My church recently had an unusual Sunday morning service.
Instead of a sermon by the pastor, we engaged in a dialogue with representatives of several different religions. Thus we had a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian.
I was a bit anxious at first about the event but it actually went off very well. The basic premise was to question of whether all religions are the same or not. All the panelists and everyone in attendance was quite respectful, which was good considering the church members were encouraged to bring friends, family, and co-workers who might think that all religions are the same.
The event was quite controlled; the pastor asked a question and each of the four religions gave their answer.
What is the basic worldview of your religion?
Who is God?
What are your holy books or scriptures?
What happens when you die?
How does one “get into heaven”?
Who is Jesus?
Here is a link to the video.
I thought it was quite brave for the other 3 panelists to come into a conservative evangelical Christian church on Sunday morning to make their case for their religious beliefs. And they did it for both Sunday morning services.
A few thoughts:
1) I thought that the Rabbi did the best. He really had his knowledge down and presented it in a highly affective manner. I could tell that he had a really good grasp on Judaism and the “Old Testament” as one might expect, but I believe he also had a great grasp of Christianity and Islam as well. He appeared to understand Pauline theology very well.
2) The Buddhist and the Muslim did not fair nearly as well. Their presentation was off and they really did not make a good case for their beliefs. The main problem was that they too often used Hindu and Arabic terms and made little if any explanation of what these terms meant. The Rabbi did this occasionally but, more often than not, he explained such terms to the non-Jewish audience.
3) The Christian gave a good basic presentation of what the overwhelming majority of conservative evangelical Christians believe … even if some of these beliefs are incorrect. For example:
a. Penal Substitutionary Atonement – This may be a teaching of the Church but it is not a teaching of the Bible. Quite the opposite really! The apostles go out of their way to make it clear that God was not punishing Christ for anyone’s sins.
b. Jesus was present at Creation - This might seem nit-picky but its actually an important point. Jesus was not present at the creation of the world. One say that God the Son was present, one can say the Word was present, I’ll even allow one to say that the Christ was present, but Jesus was not there. Jesus did not yet exist. Jesus of Nazareth is the “offspring” of Mary and the Holy Spirit. He is the unique creation that came into existence in 6 to 4 BCE. God made the world through Christ and for Christ and all things will one day be summed up in Christ.
c. Heaven and Hell are Literal Places – The truth or falsehood of this statement greatly depends upon what one means by “heave”, “hell”, “literal”, and “place” (We’re all clear on “and” and “are”, are we not?) Yes, “heaven” is a realm of being that we could call a place but it is not really the place where one goes at death. The death of all individuals leads to a return to the dust from which one originally came. At the resurrection, believers will be brought back to life into a physical but glorified body. Against the predominant view of evangelicals and our Platonic-soaked theologies, the soul is not immortal and the spirit cannot be separated from the body. The “afterlife” is not an existence in heaven but an eternal existence in a transformed and glorified Earth (an probably a glorified “heaven”).
The issue of “Hell” is not as tricky as that of “heaven” but is still considered a more controversial issue. “Hell” is the English translation (and interpretation) of two separate Greek words,
hades and
gehenna.
Hades refers to the abode the dead regardless of whether they are believers or unbelievers. It is the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Sheol which, again, refers to the abode the dead regardless of whether they are believers or unbelievers. For the Israelites and other Semitic and Canaanite cultures,
Sheol was a mythological representation of the grave. If we are to understand the nature of
Hades/
Sheol in modern terms, we should describe it as the ground in which the dead deteriorates into dust and dirt.
Gehenna refers to the final abode of unbelievers. This is the place of punishment for all those who are not resurrected into physical, glorified bodies. If we are to understand the nature of
Gehenna in modern terms, we should identify it with
Hades/
Sheol except with absence of believers.
So we can then say that both the “good” and the “wicked” are put into
Hades at death. At the resurrection the “good” are resurrected from Hades and the “wicked” are not. Thus,
Hades for the unbeliever is also
Gehenna.
So this is why someone like me can truthfully state that he believes in a literal place called “heaven” and a literal place called “hell”. However, I would not be able to say that I hold to the incorrect view that “hell” is a place of “eternal conscious torment”. Such a view is unscriptural.
With specific regards to the Christian panelist, the context suggested that he favored the false but traditional view of “hell”.
Of course when you realize that the Christian is wrong on a few points about his religion, one then wonders whether or not the other panelists are wrong on a few points of their respective religion.
Nevertheless, the Christian panelist unintentionally said something that nearly had me rolling in the aisles:
“Christians believe in a literal place called heaven and a literal place called hell. Where those places are is immaterial.” And then he went on.
That was so funny, I almost had to get up and leave!
I may be the only person who caught that unintentional line but, by God, I am sure gonna use it from now on!
But all-in-all the event went very well. I had the opportunity to tell one of the pastors how well I thought it went. (Please, if the pastoral staff at your church tries something new and it works well, please tell them so. Church staffs need such encouragement.)
Apparently, the church has been overwhelmed by the positive feedback from the dialogue. They have also received questions from people who would like to explore the matter further. The church is responding to this need by providing forums on Sunday where people can bring questions and discover more about how Christianity is unique among the world's religions.
"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal August
