In the following entry there will be no terms used that the average adult does not understand. Although I know and understand a few of the terms that seminary types like to throw around, they are for the most part unnecessary. While they have some place in keeping discussions short, I find that they are mostly used to try and rebuild the Temple Vail that was said to be torn in two.
Since I was a small child I have been told this basic story or narrative about whom God is and why we, the folks that reside here on planet Earth, were created.
It starts out rather simple and innocent, if you can get your mind around; There is a God that has always been. But in this realm of infinity, there was a very specific time (about five to six thousand years ago) that God decided he wanted to be in communion with a being that was made in his image, but was definitely no deity.
So what will this creature be, what does it mean to have communion or a relationship between God and this newly created human thing. I was told that love between man and God can only exist if there is freewill. If you cannot choose to love or not to love God, if it is instead somehow hardwired into you, how can you really call it love? (That always made a lot of sense to me)
So it was that God made man and woman and their freewill inevitably caused them to fall out of fellowship with God. This was done through disobedience, which we call sin.
In the next 1,000 years things went from bad to worse:
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of the rulers saw the daughters of men that they were pretty; and they took as wives all those whom they chose ... The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.' [Genesis 6:1-2, 11-12]
Yep, that’s everyone (except Noah and his family). If you are a fundamentalist, then you must believe that the balance of the population of the world has for the last four to five thousand years been suffering unimaginable torment. And, by the way, they are not one moment closer to being finished with that torment than when they started.
It does not make much sense for me to chronicle the next 400 years till Abram becomes Abraham or the following 2000 until the New Covenant or the last 2000 years, because the bottom line is the same. What is that bottom line? It is this:
God, whom we say is Love, created creatures for the purpose of relationship, even though he knew that the vast majority would reject him in one way or another. He also knew that He, being all good, was left with no other option but for these failures to endure nothing short of a complete and eternal separation from him (Hell) upon their death. The question of how big a majority the eternally damned are depends on the severity of your fundamentalism. While some groups believe only their micro-sect will be enjoying the bounty of Heaven, other generous groups feel as though most Christians will make the cut. Either way, the majority of humans that were created by God and for God, will be eternally tortured. That God is not a God who loves me or one that I could love. That is, most simply, why I cannot be a fundamentalist.
Well there, I said it. It is what I have known / believed for some time. If you yourself are a die-hard fundamentalist then I have no doubt just jumped to the damned side of the equation, but really, there are so many, does one more really matter?
If you are not a fundamentalist, you may be asking “Steve, have you lost Faith?” The answer is a resounding NO!! I have, however, lost faith in simplistic answers to complicated questions. I’ve lost faith in those that pretend a book full of mystery can be simplified into 5 verses (that, by the way, can be printed on a large ballpoint pen that scrolls through them as you click it). There is a God. And now that I realize that I don’t need to fake a blind acceptance of a narrative that does not point to a loving God by any reasonable definition of Love. I am more excited than ever to know Him and be known by Him.
