Amendments for Algernon

I think I is now too stupid to be Prebematerian.  I knoe we get to vote on stuff.  I knoe we chuse.  It is good to be chusing, I think.  It hleps helps us figure what we all thing think 2gether.  Alot of the time we r gud 2gether.  Wen we r bad we fite about the things we think.  But sumthin make my head all hurt and stuff.

Wut iz that thing?  O thank u for asking!  U r nice.  Next month, I get to vote on two things. 

Thing number won they say is ten-ay.  Ten-ay says we shud stop fighting about who is leading.  I like it.  It sez these things:

Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.

I cut them and paste them all by myself 4 u.  It was eesy and I can sho u if u like!  It has alot of big words, and numbers that only Presypaterbeerians know what they meen.   But a fren tol me wat it meens.  It meens peeple we chuse to leed can figyur out who is reely good and who God wants to tellus about Jesus.  We haf to kno they love Jesus, and we can yous the Bible and other good buks we like and that small Voice to kno they will be True.

The uther thing we used to said insted, the Gee-Six-Bee, was not Good.  It was an angry stingy Bee, and pointed fingurs at sum peeple more than uther peeple, just like my friend Paul said was bad to do.  That is not veri gud.  And nobudy can really do it, or reely knoz wat it meens x ept to be angry at sum peeple.  It was jus there to be fighty, sted ov jus finding where everbudy can be 2gether and do Love like what Jesus said we hav to do.

I like ten ay much better.  So I will vote 4 it to shoo away the bad Bee that helps us be crazy and fighty.

But then they say I need to vote on the enFROG.  I do not no y it is a enFROG.   I don kno about even the old FROG.  Is the new FROG more jumpy and green?  I don't no.  But i no there smart peeple who say our old FROG is too big and bumbledy to jump enymor.    I liked the old FROG, beecaws sumtimes I can't sleeep, an it hlep help me alot.   But x ept for the Gee-Six-Bee, the old FROG was OK.  U cud stil figur it out, an it wuz too fat to get away wen u tri 2 pet it.

So now Presbtyrrearinhands ar talking bout the new FROG.   And the Gee-Six-Bee liking peeples are all mad, becuase they say it is YOuneeversalism.  Frum wat they say, that means Jesus hates u unlez u go to curhrh clurch chruch.  I do not no y that is good, but they say it.  So they will vote no.   And many ten ay peeple wil vote yes, beecuz they say enFROG is better and jumpier.  The enFROG seems nice.  Jump, litl froggie!

Here is y my hed hurts.  Ten ay takes the bad Bee out of the old FROG, the bee that stung it inside and made us sick.  So I will vote for it so we can do what Jesus wants.  But then I red the enFROG.  O nO!  Luk wut I c!  The enFROG has all the wurds of the bad angry Bee still inside!  It pretends 2 b a Two-O-One-Bee, but it is really the same Bee!  O no I do not like the Bee!  I do not want to vote for the Bee!  I do not wnat to see the bad B again, b-cuz I am tired of fighty Bees!

Y wud I vote one thing, and then vote 2 go back and make the furst vote not do n-e-thing?  That iz not smart!  But no won seemz to c!  The people hoo say no to ten ay, they do not want the enFROG, even tho it has the Bee wurds they say they like.  And the peeple hoo say yeah to ten ay, they say yeah to the enFROG, even tho it has the Bee wurds they say they do no like.   Ow!

Ow!  My hed reely hurts frum beeng in Presytafearylands!

A fren telz me it is coggytiff dissypants that makes it hurt.  I don't kno wut that iz, or y I wud wear those dissypants on my hed.  That's not wear pants go!  Maybe they r tite on my hed! 

So I think I wil vote for the ten ay, and not the enFROG. 

Ah.  Better!  My hed feels better, tho I am sad about the new froggie.  He might hav been nice.

Oh!

Wait!

Even better!  A fren tells me that if the ten ay happens, it happens to old fat FROG, and new happy jumpy FROG too!  I did not no it!  No one said so to me. 

Oh my!  Now i can vote for enFROG and ten ay, and not have to wear dissypants on my hed.

