There are a lot of ways to not fit in.
I'm sorry, but it's another of these 'both/and' things ...
God is both 'other' and completely transcendent and also immanent.
As the old hymn goes, 'God unknown, he alone/Calls my heart to be his own.'
God is always personal.
@WhimsicalChristian - as you'll probably be aware, the 'Christian East' takes a different view of Original Sin than that traditionally taken by the 'Latin West' - although I think there is more convergence in understandings these days.
The bottom line, though, is that we would agree with you on the 'brokenness' thing and that everyone is in the same boat. One of the analogies we use for the Church is that it is a 'hospital' where broken people can be healed and made whole.
Sadly, as I'm sure we have all experienced one way or another, the 'household of faith' can also inflict damage on people.
Lord have mercy!
They walked up to me and I said "Episcopalian." They asked if I wanted a tract, I demurred. I asked what their denom was, "Presbyterian." I asked "PCUSA or..." "PCA." Yep, I know what that means. They asked how I thought about the exclusivity of Christ. I said I was post-millennial and universalist, CHrist's work had been done and the work was on us now.* They told me that Jesus of course said that people were going to hell, as if this were some newfangled notion that I had never heard before. You could feel the "Gotcha, liberal!"
At that moment my train arrived, so I boarded and yelled back "Trouble is this isn't a logical game for you to win, it's a heart thing" and I slapped my chest to emphasize the point, highlighting the implied arrogant hatred in their attitude. I'd have been a bit more nuanced and patient, perhaps, had I more time to chat, but I wasn't here to flatter them with a protracted argument. And of course these guys are trained debaters, I wasn't really set up for this kind of conversation.
I don't usually like to pick on proselytizers, but in a nice town like Chicago I think they're giving guys like me a bad reputation. And I did feel myself vaguely glowing after the conversation. It did my heart some good.
* This may not be exactly what I think but I was improvising, and it's not far from my opinion, I think.