Rescuing Salvation from
Fundamentalism
FreeChristians

Salvation now! Limited time offer! Today is the day of salvation. There may be no tomorrow! Repent or perish! You may never get another chance! Be saved now! Danger! Danger! Danger! Time is running out! Make a decision for Christ now! Become Orthodox! No, become Catholic. Choose the only true Church! There is no second chance in Hell! Repent! Be baptized! Now! 

Now that I got your attention let me rephrase: 

Relax, no need to rush... At ease, you are always safe in God's arms... Peace, you are under no danger from God... Chill out, God does not place any ultimatums... Take it easy, all good things take time... Smile, God loves you yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever... Enjoy, God wants you to have a good time... Stay put, no religion or church has exclusivity with truth or God... Have hope, God will lose none...

As the title of this article suggests, I seek to make Salvation a more relevant concept for today's understanding of reality. The title is inspired by retired Bishop Spong's book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture. 

One of the biggest problems with religious fundamentalism is that it takes nice ideas and distorts them by turning them into exclusive absolutes. One such nice idea is Salvation. It encompasses such noble notions as Healing, Liberation, Reconciliation, Enlightenment, Transformation, etc. The concept of Salvation is therefore worth saving. We must save Salvation! In order to do that we must free Salvation from all these negative ideas that have been attached to it by religious zealots. 

Why we must save Salvation from ultimatums, deadlines, exclusive claims, hellfire doctrines,  other religious threats, blasphemous myths ( atonement, original sin, etc ) and all sorts of psychological manipulations

It is time the Christian religion gets over its obsession with urgency. As much as we all love St. Paul we have to admit that he got it wrong when 2000 years ago he preached urgency to his contemporaries (see 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 where he urges people to live in anticipation of an imminent end of the world: "But I say this, my brothers, the time is short; and from now it will be wise for those who have wives to be as if they had them not; And for those who are in sorrow, to give no signs of it; and for those who are glad, to give no signs of joy; and for those who are getting property, to be as if they had nothing; And for those who make use of the world, not to be using it fully; for this world's way of life will quickly come to an end..."). The unknown authors of the 4 gospels made the same mistake when (decades after St Paul's epistles were written) they put in Jesus' mouth their apocalyptic fantasies about the impending end of the world. The fact of the matter however is that the Jesus of History never made such claims of "imminent end of the world", "repent or perish", etc.

Today, such a long time after the misguided apocalyptic fears of the early Christian movement, we should know better. We know for example that people should not be forced to make hasty decisions about their lives. We recognize that it is inhuman and cruel to use threats of any kind as tools of persuasion. To their shame, most Christian Churches continue to teach some version of the pagan myth of afterlife-Hell for those who fail to become Christians or "righteous" during their brief lifetime on earth. Things get even worse at those militant Churches that pride themselves in fundamentalism. They jealously preach the good news of God's wrath on those who will not make the right choices before they die ( or before Jesus returns ). The modern-day evangelists are no different than those sales experts that promote their products by creating an urge for impulse buying. By creating a sense of urgency, through techniques like " limited time offers", "sign up now and win a prize", etc., sales people urge their prospective customers to suspend their better judgment and buy by impulse. The same applies with the evangelists. By creating a sense of  "urgency" through direct or indirect threats ( Hell, Armageddon, Rapture, etc ) they suck people into conversion. Salvation Now! The only thing left for them to do is to introduce  Drive-Through Salvation outlets... "Salvation Now!" evangelism is really "Hit and Run" evangelism. Aussie author James A. Fowler calls it "Evangelistic rape":

"So-called evangelistic methods often employed by over-zealous religionists need to be exposed for what they are ­ assaults! Their motivations are just as impure as the physical rapist: desires for dominance, power, conquest, self-satisfaction, a false sense of identity, statistical advantage, etc. They have no respect for personhood; they treat people as mere objects. There is no relationship established, just mechanical acts of self-satisfaction. There is no love, just violence, as they violate another's intimate spiritual privacy... Another person has been scarred for life, unable to enjoy God's intended blessings. What God intended to be so beautiful and beneficial has been befouled by this violent act... Evangelism must be the sharing of the love of the Evangel, Jesus Christ, and that within the context of genuine personal relationships. Christians must remember that the reproduction of spiritual life is never forced or coerced by "evangelistic rape," but is always a result of God's loving initiative to draw another to Himself by His Spirit" (Evangelistic Rape, by James A. Fowler)

Elsewhere, Fowler compares all those proselytizing religious zealots to the auctioneers: 

"The auctioneer extolled the virtues of the item before him, carefully noting its finer features. His resonant voice and gesticulated enthusiasm had the audience hanging on his every word. This man knew how to control a crowd; he was a master manipulator... "And what am I bid for this priceless piece?" His banter had a rapid, staccato-like beat and a sing-song cadence that seemed designed to excite and elicit an impulsive response. "Don't pass up the opportunity, my friends. There may not be another. This is a one of a kind, limited edition. Don't go home without it."... A hand went up here, another there, but again the bidding was painfully slow, almost like pulling teeth. So, taking another slight interlude to catch his breath, the auctioneer noted the necessity of this item in everyone's life. He explained the regret that would be suffered if people did not take advantage of the opportunity right now. "You can't do without it. Don't pass it up. Act now; it's your last chance. It's now or never, folks. It's your last chance to get in. Going.......Going.......Gone! Is this not reminiscent of the pressurized public invitation that is used to conclude many preacher's sermons week after week? Those extended evangelistic invitations have an uncanny resemblance to an auction of men's souls... Master manipulators, those ministers are trained to be. With increasing volume and rapidity of speech they build their message to a peak of intensity that plies upon the sensitivities of people's emotions. The "Invitation Hymn" is selected for its particular cadence and solemnity in order to appeal for an impulsive and subjective "decision" of the moment, regarded to be decisive for eternity. Many wonder later whatever possessed them to act so impulsively, and resolve never again to make a decision while caught up in an emotional pitch and the hypnotic effects of crowd hysteria... We need to reconsider the settled seriousness by which any person should make such a decision to invest their entire life and stake their eternal destiny upon the personal receipt of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their life." (What Am I Bid? by James A. Fowler)

The problem goes deeper than what Fowler thinks. The problem actually lies at the root of the concept of "salvation from Hell" and "choosing our eternal destiny during our life on earth". If indeed there was a hell or an eternal destiny to be decided during this brief lifetime of ours then the evangelistic rape is good! Who cares if we are raped, when our eternal destiny is at stake! It all becomes a matter of statistics and "damage control" for a doomed universe. Let us save as many as we can, forced conversions, Inquisitions, Crusades and all, before it is too late for those wretched souls... 

