Posted on 06/21/2006 8:03:30 AM PDT by Between the Lines
Belief in hell is going to you-know-where. And belief in heaven is in trouble, too.
That's the concern of some Christian thinkers, including Jeffrey Burton Russell, an emeritus professor of history at UC Santa Barbara, and author of the new book “Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven and How We Can Regain It” (Oxford).
Russell and other fretters aren't impressed by fads like the sudden popularity of the girl's name Naveah (heaven spelled backward) or polls that show most Americans believe in some sort of heaven.
The growing problem, according to Russell and others, is that the way U.S. Christians conceive of both heaven and hell is so feeble and vague that it's almost meaningless — vague “superstition.”
It's “not that heaven is deteriorating,” he says. “But we are.”
Gallup reported in 2004 that 81 percent of Americans believed in heaven and 70 percent in hell. An earlier Gallup Poll said 77 percent of ever-optimistic Americans rated their odds of making heaven as “good” or “excellent.” Few saw themselves as hellbound.
“The percentage who say they believe in heaven has remained pretty constant the past 50 years, but what people mean by it has changed an awful lot,” Russell said in an interview.
Some people are so confused they believe in heaven but not God — “I suppose it's a New Age thing,” Russell said.
But if today's notion of paradise is off base, and sentimental images of clouds, harps and cherubs are the stuff of magazine cartoons, then what's the best way to think of heaven?
“For Christians, basically, heaven underneath all of the decorations means living in harmony with God and the cosmos and your neighbors and being grateful,” said Russell, who studied hell and Satan for 15 years before first turning his attention to heaven in a 1997 book.
To Russell, it's healthiest to see heaven as starting on earth, not an existence that “suddenly happens when you die.”
What about hell and its fire and brimstone? “There is a tendency to over-dramatize hell in order to get (it) across to people,” he said, but it's simply “the absence of God, the absence of heaven.”
“Heaven has gradually been shut away in a closet by the dominant intellectual trends,” Russell writes. Likewise with hell: Russell cannot remember the last time he's heard that unhappy subject treated in church or in religious literature.
What happened? Russell's book is largely a heartfelt appeal against “physicalism,” the modern claim that knowledge comes only through the physical senses and empirical science.
Such an outlook is arrogant and unprovable, Russell believes, because it ignores humans' moral sense and the supernatural— including heaven and hell.
Among Protestants who share Russell's angst, perhaps the most outspoken is the Rev. David F. Wells of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. He has spent years bemoaning the erosion of Christian teaching, through books like last fall's “Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World.”
Wells said in an interview that western Christianity is on the defensive against religious skepticism, secularism, materialism and consumerism.
He said that when Christian truth collides with the dominant cultural belief, promoted by psychology, that individuals should choose whatever they want, then “something has to give. And in our world today, in America and much of the West, what is giving is Christianity.” That includes the faith in “ultimate right and wrong” that undergirds heaven and hell.
So, many who say they believe in heaven are “projecting from their very best therapeutic experiences into eternity,” not meeting God “on his own terms,” he thinks.
A related question is who enters heaven.
On that, Americans are predictably expansive. A Newsweek/beliefnet.com poll last year asked, “Can a good person who isn't of your religious faith go to heaven or attain salvation?” Fully 79 percent said yes, with somewhat lower percentages among evangelicals and among non-Christians.
In Catholicism, the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) declared that persons who do not know the Christian gospel but sincerely seek God “can attain to everlasting salvation.” The church decided that requiring explicit Christian faith was too pessimistic, said U.S. theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles, writing in First Things magazine.
But now, he cautioned, “thoughtless optimism is the more prevalent error,” with many Christians mistakenly assuming that “everyone, or practically everyone, must be saved.”
Still, the New Testament teaches “the absolute necessity of faith for salvation” and says that each of us faces just two possibilities, either “everlasting happiness in the presence of God” or “everlasting torment in the absence of God.”
Joining a church doesn't. But having Faith and doing good Works because of that Faith (works are hard, but Jesus mentioned that getting into Heaven wasn't a walk down main street)does. We get Baptized, we live out the Faith. We should live it, not just sit back and bask in our supposed salvation.
My friend,
I've always wanted to ask this question.
If I acknowledge Christ as my saviour, I mean really really sincerely acknowledge Christ - am I saved?
What if I go around afterwards and kill, rape, steal, fornicate, show my parents disrespect, swear, spend all my family's money on beer and women, etc.?
But while doing all this I still really really really believe Christ is my saviour - am I still saved?
Because if that's all it takes then why does anyone have to be good?
Why would anyone want to do good deeds?
Why would we want to feed the hunger, give water to the thirsty, visit the sick and imprisoned?
Why would we want to love one another?
Because if I'm saved - what does it matter?
