Two Heavens: One Kingdom

The current issue of Time magazine has a feature article by Jon Meacham about the evolving understanding of heaven in our culture. (I’m sorry that I can’t link directly to the article. You have to be a subscriber. Time/Warner hasn’t fully escaped the 20^th century yet.) It is a well-researched and written piece that summarizes the cultural trends in thinking about heaven. If you can get your hands on a copy I highly recommend taking time to read it.

Basically the change in the way we think about heaven can be summed up with two questions in a sidebar to the article: What if Christianity is not about enduring this sinful, fallen world in search of a reward of eternal rest? What if God brings together heaven and earth in a wholly new, wholly redeemed creation?

Yes. 

These are the questions that have been rattling around in my thoughts and prayers and sermons for the past few years. It’s a bit humbling to see it put so succinctly in an article printed in a major news magazine. But these questions lead to others and the lot of them have been causing some significant anxiety and stress within my mortal frame. Why? Because a faith that is built on enduring this world in the hopes of one day escaping to a safe reward feels a lot different than one where we are working together to bring God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

I am coming to believe (and will write about this more in future posts) that this is not an issue of right and wrong. I firmly believe that it has to do with the culture changes happening around us. Both ways of imagining heaven encourage people to live altruistically in this life as a response to God’s goodness, grace and forgiveness. (Never mind that it isn’t always successful.) It’s just that the former way of imagining and talking about God’s kingdom (or heaven) isn’t connecting with people in the emerging culture. So if we want to continue to proclaim the gospel of God’s love then we need to reimagine heaven and find new ways of thinking about God’s kingdom that will connect.

The stress and anxiety come from a place inside that recognizes that there are wonderful, caring and loving people in my congregation that exist on both sides of this issue. Because the idea that Jesus brings heaven and earth together in a wholly redeemed creation is connecting with me I feel compelled to preach and teach in these terms. The scriptures are opening up in front of me in brilliant and exciting new ways as I revisit passages that I thought I understood before.

But I am also aware of the legacy that brought me to this point. And I am aware that there are many people who have spent a lifetime developing a faith based on the thought that heaven is a place we go after we die. It would be both wrong and arrogant for me to just write that off and say, “I’m sorry you committed your life to what turns out to be a mistaken notion of what this life is all about.”

So where do we go from here? Is it possible for a faith community/congregation make the transition from one concept of heaven to another? Or are we talking about two different ways of believing? Is there an even more basic core concept of what it means to be a Christian that unites us and will allow us to have two visions of God’s kingdom? Or are we destined to see an new expression of faith emerge similar to the way Christianity emerged from Judaism 2000 years ago?

Anyone interested in helping me think about this?

Being Slow to Change

This is the ninth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It began as a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

 I apologize for being slow and unresponsive to the need for change because it’s easier to follow the path of least resistance (and there is tremendous resistance to the changes we are faced with).

I believe we are in midst of changes in our culture and our world of Biblical proportions. I know this is hard to prove and that times of change always feel like they are much bigger than they turn out to be. But I’m not the only one who believes this is so. Watch this brief (3 min.) video by Phyliss Tickle. She is the one who first gave structure and words to what I had been noticing in our world.

In addition to the “500 year rummage sale” I would also add that some of these transition points in Judeo-Christian history also coincide with significant advances in information technology. The Exodus, and the beginnings of Judaism as a communal faith, happened shortly after the invention of alphabets and using clay tablets to keep records. Some scholars believe that the Ten Commandments were the first set of religious laws codified in writing. The great Transformation and the writing of the New Testament took place at about the time that animal skin scrolls were being replaced by the cheaper and easier to make papyrus. This allowed the Gospels and Paul’s letters to be easily copied and distributed. And every student of the reformation knows the roll that Gutenberg’s printing press played in distributing catechisms, leaflets and even Bibles to more and more people.

Today the changes in information technology are astounding. Computers, smart phones and search technologies have simply transformed the way we store information (digitally), the way that it is shared (social media sites) and access we have to that information (all the time and everywhere). These changes are fundamentally changing the way we understand ourselves as humans and the way we are connected in community. At the risk of exposing myself as a TED Talk junkie here is a video talk by Amber Case (who calls herself a cyborg anthropologist) making a case for the ways technology is making us even more human.

When we begin to think about ourselves as people and as communities in different ways than we have in the past we get into all sorts of murky waters. In the past 100 years our culture has been struggling with gender roles and sexual orientation. We see changes in the relationship between parents and children at all stages of life. Work roles are changing from the thought that we are only a cog in the machine to being part of a collaborative team. We argue about our place in the earth’s ecology and just how much impact we really have. And what can it possibly mean for how we understand our place in the universe when we start imagining multiple universes or the simple fact that our universe is so much larger than we ever imagined?

The truth is, trying to keep up with the changes on a personal level is exhausting. Trying to make sure that a whole congregation full of people keeps up is even harder. As a rule, people are resistant to change. Change on this magnitude and at this speed only make it worse. Additionally,  many believe the church should provide an anchor in the storm of change or that it should provide black-and-white answers to a world that is shaded in gray.

I’ve been involved in this business of change in the church for over 20 years now. At times we debate (and debate and debate). Other times we wait to see what happens. And yet other times push to make the changes only to find that it is only one step in a process that is going to take many more steps. So for the fact that I am so tired of pushing for change and trying to get people to even see the need for change that I sometimes just give up, I’m sorry.

The world needs more than this from the church and its leaders. We need to be more inclusive in our conversations and try harder to understand what people are experiencing in these changes. We need to let the gospel speak to us all. And we have to understand that it is okay if we don’t understand it all. Perhaps the time for reflection will come when the changes have run their course. Maybe what we need now is to simply help one another through it.