Emery Lee, an ex-Christian, makes the following comments: 

"One of the things about Christianity that bears the strongest mark of human invention is the preoccupation with time. Christians tell us that we must repent, that at the end of our lives here on earth, there will be a judgment where we must explain why we chose the paths we did. For some reason we are to believe that God, who lives forever, can extend mercy to His poor creatures for only a brief instant in time–the vaporous span of a human life. It's ironic, but the apostle Peter once asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother that had offended him. He felt that perhaps seven was a generous number. But Jesus said that even if his brother offended him seventy times seven times, he should still forgive him. Now in Sunday School we were always taught that this did not mean that you should forgive someone exactly 490 times. Rather it was a metaphor that really meant you should never stop forgiving someone who asks your forgiveness. So if humans are expected to forgive each other for a lifetime, certainly God can do better! Yet Christians believe that the extent of God's mercy is as limited as that of us humans... If we are truly eternal beings, and God is an eternal God, then we have an eternity to get to understand Him, and he has an eternity to teach us. So what's the big hurry? Why must we figure it all out in the first few moments of our existence? What's a few more years in eternity? Or a few billion? And what's the big deal about doing it all in this lifetime? Our souls are the things that are at stake here, and according to Christians, souls live on, and death is a mere shedding of the mortal body. I remember a preacher once saying that Hell was so horrible, that if unbelievers could just get a glimpse of it, they would all convert immediately. Well, wouldn't the Gospel message be much more compelling in the afterlife, where we could actually visit this Hell? One of the main reasons people don't become Christians is that they simply don't buy it. But in the afterlife, face to face with Jesus and Satan and Heaven and Hell and all that, the whole thing becomes a lot more convincing. Why not offer salvation then?"

"Not allowing people to convert in the afterlife seems a purely arbitrary decision to me, especially since humans are such intelligent creatures, capable of learning so much, and acting on that knowledge. It just doesn't make sense that God would create us with such marvelous brains and sensibilities, yet not let us use them. Killed in a car accident in high school? Too bad. Out of all the billions of years you will be in existence, the things you are capable of learning in that time, and all the wisdom and life-changing insights you can gain, you only get sixteen years to make a go of it. For the rest of the time, your sophisticated intelligence and capacity for learning and change will be spent contemplating the sight, smell, sound and sensation of the flesh sizzling on your bones. Do we really believe God is like this? If we attribute such action to God, what then shall we say that the devil does?" (Salvation: What's the Big Hurry? by Emery Lee)

Is it any wonder that the "Hit and Run" evangelism of hellfire preaching churches produces a lot of hurt people? They make more people hate Jesus than love Him. It has been statistically proven that such churches have a big turn-around of people. They get lots of people "saved" but most of the "saved ones" don't hang around for long. After the initial bewitchment wears out most end up as ex-Christians just like Emery Lee. Another ex-Christian, Darcy West just couldn't continue to worship a God who violates people in such a way. Like many others before him, Darcy West saw the message of "Salvation" offered by fundamentalist Christianity for what it really is, a despicable message of perversion and hate:

He asks: "Can love be bought with threats of harm or with promises of reward? If you love Jesus because you want something (heaven) from him, how are you any different than a prostitute? In this case, what is it that you really love: Jesus or the thought of heaven? On the other side of the coin, is it right to worship something simply because you fear it? Is it right to bow to a dictator, no matter how evil this dictator is, if doing so will keep you from going to the gas chambers or to the ovens? Who is more worthy of admiration, an individual who refuses to succumb to an evil dictator, regardless of the threats of harm, or an individual who sells his soul for the promise of a reward? Looking at it in a slightly different way, if a man said to a woman, “Love me or I will hurt you” is there anyone in their right mind who believes that the woman would really love the man to avoid being hurt? She might profess love and she might, in order to avoid being hurt, behave in a manner that seems loving, but deep down inside, I doubt that she would ever really be able to love such an individual. I know I wouldn’t... What would Christians who believe that hell awaits those who do not become Christians think of a mother who said to her child, “Love me by the time you are six, or I will bake you in the oven.” In this case, the parent does give the child a choice, but what kind of choice is it? Some Christians have compared Jesus sending people to hell to a parent who says to a child, “Don’t go into the street or you will be hit by a car.” This analogy fails, however, for many reason, the most obvious one being that in the case of Jesus, hell (unlike the cars) does not exist beyond his ability to control it. A more accurate version of the analogy of the parent warning his child about the dangers of going into the street would be a parent who says to his child, “Don’t go into the street or you will be hit by a car.” Then when the child goes into the street, the parent jumps into his car and runs the child over."

