Building Castles - Part Two

In my last post, "Building Castles - Part One", I wrote about how my beliefs, and my faith itself, were challenged repeatedly. Over time, these challenges wore away my coherent package of 'Christianity' to the point where it could no longer stand, and my faith collapsed.

But what kind of challenges? Well, here's a brief, but representative, list.


Experience of God

- My experiences of God seemed complete out of the domesticated picture of God that I had in my head. The God that I experienced in life was mysterious: sometimes there and sometimes not; never doing as expected; full of love, and yet terrifying. He is the type of God that sits and watches millions of Jews be massacred in Europe, hundreds of thousands of Africans in Rwanda, and millions of others in countless acts of brutal genocide throughout human history. Yet he does nothing - he did nothing; yes they all came to an end, but not before scores of people lost their lives. He is the type of God that sometimes heals the sick and dying, but most of the time lets them die no matter how passionately people pray otherwise. He is the type of God that blesses some people with great life, and doesn't bless others - seemingly arbitrarily. God, I realized, is mysterious and unpredictable. Can a God like this really be trusted? And trusted for what? A good life - obviously not, no guarantees for that; health - nope, no certainty there; afterlife - well, maybe, probably; a constant companion - getting warmer.
- Moreover, in my own life, I went through a phase in life that really, directly, made me rethink what God was. Whatever God was, I had to reconcile his character and nature with what I myself was experiencing spiritually (or not experiencing). So the things I experienced in life, and that I read, heard, and saw others experience in their lives - I had to put God in the picture and try to make sense of everything.


The Bible

- I used to hold on to the doctrine of biblical inspiration. Biblical inspiration states that the Bible is inspired by God. Most people take this to mean that its composition was inspired, which amounts to saying that the Bible is a text supernaturally revealed by God. The texts of the Bible, in one way or another, were written by God. In light of all I had learned about the composition of these texts, I could no longer come to see them as revealed by God.
- We have no idea who wrote the vast majority of the Bible. The Pentateuch is a composite document of traditions and sources spanning half a millennia or more. Many of the historical books in the Hebrew Bible were also composed by anonymous authors over a period of time. The great scroll of the prophet Isaiah is most likely the result of three layers of prophetic authorship over a period of 300 years, by at least three authors of whom we know little about. We have no clue who wrote the Gospels, though we do have some good indications of the situation in which they wrote. Half of the letters traditionally ascribed to Paul are most likely pseudonymous: that is, Paul didn't write them. A disciple, a follower, someone, wrote these letters in the name of Paul in order to give them authority and weight. All of this came as a huge blow against my doctrine of biblical inspiration.
- Historically, the Bible is troubled. For example, we have little to no archaeological evidence of a swift conquest of Canaan c. 1200 BCE. The story of Joshua and the swift conquest of the land seems to have actually occurred much different. Many think that the picture painted in the Book of Judges is more accurate: a slow settling of Hebrew people in Canaan. Not the decisive military conquest of Joshua. More hammering away at inspiration.
- The Bible is not unified. When you look at the Bible, all the authors didn't have the same theology. There are a number of different theologies in the Bible - both in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Sometimes, these theologies differ and disagree with each other over religion, God, Jesus, etc... Some things even flat out contradict. With so many differing viewpoints the question is, who do we listen to? This further tore down my doctrine of inspiration.
- The Bible is so obviously a human document. It is made up of stories and tales that humans told, and retold. It shows all the marks of human composition and editing: various sources and materials being put together into a continuous scroll. Not only that, but we see the political agenda of authors showing in these texts: pro-monarchy, pro-Judah, pro-Pauline Christianity, pro-Jewish Christian Christianity. Yet another shot at inspiration.


Jesus

- When I was exposed to historical Jesus studies, I just devoured the stuff. But the more I learned about what historians have to say about Jesus, the more and more difficult it became to connect the dots between Jesus-the-guy and Jesus-the-Lord-of-the-Church. Now don't get me wrong, Jesus was religious, and his agenda was religious (and political: the two were intimately bound together back in Jesus' society). But my problem was the vast chasm I saw between Jesus' message, goals, and interests, and that of the Church which proclaims Jesus. It's as if the picture of Jesus painted in the Gospel of John is the lens the Church must look through in order to understand Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This ignores the fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were each their own stand alone Gospel; the Jesus-story of three different communities. Three different pictures of Jesus, three different ways of following Jesus. All of it subsequently read through - and distorted by - the lens of John.
- Over time, I became more and more puzzled over the 'divinity' of Jesus. Firstly, I wondered whether the Jesus of history ever believed such a thing about himself. Read the Synoptic Gospels, you'll be hard pressed to find any indication of it. In the Gospel of John you get a number of passages, that when read in a certain way, seem to indicate that (though, as I said, when read in a certain specific way). In Paul, again, you will be hard pressed. Two passages come to my mind, both are fiercely debated. The attribute of divinity to Jesus was a development of the Church Fathers in the first several centuries of Christianity. I see attribution of divinity to Jesus as mythological, metaphorical language - not metaphysical. It is using comparison - the language of poetry - not the language of philosophy and science.


Science

- I came to accept the evolutionary explanation of life, and human origins. Evolution just makes much better sense of all the data than creationism. The universe is some 15 billion years old, the earth around 5 billion, humans around 1-2 million. So then what does this make of the stories in Genesis. Creation? Adam and Eve? Noah? If this stuff wasn't science or history, then what was it? Partly this rubbed shoulders with inspiration, but it also made me rethink what the texts in the Bible are, and what they aren't.


World Religions

- Learning about the vast religious diversity in this world had a major impact on me. Ancient Judaism was just the local religion of an insignificant piece of land in a very, very large world. There were many other religious beliefs all over the ancient world. So what - were all those non-Israelites screwed? I couldn't accept that. Move forward through the centuries as Christianity spread. Christianity did spread and grow, but much of the world's population was never Christian. And today, a significant portion of this world's population is not Christian. So what - are all of them bound to an eternal punishment in hell? I couldn't accept that. How could a God of love and compassion do such a thing. Learning of the religious diversity in this world challenged whole portions of my Christian worldview. My shift towards inclusivism, and then pluralism, tore down a huge segment of my Christian understanding.


These are just some of the many, many, attacks vaulted at my fortress. Maybe, someday, I'll share some more, but I think I've said enough. You get my drift.

Thanks everyone for the grace you've shown me.

Peace,
Kev