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14 June
South Bend, Ind.


Wow, that was one huge aside I got into yesterday, before my
approach to the greater Chicago area made further writing
unfeasible.  Plumb forgot where I was going before the first
parentheses, and a fairly dark mood I got into last night prevented
me from reconstructing it.  But I got a grasp on it this afternoon
and I’m ready to jump back to the point where I concluded
discussing the two passages.

I think they both raise an important question we must ask about
the Biblian belief system:  Are they right when they say that all
non-Christians are “spiritually dead?”  Is that truly scriptural?  
And if it is, what does that say about our trust in the validity of scripture?

I am about to do something very uncomfortable and regrettable. I am going to lash out at someone I really love:  my pastor at ACF.  
Not at him really, just some things he said.  Before leaving Ashland I grabbed a handful of old Sunday sermon tapes from a big bagful
a friend gave us, including one I listened to the other night for the last half-hour of Wyoming.  It was too plainly topical not to bring
into this discussion.  I don’t want to, because he is a wonderful human being –his honesty about his humanness, on the pulpit and in
private sessions Aubray and I have had with him, bring an incredibly refreshing air to even the most dogmatic of his teachings.  I
really believe he tries to live his life and conduct his services by the Spirit.  I also know he believes what he says about Jesus and the
Bible, and some of these beliefs he would be daring enough to challenge if he knew any other way that would still honor God. (He’s
been a steady church person since two weeks of age, he says, minus periods of falling away, so he has only been a Christian or a
“back-slidden” Christian in his lifetime.)  He even told me he’d like to read P&K, that he enjoys being “challenged” and doesn’t like to
always read “the party line.”

Which I believe to be true.  But on July 8, 2001, his sermon stuck to the party line to a T.  I’ve listened to it three times now, and I
actually find it more shocking and upsetting each time.

I’ll start by quoting the verses upon which the sermon was based, Ephesians 2:1-10 (this is another of the Epistles, a letter from Paul
to the church in Ephesus, Asia Minor [now Turkey]):

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air
[Satan], the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among who also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them.

(NOTE: In the footnotes section of my Bible –using notations, verses of the Bible that have similar message or theme are joined
together in the concordance section; just about every verse has one, many have more than one—it is interesting to me that of all the
notations for this section, all but one refer to the Old Testament or another Epistle, meaning the early church’s interpretation and
application of the teachings of Jesus, not the teachings of Jesus themselves.  The one exception: from verse 8, “it (salvation) is the
gift of God [Matthew 16:17])

So, you have the words before you, and you can make up your own mind what they say.  I’d give you my own take but that would
involve some really heavy stuff we’re not ready for yet; it will come out in due time.  Instead I’ll just give you some of what my
pastor taught the ACF congregation three years ago; these quotes are lifted directly from the tape.  See if any of your ideas are in
concordance with his.  (And just to clear up any doubts about the foundation from which his ideas were born, before reading the
verses he proclaimed, “This is what God says….”)

*  “(the Bible declares that) you and I were stillborn spiritually.  We came into this world dead spiritually.”

*   “we were born with a nature that is dead to God.”

*   Jesus coming into your life is a “divine interruption of your walk away from God.”

*   “men by nature are either rebellious or religious, but both are centered in the self”  (within the context it is made clear that
the only other option is to be a born-again, Bible-believing Christian)

*   “God’s real truth is, you’re dead.”  (Then he infers that all non-Christians walk by the power of Satan –you know, the whole
“fallen world” thing)

*   (before we were saved) “we were children deserving of wrath.  We had the just condemnation of God hanging over our
head.”

*   “We were without God in this world, we had absolutely not a prayer of achieving any kind of eternal life…..absolutely
helpless and hopeless.”

*   “Now if I were to say things like that people would say, ‘Now that’s a negative message.  That’s a dark tune, you’re not
ever going to build a church by telling people how bad they are.’  Well it’s not my words, it’s God’s words.”