"Many Christians, when evangelizing, attempt to paint a kind and compassionate portrait of Jesus by stressing how deeply saddened he is when he has to put people in hell. However, if the parent who bakes her child in the oven when the child fails to love her weeps as she preheats the oven in which to bake her child, would we really believe that she was grieved over her decision? Or if a parent weeps as he beats his child to death, should this cause us to believe that the parent is a compassionate and loving individual, who only has his child’s best interest at heart? Some people might argue with these analogies, saying that not everyone is God’s child. Even if this is true, however, unless you are a Calvinist, you would have to believe that God loves everyone and desires for everyone to come to know him. If God really does wish for everyone to know and love him, then why would he put a limited-time-offer on his invitation to know him and why would he endlessly torture people who failed to accept his invitation? Only the most egotistical and psychotic of lovers tortures those who fail to accept his offer for a dinner date, and we as a society agree that an individual who hurts those who fail to love him should be severely punished. If we as a society agree that this type of behavior is psychotic and worthy of punishment, why do we glorify these monstrous and hitleresque qualities in a god? Some people say that our society is sick and that we as a people are in need of salvation. Perhaps there is some truth to this. But is the religion (Christianity) adopted by our society really the cure or is it merely one more manifestation of the disease?" (Salvation Questions by Darcy West)

It is time the more mature Christian Churches lead the way to a new reformation by discarding all those religious teachings that make God look like an idiot, or even worse, like a psychotic killer of humans. The fact that all the big denominations have stopped proselytizing people is not good enough. They must also give up all claims to exclusivity with God or "salvation". 

It is time all these overzealous Christians out there give up their double-speak "gospel" of "Salvation Now!". Calling such a "salvation" a "free gift" only confuses people further. Fancy a "free gift" that can cost you an eternity of torture if you don't accept it by a certain time! 

Darcy West asks again: "Is salvation really a free gift? I have heard many Christians say that salvation is free and that all that is required is that you receive it. If this is true, then why does it matter whether you receive it in this life or whether you receive it after bodily death, when you and Jesus could open the gift together? Isn’t it true that the Christian religion actually does not teach that salvation is free but that salvation is obtained through the act of faith? And doesn’t this explain why Christians believe that salvation is no longer offered after bodily death--because at that point, faith would no longer be necessary and therefore could no longer be earned? If faith is required to be saved, then doesn’t salvation become an earned commodity? Or do Christians believe that faith itself is a gift? Is it possible that Christians are very confused about what they believe when it comes to these doctrines of salvation and damnation? Many Christians I know reject the doctrine of predestination and election that I discussed earlier. They state very emphatically that they do not believe in the Calvinistic god, the kind of god who eternally torments people for not having what he alone can give them. Yet, at the same time, these very same Christians tell unbelievers that they will pray for them, and when a person does “accept Christ”, they pray and thank God for the conversion. Isn’t praying that God will “draw someone to himself” or thanking God when a person becomes a Christian an indication that the one praying believes that it is God who changes a person’s heart and not the person himself? And if you believe that God does the converting and that faith itself is a gift, then how is your god any different than the Calvinist god since it would then be obvious that your god does not give this “gift” to all?" ( ibid )

The concluding remarks by West expose the "Salvation Now" brand of Christianity for what it really is:

"While evangelizing, Christians often emphasize the terrible suffering of Jesus on the cross and say, “He DIED for you”, as if this alone should move us to eternal gratitude and as if we are somehow personally responsible for his suffering. But is any of this really true? Did Jesus really die for us? Or, if he really was god, did he die in order to satisfy some petty, self-created, technical requirement? Let’s say that I am a child. I create a bunch of little toys and bring them to life. I tell the toys, who are now humans, what my rules are. One of the little humans disobeys my rules. What if I now decide that I am going to have to create a hell for these little humans since they disobeyed me and what if I further decide that the only way I can accept, love, or care for these little humans is to get a baseball bat and insist that one of them crash it over my head. After insisting that a baseball bat be crashed over my own head, I then bring myself back to life in 3 days, inspire some little humans to write a book about what happened, disappear from sight, and insist that all humans from this point forward best acknowledge that I am “the fairest of them all” (sound like a familiar fairy tale?) else I will turn them into toads and torture them forever and ever"

"As a creator, am I worthy of respect and admiration simply because I am the creator? Should my little humans bow down and worship me and should they develop doctrines and write whole books justifying my behavior in the hopes that I will refrain from hurting them in one of my many fits of rage? Or should they recognize that their creator is a lonely child who got her hands on too much power and who only wanted a friend. Is it possible that the great Yahweh is really but a small man behind the curtain much like the “Great Oz” in the Wizard of Oz? Is it possible that this little man behind the curtain is secretly hoping that someone, somewhere will have the gumption to lift the curtain and to force him to see what he really is? Is it possible that Yahweh secretly longs for a parent, an advisor, or a mentor of his own and is constantly disappointed that not one of his creations has the courage or ability to do the one thing he wants the most, to be trained and parented? If a child gets her hands on too much power, who would the child grow to love and respect more: those who befriend her, advise her, and train her, even at great risk to themselves, or those who simply flatter her and justify all of her bad behavior out of a desire to avoid becoming her next victim? Christians often say that loving is more than just hugs and kisses but that sometimes “love must be tough”. Well perhaps there is some truth to this and perhaps, if we really wish to love a god, our love must be “tough” and we must be willing to confront and correct behavior from this god that is unacceptable. Otherwise, I don’t think we really love him"

"Christians often speak of god as “holy”, saying “he cannot look upon ‘sin’ or imperfection”. But who decided that he couldn’t look upon imperfection? Who decided that he couldn’t accept imperfection unless he first subjected himself to a brutal, violent death on a cross? Christians act as if this god had no choice in the matter. They seem to believe that Yahweh’s need to have someone “pay” for the disobedience of Adam is a rule that he must adhere to and is not a rule or standard of his own making. If it is true that the need to have someone suffer as an “atonement” for sin is a standard he must adhere to whether he likes it or not, then where did this standard come from? Wouldn’t such a scenario imply that god himself is then accountable to an authority or law that exists outside of himself? On the other hand, if God simply decided that he could not accept his own creation unless he first killed himself, then why should we feel badly about it? To put it another way, what if after a child disobeyed, the parent of this child went out in the backyard, picked up a baseball bat, and bashed in his own skull, killing himself in the process? Should we then say, “Look how much that man loved his son. There is no greater love than this. Look how the parent suffered. He smashed his own skull with a baseball bat.” And should we then say to the child, “Look how dirty and vile you are that your disobedience has caused your father to hate you so much that the only way he could love you was to hurt himself?” I don’t think there is anyone in their right mind who would suggest that such a scenario was healthy or wholesome or representative of what true love is all about. And one other question...should we really be moved by the suffering of a man who, if god, would have had the power to suspend all physical pain? Why should we feel moved to gratitude that Jesus killed himself so that he can love us? And why should we be sympathetic to the 24 hours of suffering of a man who, if god, stands by impotently while children suffer ungodly torments for days on end? Is hurting oneself so that you can love and accept the imperfect beings that you created really an act of love or is it an act of perversity?" ( ibid )

For more on the problem of "Salvation Now" Christianity see my article: Say no to "Original Sin/Atonement / Hell"

All right, having dealt with the absurdities in the "Salvation Now" brand of Christianity, what have we got left? If there is no "Hell", "Original Sin" or "Wrath of God" to be saved from, what sense does it make to still call Jesus Christ "our Saviour" or "Saviour of the world"?