But I still prolly not smart enugh to be Preberearichan.   So hard to figur out all the stuff.

Misunderstanding Universalism

You keep using that word...

One of the challenges of being in an oldline denomination is that gnawing sense that somehow we're no longer relevant.  Our conversations and the inner life of our community often seems isolated from the rest of the Jesus people around us.  For a community that likes to use the totally made up word "connectionalism," we often don't seem to be connected outside of ourselves.

But sometimes we are connected, despite ourselves.  As I listen in on the chatter both within the Presbyterian Church (USA) and without, I seem to be hearing a common theme playing out.  That theme has to do with the meaning and use of the term "Universalism."

 Among conservative Christians both within my church and without, there's a growing hue and cry about the creeping and pernicious influence of universalism.  Within my denomination the alarm is being sounded around our New Form of Government, a long overdue attempt to streamline our cumbersome Constitution.   That effort is what we Presbyterians are doing to fulfill Christ's mandate to go out into the world and make significant modifications to governing documents.  I think that's in Matthew somewhere.   Whichever way, many conservatives are alarmed that the new text might possibly imply openness to finding truth in other faiths.   Universalism!

Similarly, conservative Christians outside of our fellowship are full of burn-the-hipster-witch fury at the publication of Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins.  They were cranking out the publicist-pleasing controversy before they'd even read it, but now that pre-publication book has been released, they're certain:  Rob Bell is a universalist.  Meaning, he's a heretic who goes past implying that non-Christians might not automatically burn in hell to actually sorta kinda saying it. 

This amazing conjunction of Presbyterian inside-baseball chatter and the rest of the American Christian world is striking not just because we are almost talking about the same things, but because we're all making exactly the same mistake.  If you have any sense of the history of theology, the term universalism does not even come close to meaning what conservative Christianity is now claiming it means.

Universalism is an old concept.  It surfaced early in the life of the church, perhaps most notably in the highly creative thought of Origen, an early Christian theologian from the second and third century who was ultimately declared heretical-ish.  Origen felt that God's love was so irresistable that no being, no matter how evil, could stand against it.  Even the demons, Satan, and Glenn Beck would eventually be reconciled with God.

That concept has resurfaced in Christianity numerous times throughout the two millenia of the faith, and bobbed up most notably in the post-Enlightenment era.   In the intellectual foment and classical liberality of the 17th and 18th centuries, the idea that all peoples would be saved gathered significant steam.  The radical tolerance and acceptance of other faiths that this implies still putters along amiably in Unitarian Universalist fellowships today.

Now, as I've said before, I'm not a universalist.  I just can't reconcile that "I'm OK, You're OK" concept with God's justice.  There are things that defy God's love and grace.  They will not stand in the face of God's all consuming fire.  Our actions are not without ultimate consequence.

But what I also can't reconcile with God's justice is this radically incorrect understanding of fundamentalist Christianity.  Universalism does not mean, as Inigo Montoya might say, what they think it means.

Here, they're not defining universalism as everyone being ultimately OK with God no matter who they are and what they do.  We're not talking about the lion and the lamb sitting down on a mossy, dew-speckled meadow in Thomas Kinkade heaven for an organic vegan picnic with Anne Frank and Hitler.

In the disputes both within and outside my fellowship, universalism is being redefined by fundamentalism as refusing to say "everyone who is not a professing Christian will burn in Hell forever."

It's a "hard biblical truth," they claim.  "We can't step back from proclaiming the Truth, no matter how hard it is to hear," they say, nodding earnestly.  But what is the truth of that truth?

It is a truth that stokes the fires of hell with people whose lives are full of kindness, who are peacemakers, and who manifest the ethic that Jesus lived and taught in their words and deeds.   It's a truth that defies Christ's own proclamation of the nature of the final judgment of all peoples.  It is a "truth" that stands radically opposed to the love of the stranger and the other.  It is a truth that assumes that God is not the font, source, and root of that love. 

That truth is certainly hard.  But it is not hard because it is the Gospel.  It hard because it is the farthest thing from good news.

It's amazing the things folks will say and do when they don't really understand something.