Wow. As I understand it, the moon is made of cheese, too. What reputable resource of history did you glean that from? Jack Chick?
And fortunately enough of these survived that copies continued to be made and finally evolved into a non-Catholic bible...
Ah. I see. So creatures don't evolve, but Bibles do. That's not very biblical, is it?
Sure, the word "book" occurs all over the Bible, but nothing referring to an inspired canon of scripture comprising the old and new testament. Since neither God in the Old Testament, nor God in-the-flesh (Jesus) in the New Testament, said, "Make a book", by your interpretive standards, the Bible itself is unbiblical. In fact, Jesus, said nothing about "writing" anything. Look up how many times Jesus used the word, "listen", instead.
The Trinity is nowhere mentioned in the Bible. Jesus' nature as God-and-man is not explicit in the Bible, either. I assume you believe these doctrines to be true, so the question is why (since they're not biblical but exegetive)?
The Bible says nothing about the triune existence of the Trinity.
No fear of HELL and no hope of HEAVEN - to sum up this story.
It's because people no longer have the fear of God in their hearts. If they did have the fear of God, they would have a different perspective of God, life, holiness, others, and evil. People want to get as far from fearing God so that their "Christian liberties" aren't stepped on. Christian liberties with the Almighty God in the picture, should make us pull closer to HIM and further from the world, but sadly that is not the case. If you spend all your time in the world, you will act like the world...if you spend more time with Christ, read, prayer, and learn of Him, you will be more like Christ. You can't have both...
Christ is coming soon. Is your lamp prepared?
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Psalm 1:1-3
Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. Proverbs 23:17-18
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. ”- Matthew 7:13-14
Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company. Proverbs 24:1
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:7-9
I'm not throwing out anything. If both concepts are present in the Bible, then there has to be a harmonization. The only people throwing anything out are those who claim that "works" are inconsequential. The Catholic Church has always taught that man is saved by faith through grace, but that doesn't relieve us of the mandate to "bear good fruit". Having faith is "doing unto yourself", which is fine and well, but Jesus made it clear that we must "do unto others" and "invest our talents" wisely. Without works that bear fruit, faith is pointless. Like the winemaker who told those just standing around, "You go into the vineyard, too", we're all called to participate in the harvest. Saying you're saved and discounting the need to bear fruit is just a whole lot of "standing around."
I apologize for the acerbic wit of my previous posts, but some things that are said about Catholicism are so outlandish that it defies restraint...
Ah, there's the rub. I agree that if someone has refused God's grace, they will be culpable, but there's no denying that there are many who have not been offered that grace, and are invincibly ignorant. Those are the people I'm referring to when I refer to an extraordinary grace offered by God at the moment of death. I'm not discounting what Boniface said, but there needs to be some clarification for the sake of those who think the Church believes every man, woman, and child on earth who doesn't receive the sacraments is going to hell. That's just not true.
That's laughably absurd.
Matthew 7 is easily summed up by Matthew 7:12
"All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them."
As I mentioned in an earlier response, having your own personal relationship with Jesus is nice, but what are you doing for others? No fruit, no harvest.
In what way?
Hey watch it....:-)
Let's put it this way...If you surrender to Christ and ask Him to save you, He will...
What if I go around afterwards and kill, rape, steal, fornicate, show my parents disrespect, swear, spend all my family's money on beer and women, etc.?
But while doing all this I still really really really believe Christ is my saviour - am I still saved?
Because if that's all it takes then why does anyone have to be good?
Here's where we make the mistake...You (we) can't be good...
Isa 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
And that is precisely why Jesus died on the Cross...To be our sacrifice because we will never be good enough to merit salvation on our own...
So then; do we continue to sin??? Of course we do...We can't help it...And it's a constant struggle...Even the Apostle Paul had that struggle
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Study that whole chapter for a clear understanding...
So then how do we keep our salvation after we sin???
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
We are not under the law...We are covered by grace...So you might ask how does that work???
We are made in God's image...Like the Trinity, we have a body, a soul and a spirit...When we got saved, we went thru a 'spiritual' circumcism...
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Phi 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
A saved man can't trust his flesh...It's full of sin...We worship God from the spirit, heart...
Phi 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
And what's this mean???
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
I just threw this one in to see if anyone could get the connection...
But anyway, so what's happens then when one continues to sin??? Heb. chapter 10 tells you that God will discipline you...He won't disown you or kick you out of His family for we are his children...But he may beat and whip you all the way to Heaven...
Why would anyone want to do good deeds? Why would we want to feed the hunger, give water to the thirsty, visit the sick and imprisoned? Because if I'm saved - what does it matter?
Doing these things will result in rewards in Heaven...But let's not forget, un-saved people do these things all the time...
You ought to try reading some of your own church history...
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