Jesus as Saviour

Liberal Christians reject barbaric religious notions like "Hell", "Original Sin", "Wrath of God", etc. It is interesting however to note that many liberal Christians still see Jesus as their Saviour, as their Lord, and even as their God.

The difference lies in the meaning they attach to the word Saviour. As J. S. Spong sees it: "Jesus lived so fully that he revealed the Source of Life. He loved so completely that he revealed the Source of Love. He was so completely true to his own being in the way he lived out his own humanity that people saw in him the very Ground of all Being. That is why the ultimate Christian experience is captured in the Pauline exclamation "God was in Christ" that drives us to the meaning of the life of Jesus... this is what leads me to say that I see God in Jesus of Nazareth; and he becomes Christ and Lord for me because he penetrated this realm as no one else has done and his life made clear what God as the Source of Life, the Source of Love and the Ground of Being really is..." (See Bishop Spong: Beyond Theism)

Elsewhere Spong writes: 

"But who is Christ for us? How would we tell the Christ story if Jesus had been a reality of this contemporary period of human history? Surely it would not be in terms of the anthropomorphism of the first century. We do not envision God as a superhuman man who dwells beyond the sky. To talk of a Father God who has a divine-human son by a virgin woman is a mythology that our generation would never have created. and obviously, could not use. To speak of a Father God so enraged by human evil that he requires propitiation for our sins that we cannot pay and thus demands the death of the divine human son as a guilt offering is a ludicrous idea to our century. The sacrificial concept that focuses on the saving blood of Jesus that somehow washes me clean, so popular in evangelical and fundamentalist circles, is by and large repugnant to us today. This understanding of the divine-human relationship violates both our understanding of God and our knowledge of human life... To see human life as fallen from a pristine and good creation necessitating a divine rescue by the God-man is not to understand the most elementary aspect of our evolutionary history. To view human life as depraved or victimized by original sin is to literalize a premodern anthropology and premodern psychology"

"Yet historic Christianity has traditionally been understood in terms of these categories. Baptism to wash way the stain of Adam's sin in the newborn child is just one practice that emerges out of that understanding. To frighten parents into baptism by suggesting that their unbaptized infants might be damned to an eternity apart from God is insulting primarily to God. Who among us could worship such a deity? To traffic in guilt as the church has done, to take the beauty and life-giving quality of sexual love and distort it with layer after layer of sexual guilt is simply no longer defensible, if it ever was... We do not see human life as created good and then as fallen into sin. Human life is evolving, not always in a straight line, but evolving nonetheless into higher and higher levels of consciousness. We do not need the divine rescuer who battles the demonic forces of a fallen world in the name of the creator God... None of these elements of our faith story is wrong, but all of them are sorely limited by the worldview of the first century... That worldview has passed away. It no longer lives. Unless the experience of our faith story can be separated from the words and concepts of a dead worldview, it will be a dead faith story. Those who literalize the ancient biblical text guarantee this fate to the very religious system they think they are fighting to save. When they try to impose their literalized version of the truth on the whole church, they violate the integrity of the gospel and the meaning of Scripture. They render the experience out of which our faith story rises to be nonsensical. they thus unwittingly become the enemies of Christ... But if Christ is to be real for us, we must find words through which that reality can be articulated. This is not to suggest that our words will endure forever. Like the words of every age, our words will in time prove to be limited by age, our ability to apprehend reality, and our time-orientated language... What we need to do is to demythologize in order that we might remythologize. We must seek the truth that lies beneath the mythology of the distant past so that we might experience that truth. But when we put that experience into words in our day, we will not escape the use of the subjective, inadequate words in our modern mythological understanding of reality, for we have no objective words. We will have succeeded only in remythologizing the truth of the Christ event. Our efforts will serve us but for a time. Our remythologizing process will capture truth no more eternally than did the creators of Scripture of the framers of creeds... Yet we must do this or we stand to lose forever what we Christians believe to be an ultimate truth-namely, that somehow in and through the person of Jesus of Nazareth the reality of God has become an experience in human history that is universally available"

To the question of "What We Can Claim about Jesus?", Spong answers: 

"The experience of Jesus was an experience of love. This love was a powerful life affirming reality. It was love that broke every human barrier and that swept over every human prejudice. It was love that would not be confined by the Jewish limits in which it was born. It embraced the Syro-Phoenician woman and the Samaritan. It was love that put human life before religious rules (The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath). It was love that transcended the religious definitions of what was thought to be clean and unclean. Not only gentiles but lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, and thieves were transformed with the power of that love... No barriers could be erected around that love of God that was seen in the life of Jesus. It was a terrifying, barrier-free love that rendered our religious security systems no longer operative. Such a love called for profound changes in the human psyche. Such love called for openness, for the death of prejudice, for the radical insecurity of a fully accessible humanity, for the end of any human isolation. Such love could not be tolerated, rather, it had to be eliminated. The cross was a necessity of human life that was unwilling to be opened this widely, and human life was, in the first century, quite unwilling to be made so vulnerable... Human life still is unwilling to be so vulnerable. Every assault on human or religious prejudice today elicits anew that incredible human anger of an insecure creature. We clutch our defining limitations to our breasts like sweet sicknesses from which we dare not be purged. For years we convinced ourselves of the subhuman status of black people, women, left-handed people, and homosexual people. We reacted to those persons with AIDS as our spiritual ancestors had reacted to the lepers. We built churches to house the righteous while relegating the sinners to the ranks of the rejected as our pharisaic forbears did so many years ago... We cannot, however, escape the power of the fact that Jesus means love-divine, penetrating, opening, life-giving, ecstatic love. Such love is the very essence of what we mean by God. God is love. Jesus is love. God was in Christ. This was the experience that sought to find verbal forms in such creedal concepts as the holy trinity, the incarnation, the virgin birth. It is not the creedal words that are sacred but the reality of the experience that lies behind the words, that is where holiness is met. The God who is love cannot be approached in worship except through the experience of living out that unconditional quality of love. That is why the church must be broken open and freed of its non-inclusive prejudices. That is why slavery segregation, sexism, bigotry, and homophobia tear at the very soul of the church..."