Oh, so God is the one being dark and negative, I see……

Now again, I cut my pastor a lot of slack.  The fact is, I don’t think he has ever been exposed to a coherent, sound, principled idea
that there is any way to love and follow Christ without being Biblian (never mind “to serve God without being Christian," that’s too
much to ask of a pastor who likes his job).  Another fact is, I don’t think most of us have been either.   I sure haven’t; I know they
are out there, but other than glimpses, I haven’t seen them in action.  How can I expect a lifelong Biblian to know any better?  So I
really don’t want to judge my pastor.

But I will judge those words.  I find them repugnant.  It actually sickens me to think that this passes for the teaching of the Word of
God in churches just like ACF all over America, and increasingly, all over the world.  I am offended as a Christian that we use words
like these to speak for Christ.

“If you don’t agree with me, you’re dead, and that’s true cuz God says so.”

“Oh yeah, well my God can beat up your God!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yah-huh!”

Please.

Now it’s one thing to say certain people are "spiritually dead" if you genuinely care about them and feel compelled to help them find
the way to peace and salvation that has worked for you.  And many Biblians do, don’t get me wrong.  I still don't buy it, but when it
comes from a place of compassion, it’s not as horrible.

But combine it with the notion that the Bible only compels us to love the “brethren,” meaning other Christians, and it’s not a far leap at
all to the logic that is used to justify some of the most horrible atrocities that so-called Christians have committed against the
“spiritually dead”:

One can give blankets laced with smallpox virus to the American Indians, and exterminate entire villages that are in the way of your
“manifest destiny,” because Indians are spiritually dead.

The Vatican can look the other way and keep quiet while Nazis attempt to cleanse the world of the Jewish race, because Jews are
spiritually dead.

People can try to stop abortion by killing doctors who provide them, because abortion supporters are spiritually dead.

A preacher from Kansas (Rev. Fred Phelps)can bring a constituency to Colorado and picket the funeral of a young man (Matthew
Shepard)who was brutally beaten and left to die for his sexual orientation –informing his family in the process that their murdered son
in now in Hell—because gays are spiritually dead.

The United States military, led by our “born-again” commander-in-chief, can bomb Iraqi cities and gut neighborhoods with its
weaponry, and if they kill civilians, that’s regrettable, but it’s not a big deal, because Muslims are spiritually dead.




I think that is all I need to say about spiritual deadness.  I’m going to have a Fresca.  Be back in a little while.

*                       *                      *                 *

Picking up a load of paperboard, in a dreary industrial park in Indianapolis (there is a three-way redundancy in that phrase).  The load
goes to El Paso.  I’d love to keep it, but I’m not sure if USX will send me all the way with it.  I can only do 24 hours on the clock in
the next three days, and that translates to roughly 450 miles a day.  Which gets me there by Friday.  The load has no delivery time
scheduled, but it does mention delivering on Friday, so there’s a chance.  We’ll see.

*                        *                           *                           *

No Fresca—Mountain Dew instead.  I hardly ever crave a soda, but for some reason I wanted one.  All that spiritual death must have
gotten to me.

I’d like to close this section with some words from another famous individual who, according to my pastor’s sermon, was spiritually
dead his entire life: Mohandas Gandhi. (It was obviously the power of Satan that helped him fast long enough to persuade entire
communities of Muslims and Hindus to stop killing each other, that helped him send the British Empire packing without firing a single
gun, and that inspired him to revolutionize India’s caste system by declaring the Untouchables “Children of God.”  But enough
sarcasm.)

In Soul Survivor, Phillip Yancey’s “unlikely mentors” were all fellow Christians, all except for Mahatma Gandhi (the honorary title
means “the Great Soul”).   In 30 amazing pages, Yancey gives descriptive life to a résumé that would stand up with the best of the
Christian saints in its self-sacrifice and devotion to Christ’s principles.  But he also spends a number of pages almost lamenting the
fact that Gandhi never renounced his native Hinduism and embraced Christianity en toto. Many Christian voices are called upon to
offer their forward opinion, but the words of the man himself, taken from a passage in his autobiography where he attends “an
assemblage of devout Christians” with some friends in South Africa, leaves little else needing to be said, I feel:

“The convention lasted for three days.  I could understand and appreciate the devoutness of those who attended it.  But I
also saw no reason for changing my belief—my religion.  It was impossible for me to believe that I could go to heaven or
attain salvation only by becoming a Christian.  When I frankly said so to some of my good Christian friends, they were
shocked.  But there was no help for it.