"When the love of God is contained inside human barriers it dies. It ceases to be demanding, searing, opening love of God. It has become instead the perfume of human respectability, sprinkled on the cesspools of human negativity. Perfume will never last into another generation. A contained, curtailed, domesticated, tamed love of God will never lead to the cross of Calvary. Jesus is the love of God that opens us and makes us vulnerable. The power of this Jesus can be met and known in every age. I have experienced this Christ when I've walked the edges of the ecclesiastical world and opened myself to the victims of the rejection of those who claim to be the church of God. On those edges Jesus is still present. He is powerful, alive, loving, probing, embracing. There is an eternal reality about the love of God that is present in the historic crucified life of Jesus of Nazareth. Behind the words of Scripture that love is seen... The experience of Jesus was also an experience of life, by which I mean whole life. Jesus was alive. Jesus was present with those whom he engaged. There was, in the words of Paul Tillich, an "eternal now" about his life..."

"To have the courage to be oneself, to claim the ability to define oneself, to live one's life in freedom and with power is the essence of the human experience. "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly," said the Christ of the Fourth Gospel (John 10:10). True Christianity ultimately issues in a deeper humanism. That is why any attitude that kills the being of another person is an affront to the meaning of Christ. To be a humanist is to affirm the sacredness of life. Jesus touched the depth of being, and the Christ experience is nothing less than our call to be who we are, inside the love of God. I worship this Jesus when I claim my own being and live it out courageously and in the process call others to have the courage to be themselves... It is scary to be a follower of Jesus. It even elicits great anger form the religious establishment. It loosens the power of religious institutions to control behavior. It opens one to the immensity of human life, to new dimensions of consciousness and transcendence. To follow Jesus is to be called to walk into the very being of God... Jesus reveals God in loving totally, living fully, and being all that he can be. I worship the God I meet in Jesus by risking love, by daring to live, and by having the courage to be myself-my best, deepest, and holiest self. As I walk to the edges of life and bump into the meaning of transcendence, I find God over, under, around, and through all that I know and all that I am... So the call of Christ to me is an eternal call to love, to live, and to be..." ( J. S. Spong Who is Christ for Us? )

Liberal Christians like retired Bishop Spong are always free to discover new dimensions of being "in Christ". They experience "the salvation of the Lord", not as a relief from being spared from God's wrath or Hell, but as partakers of God. 

In the New Christianity that is emerging, gone is the notion that Jesus saves people from Hell or from God's wrath. Instead, Jesus is now seen as saving people from all those negative things that stand in the way of them experiencing the blessed life of God. It is therefore proper to consider "Salvation" as a metaphor for Healing ( wholeness ), Liberation ( freedom ), Reconciliation ( peace ), Enlightenment ( wisdom ), Resurrection ( immortality ), and Deification ( transfiguration ).  

Salvation as Healing 

The New Testament  word "Saved" ( translated from the Greek verb "sozo" ) can have the meaning "to be whole-physically, mentally and spiritually." It also conveys the meaning of healing. Sozo is: to save, i.e. deliver or protect (lit. or fig.):--heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be/make whole. ( see Strong's concordance )

Lutheran Professor S. Schmidt explains: "Christians often misunderstand the nature of salvation. The word conjures up the idea that we are saved from our bodily being. Perhaps most troubling is the idea that salvation has nothing to do with here and now. In its root meaning, salvation is about human wholeness. Theologian Paul Tillich clarifies this in The Meaning of Health: "Salvation is basically and essentially healing. The re-establishment of a whole that was broken, disrupted, disintegrated."... Salvation is the promise of wholeness for human bodies and ultimately for the whole cosmos because God is working a new creation beginning here and now. Jesus' story has that kind of plot line. Bodies are healed, spirits are comforted, the weak are made strong and barriers are broken... The gospel promises healing that begins here on earth. We become part of the promise. When two or three gather in God's name, wholeness can happen. God's presence is announced, God's being is celebrated, and we are made whole" (The Lutheran | March 1998 | Where I find healing, by Stephen Schmidt, 

Western Christianity generally failed to appropriate this meaning of "salvation" because it was obsessed with the legal/penal interpretation of "salvation". On the other hand, the church fathers in the East understood salvation as healing. They even found support for this in the Christian Scriptures.

As Jonathan Gallagher writes, "Current concepts of salvation are very dependent upon legal images, primarily those of western justice. The courtroom scene is invoked to represent the way in which God "saves" us, primarily from the verdict and sentence of "Guilty". Consequently the mechanics of the saving process centre on the payment of penalties, substitutionary punishment, and the adjustment of the accused's legal standing (the blotting out of the Guilty verdict, satisfaction for sin, writing the person's name in the "right" book etc.).. While the New Testament does indeed make use of legal and judicial concepts in describing God's salvation of mankind, the stress on (and development of) such concepts and terminology obscures some other very significant understandings... In both Catholic and Protestant thought theology has tended to concentrate on the question of legal forgiveness. How is it obtained? What is the process God uses to effect forgiveness? What happens if forgiveness is not achieved?"

"Why the stress on the need for legal forgiveness? Because mankind is conceived of as being criminally guilty, and thus under executive sentence of doom from God. If a person is not legally forgiven, then that person will suffer the penalty--usually expressed as enduring the torments of Hell inflicted by a vindictive God for all eternity... Such a stress on the penalty of Hell explains the great need (especially in the popular mind) to ensure that this penalty is not applied, and that the individual receives legal forgiveness from God (or his representatives)... Man's main objective is therefore to be forgiven, to know that legally you are not debarred from salvation. Hence the procedure of granting Absolution, the Last Rites and so on, which attempt to guarantee that the person is rendered legally "Not Guilty" in the eyes of God... Jesus Christ is therefore viewed as the legal payment for sin, as the substitute in the dock, and only through his blood is the penalty God will impose averted... Once again the emphasis is on the individual's legal standing before God. The need is for legal absolution from the paying of the penalty. The appalling alternative is that one ends up in the eternal flames of never-ending torment--evidently a major incentive to ensuring a "Not Guilty" verdict is obtained from God"

He then adds: "Such a view of God and his salvation does not find expression in the gospel Christ brought. It was not a question of ensuring you were legally "without fault" before God, like a "no-fault" insurance claim!"

"Forgiveness is surely important, but not as a guarantee to avoid punishment. Salvation is not a question of making sure you have paid your premium for fire insurance! God is not to be viewed as a hostile Judge determined to sentence all the Guilty, and only allowing those who hold "Get out of Hell" cards ("the forgiven") to profit from his salvation. This highly-objectivized view of salvation ignores the personality of God and of us, and reduces God's salvation to a mechanistic kind of contractual process whereby when all the right actions are performed then salvation is automatic"

"Jesus came to be God's salvation: primarily as he revealed what this salvation is. Not a mechanical process or some objective legal transaction, but the relationship of persons. Salvation is subjective in the sense that it applies to and inside of us, rather than somewhere "out there"... Above all, God's revelation of salvation through Jesus is expressed in terms of divine healing of the sin-damaged individual. It surely is no coincidence that having been announced as the one who makes God known (John 1:18), Jesus spent the vast majority of his ministry in acts of physical healing... Christ's main method of demonstrating God to the world was through acts of healing. "Wherever he went--into villages, towns or countryside--they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed." (Mk. 6:56 NIV). All perfectly clear. A wonderful description of the healing emphasis in the life of Christ... But that word "healed" in this text hides a greater truth. The verb is the Greek word sozo. Which is the exact same word as used to describe salvation!"

"The insight that salvation means healing is essential to a proper understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus. When blind Bartimaeus shouts out to Jesus, asking to receive his sight, Jesus replies: "Go, your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:52). "Healed"? Well, it could as well be "saved"--for the word is sozo again. For through his healing he was saved; receiving God's salvation he was healed. As Jesus walks towards Jairus' house, messengers come to inform him not to bother continuing his mission. The girl has died. But Jesus turns to Jairus and tells him: "Don't be afraid; just believe and she will be healed." (Luke 8:50 NIV). The girl was dead, and Jesus speaks of healing? Yes, says Jesus, she can be rescued from death by Jesus the Life-giver, she can be saved from death. And in order to be saved, she would have to be re-made, made well again, totally healed. Healing is salvation again, as demonstrated by the word sozo being used once more"

"Perhaps the point is best made by the woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. In Luke's account it is noted that "No one could heal her." (Luke 8:43). Here the word therapeuo is used--from which we get "therapeutic". She'd been to the doctors, but without getting any therapeutic benefit. The idea here is more the idea of being medically treated... Then after the miracle she is discovered and so "In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed." (Luke 8:47). Now the word for healing becomes iaomai. Meaning: to be cured of an illness, to be delivered from ills. So she is specifically referred to as having received a cure for her particular health problem... But then Jesus says to her: "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." (Luke 8:48 NIV). Here at the climax of the story the word for healing is sozo. Not merely medically treated. Not just healed from a particular illness. No: this woman experiences the transforming power of God that brings salvation-healing... This essential meaning of salvation as healing is further demonstrated by those words of Jesus to the healed woman: "Your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Just one chapter previously Jesus is recorded as saying to the woman who anointed his feet: "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." (Luke 7:50 NIV). In the Greek, Jesus' announcement to the two women is identical, since it uses the word sozo which is translated as "saved" or "healed" as the context dictates... Consequently, that famous verse in Ephesians 2:8 which describes God's salvation could have the word "saved" replaced by "healed": "For it is by grace you have been healed, through faith..." Or in other words, "by the graciousness of God you have been healed by trusting God.".. As God said to his people of old, "I am the Lord who heals you." (Exodus 15:26). This is his salvation--healing all the wounds of sin, curing the sickness of evil, and restoring us once more into full spiritual health: remade into his glorious image. This is his salvation, so fully and freely demonstrated in Jesus and made available to all who will. This is his salvation: brought to us by God himself, as he hung there on the cross... Salvation is healing" ( SALVATION AS HEALING by Jonathan Gallagher )

Salvation as Liberation

Salvation as Liberation is a profound insight and a gift to the world. Authentic Christianity, just like any other authentic spiritual tradition, advocates freedom as an essential ingredient for every human being. A Christianity that does not promote freedom is no Christianity at all. It is for freedom that Jesus sets us free! For more on freedom and liberty see my article: What Is A Free Christian?