“My difficulties lay deeper.  It was more than I could believe that Jesus
was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him
would have everlasting life.  If God could have sons, all of us were His
sons.  If Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were like God
and could be God Himself.  My reason was not ready to believe literally
that Jesus by his death and by his blood redeemed the sins of the world.
Metaphorically there might be some truth in it.  Again, according to
Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other living beings,
for whom death meant complete extinction; while I held a contrary belief.  
I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a
divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born.  His death on
the Cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything
like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept.  
The pious lives of Christians did not give me anything that the lives of
men of other faiths had failed to give.  I had seen in other lives just the
same reformation that I had heard of among Christians.  Philosophically
there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles.  From the point
of view of sacrifice, it seemed to me that Hindus greatly surpassed the
Christians.  It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect
religion or the greatest of all religions.”

The italicized parts were statements I want to come back to later, when ready, and in the context of Gandhi’s objections, because it
was from his own traditions, specifically the Vedanta of the Upanishads, that I began to feel a great reconciliation between Christianity’
s absolute certainty of Christ’s status as the “only begotten Son” and the objection raised here by Gandhi.  But I’m a ways off from
being ready to delve into that, so forget I mentioned it.

One other anecdote I find interesting from Yancey’s account:  He was visiting a Christian community in New Delhi, “a kind of
ashram composed of young Indians who are trying to work out corporately Jesus’ radical call to his followers.  For some
time we discussed parallels between Gandhi and Jesus Christ.  As I have said, Gandhi freely credited Jesus’ teaching for
his most important principles….(but ) Christianity has barely made a dent in India: less than 3 percent of the population
call themselves Christian.  Together, we explored the notion that its representatives had presented Christianity to India,
but not the true Christ.

“….wanting to encourage my fellow Christians in New Delhi, I reminded them of Gandhi’s statement that insight into the
world’s problems must come from the East and not the West….I urged them to take the best of what their continent has
produced, some of the same ideals that appealed to Gandhi, and trace their Christian roots.  They could challenge my
nation in a way that I as an American could not, as shown by the fact that young Americans will sometimes listen to a
Gandhi before they will listen to Jesus.  The world might be receptive to this message, I said.

“One thoughtful Indian who had sat quietly through the discussion spoke up at this.  “I don’t understand,” he said, “You
seem to say that the West in general is receptive to a saint, someone like Gandhi who stands apart from culture.  But is
the church receptive?  You have said that American Christianity has never produced a saint who follows along the lines
of a Gandhi.  All the leaders are so different from Gandhi.  You seem to imply that if a Gandhi rose up in the American
church today, he would not be taken seriously, would perhaps be laughed at and rejected.  And yet those same
Christians say they worship Jesus Christ.  Why don’t they reject him?  He lived a simple life, preached love and
nonviolence, refused to compromise with the powers of this world.  He called on his followers to ‘take up a cross’ and
bear the sufferings of the world.  Why don’t American Christians reject him?”

“It was a good question.  One I still cannot answer.”

I can.  They have rejected him.  They worship the Bible instead.

“Stoning prophets and erecting churches to their memory afterwards has been the way of the world through the ages.  
Today we worship Christ, but the Christ in the flesh we crucified.”  --Mahatma Gandhi



© 2004 by Hermit Crab
a Fish Out Of Water production





Next  --Chapter 7
Beware the heathen masses!
(www.allmoviephoto.com)
Christian soldiers of the Crusades, undoubtedly in the act of loving
their enemy to death. (Image courtesy of www.lexicorient.com)
"Non-violence is the greatest force at the
disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the
mightiest weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man."
(www.universalrights.net)