Salvation as liberation is the essence of Christianity and the hallmark of all pure religion that serves humanity: "Salvation as liberation goes back to the foundational narrative of the Bible, the exodus story of Israel’s liberation from bondage in Egypt.  Bondage as an image of the human predicament in this story includes economic and political oppression: the Hebrews were literally slaves under the lordship of Pharaoh. The image of our condition as bondage also has psychological and spiritual meanings in the Bible. For Paul, our bondage includes bondage to “the law,” not as a nuisance or inconve­nience and not to Jewish laws in particular but to “the law” as a way of defining our relationship to God. More comprehensively in Paul and the New Testament, we are in bondage to “the powers.” “The powers” are cultural, spiritual, and psychological powers operating both within us and outside us. The powers include the domination system and the spirit of the age, and they produce in us not only bondage but a sense of powerlessness. Life under the powers is dominated existence" ( Epiphany 2003 - Home Study Series, session 7 - week of February 17 )

So evident is the dimension of freedom in the heart of the Christian gospel that inevitably arose what is called "liberation theology", not surprisingly, among the impoverished lands of Latin America. Robert T. Osborn ( professor of religion at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina ) writes "God offers to the oppressed and needy everywhere God’s particular freedom. God offers this particular freedom to all who are in need, without regard to their particularity -- their race, sex, ethnic origin. This means that liberation and liberation theology are possibilities for all -- blacks and whites, females and males" ( see Jesus and Liberation Theology by Robert T. Osborn )

In his "must read" book Faith and Freedom, Toward a Theology of Liberation, professor of theology Dr. Schubert M. Ogden outlines the place of liberation theology in a world of oppression and injustice.  In the preface of his book he writes: "Just before the climax of the Bicentennial Celebration on July 4, 1976, the editors of The United Methodist Reporter asked several United Methodist theologians to respond briefly to this question: "In your opinion, what two major theological issues will The United Methodist Church struggle with across the next fifty years?" My response to this question was as follows: First, there is the issue of God, which I formulated in these terms: "Can Christian faith in God be so understood that it positively includes the concern for human liberation in this world?" Then, second, there is the issue of the Christian mission, which I formulated as the question: "Can we understand our special calling as Christians as a new responsibility that we bear for the sake of the world, instead of as a new privilege that only Christians can enjoy?" I recall this here because the origin of this book was in the reflections to which I was led in responding to this question, especially in identifying the first of the two issues with which, in my opinion, the church and theology over the. next fifty years will have to struggle". The full text of the book is available on-line at Faith and Freedom, Toward a Theology of Liberation by Schubert M. Ogden . I highly recommend it as it puts the Christian faith in its right perspective, that is as a liberation faith.

Another interesting read, for those interested on the topic of liberation theology, is Birth Pangs: Liberation Theology in North America by Frederick Herzog . The editors of http://www.religion-online.org/  introduce it with these words: "There can be no systematic theology in North America today without analysis of Marx. Theology that doesn’t take the poor into account from the outset isn’t Christian theology. Once considered exotic and fanciful, liberation theologies now have a good chance of becoming the way ahead for theology in the next century"...

Salvation as Reconciliation

“For Christ’s sake be conciliated to God!”

"reconciliation: to be brought back into good relations after an estrangement. Estrangement is thus the corresponding image of the human condition, and it points to both relationship and separation: to be estranged is to be separated from that to which we belong" ( Epiphany 2003 - Home Study Series, session 7 - week of February 17 )

“For of him, and through him, and to him are ALL THINGS: to whom be glory for ever.” Romans 11:36

“That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one ALL THINGS in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” Ephesians 1:10

“And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile ALL THINGS to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in heaven, or things in earth.” Colossians 1:20

It pays to examine the concept of reconciliation from a Biblical perspective, and when I say Biblical, I mean Pauline, since Paul the Apostle was the one who came up with the idea. As it turns out, this particular idea of St. Paul, was quite enlightened. Reconciliation, as Paul perceived it may well serve as a basis for understanding the concept of Salvation in a way that dignifies humanity and honors God. It also helps us remove from our subconscious any lingering traces of the cruel concept of an angry God that needs to be appeased. As the meaning of the word "reconciliation" becomes clearer, it emerges that the party that needs to be appeased is not God, but man!  

Renown Biblical commentator J. Preston Eby writes: "The dictionary defines the English word "reconcile" to mean: to unite; to bring back into harmony; to settle; to make consistent or compatible. The basic Greek word dealing with reconciliation in the New Testament is ALLASSO. This simple verb means "to change" or "to exchange" . From this verb comes the compound KATALLASSO which is translated "reconciled" in Paul's epistles. Then there is an intensified compound, APOKATALLASSEIN, which is used in two places and rendered "reconciled" and "reconcile"... KATALASSO is a word which had an interesting history of usage in secular Greek before it was taken up by the Holy Spirit for use in the New Testament writings. It early acquired the technical sense of money exchange or of changing precious metals into money. Later it expanded to include the idea of giving one's life as a mercenary soldier in exchange for a small salary and adventure. Finally, in the Hellenistic writers, the term is found in constant use to describe the bringing together of individuals and nations who have been estranged. How meaningful, then, these words of Ray Prinzing: "In the New Testament Greek we really find the depth of meaning for this word (reconcile), which is TO CHANGE THOROUGHLY. There can be no true unification without first a thorough change. Thus we are not seeking for just a present-time harmony, covering over the past, and hoping for the best in the future, but we desire that the Spirit of God, working within, shall bring a thorough change in us, and then we shall be united with our Lord..."

He then explains that "MAN - NOT GOD - IS RECONCILED!". Basing his interpretation on the language of Scripture he says: "We often hear it said that "the death of Christ was necessary in order to reconcile God to man." This is a pious stupidity, arising from inattention to the language of the Holy Spirit, and indeed to the plain meaning of the word "reconcile." God never changed - never stepped out of His normal and true position. He abides faithful. There was, and could be, no derangement, no confusion, no alienation, so far as He was concerned; and hence there could be no need of reconciling Him to us. In fact, it was exactly the contrary. Man had gone astray; he was the enemy, and needed to be reconciled. Wherefore, then, as might be expected, the Scriptures never speak of reconciling God to man. There is no such expression to be found within the covers of the New Testament! "God was in Christ RECONCILING  T-H-E  W-O-R-L-D unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." And again, "All things are of God, who has reconciled US to Himself by Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 5:18-19). In a word, it is God, in His infinite mercy and grace, through the cross of Christ, bringing us back unto Himself... We have seen that the ideas in the simple and compound verbs translated "reconcile" that "change" and "exchange" form the keynote. However it is not God who must undergo a change, nor is it His account which is in need of alteration even one single iota! There is no need for a change in the attitude of God toward man, for it has been Love from eternity. There is no equality of footing in this truth for it is the story of the Absolute One who is Infinite in Power condescending to act towards rebel man in perfect grace in the latter's desperate need for reconciliation. It is the Lord Himself changing the accounts from "Sin's Wages" to "God's Gift," from "Legal Righteousness which condemns" to "Divine Righteousness which exalts." It is the Mediator exchanging the "Hostility of Man" for the "Peace of God." It is that which GOD DOES and which GOD GIVES which is at the heart of the cross whereby man is reconciled. Only God Omnipotent COULD ACCOMPLISH RECONCILIATION! The books are cleared. And God did it!"

"Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ; whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of Him which believes in Jesus" (Rom. 3:24-26). The following words penned by George Hawtin are true and graphic on this point: "The word propitiate means to appease, to soothe, to cause to he favorably disposed, and to conciliate. When Paul says, therefore, that God has set forth Christ to be a propitiation, the great question that must be answered is this: Whom is Christ propitiating? Whom is He appeasing? Whom is He soothing? Whom is He causing to be favorably disposed? Whom is He conciliating? Is this propitiation for His benefit? Or is it for the sinner's benefit? Is God trying to conciliate Himself or is He conciliating the sinner? You know as well as I do that the Church system has always erroneously taught that it is God who must be propitiated, conciliated and soothed, but I want you to know that such teaching is utter rubbish and the brashest sort of nonsense. It springs from that Romish tradition that likens God the Father to a fearful and offended despot, spoiling for the blood of the offenders, and it makes Christ to be the one who pleads with God on behalf of the victim until the Father is consoled and conciliated"

"The Church all down through the ages, including all evangelicals of the past and present, have taught that Jesus came to propitiate God and to endeavor to dispose Him to be kind toward His fallen race. If you search in a thousand places, I doubt that you will find one man who does not make this incorrect assertion. How often I have listened to preachers describe Jesus Christ as a lawyer who stands up before God to plead our cause and beg for our lives on the grounds that He, being innocent, died for us and God is propitiated by Him and we are forgiven. This gross misunderstanding of the truth of propitiation is everywhere evident in sermons, in writing and in hymns... This is Church tradition, but it is not the truth. Nowhere in all Scripture are we ever taught that God has to be reconciled to the world or to man. God never ever became an enemy of man nor does He need to be reconciled to man. The opposite is the truth and always the teaching of Scripture. Man is an enemy of God and man must be reconciled to God. Oh that sinners would be told that it was God the Father who gave His Son, not to appease or reconcile Himself, but to appease and reconcile man! Therefore the Scripture loudly proclaims, 'We beseech you in Christ's stead, be   reconciled to God' (II Cor. 5:20)."

"Oh, the wonder of it all just to know that God the Father has sent Christ to be His propitiation toward us and that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them (II Cor. 5:19), and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation! So then, when the great apostle says that God has sent Christ as a propitiation, he means that He sent Christ to propitiate US and dispose US to kindness and repentance before God and to reconcile US to Himself. The Father did not send Christ to appease Himself, though that is the way the Church has always erroneously taught propitiation. The idea that God would send forth His Son to propitiate and appease Himself is exceedingly absurd. The truth is that Christ came to propitiate you and me that we might repent of our rebellion and iniquity against Him, believe and be reconciled to God, who has always loved us and been our friend and not our enemy. "For if, WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES, we WERE RECONCILED to God BY THE DEATH OF HIS SON, much more, being reconciled, we SHALL BE SAVED by His life" (Rom. 5:10). We might also take notice that in referring to the Scripture, 'There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,' the preachers have also turned this backwards and made Christ to be our mediator with the Father, but that is not what Paul said. He said that the mediator was between God and man, not between man and God. So Christ was sent as a propitiation, a propitiator, or one sent by God the Father to dispose man to repentance and kindness, love and faith toward God"

"If we only grasp this one truth: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses against them" it will revolutionize our understanding of the love God has for all men. For many, the concept of who God is, and what He is like, is presented as unapproachable. He is a God untouched, and uncaring about the troubles of men. He is the God Moses met on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. A God full of anger and wrath, and judgment. He is seen to be Holy, but unmerciful, unloving, and ready to condemn for eternal punishment and torture any who cross Him. For these ones God is to be placated and pacified with fearful reverence... Oh, how they need to hear, that GOD WAS IN CHRIST RECONCILING THE WORLD! They who teach God abandoned Jesus on the cross because He could not look at the sin Jesus bore on our behalf, need to hear it; GOD WAS IN CHRIST! They who teach an exclusive gospel, (us four and no more) need to hear; God was NOT IMPUTING THE WORLD’S TRESPASSES AGAINST THEM. In other words God was not laying to the world’s charge, their own wrong doings. Even when we were all deep in the pit of our trespasses and sins, and at enmity with God, and enemies of the cross; God so loved the world that He sent His Son to destroy the works of the Devil, and to set the world free, for all to be reconciled back to Himself" ( see Just What Do You Mean...Reconciliation by J. PRESTON EBY )

Salvation as Enlightenment 

"We commonly associ­ate “enlightenment” with Asian religions, but images of blindness and seeing, darkness and light, abound in the biblical and Christian tradi­tion. Though we have eyes, we often do not see. We typically are blind to the glory of God all around us; we do not see each other as God sees us, and we do not see ourselves as God sees us. We are “in the dark,” liv­ing in the night even when it is daytime. In the night, we cannot easily see, and we stumble or get lost. Night and darkness connect to fear and loneliness: we are often afraid in the dark and feel alone in the night. The night can be cold. It is also associated with death: things die with­out light. And it is a place of yearning: we yearn for the coming of the light like those watching for the morning" ( Epiphany 2003 - Home Study Series, session 7 - week of February 17 )

Dr. Andrew Wilson gives a lot of examples about salvation as enlightenment