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The Plurality of Religions

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

The debate of religious plurality usually takes place between the Exclusivists, who believe there is only one way to God, and the Pluralists, who believe there are many paths to God.

I agree with the fundamental observation of the Pluralists: all religions are an expression of the same spirituality. But I believe this spirituality is bankrupt of eternal life, thus the unending “search” for salvation.

The language that the Exclusivists use has a problem. They argue that there is only one religion by which one can get to God. I disagree. I understand religion as the practical application of one’s spirituality. To say that a religion is the way to get to God, i.e. be spiritually connected with the Creator of the universe, is to put the cart before the donkey. Rather, the exclusivist should show how there is only one solution to a universal spiritual problem (that people are seperated from any spirituality that can give eternal life) and thereby expound on the religious ramifications.

Since God is perfect and infinite, then all human efforts to get to him, physically and spiritually, are in vain. Only if God himself transcends the practice of religion, fulfills its requirements (essentially, takes that issue off the table) and gives his spiritual life to us, is there any hope, then, of eternal life or salvation.

If the issue were how to get to God, then the debate could continue infinitely. But that is not the issue; the issue is: “Has God come to humans in any way?” If he has, then clearly it is only through the way in which he has chosen to do so that salvation can be found, and religious activity can take on an optimistic character based not on trying to reach God, but on the fact that he has reached humanity.

“All These Things We Will Do”

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Sound familiar? These are the words of the Hebrew people when God gave them his law.

He told them to keep the Feast of Harvest and Unleaven bread to remember God’s faithfulness in bringing them out of Egypt, that is, bondage. He gave them several laws governing social life. He told them that when they were to come into the promised land they were to completely destroy the people in it. Because these peoples were not God’s chosen people, they worshiped idols and would certainly drag the Israelites into sin if they were not destroyed. When the people heard all these instructions they said “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

Only a short while before,when God was giving the Ten Commandments to Moses and there was a great cloud around the mountain with thunder and lightning, they pleaded with Moses not to let God speak to them, because they were sure they would die if he did.

And weren’t they right? Isn’t the law which God gives exactly that which shows us our sin and condemns us for it? The Israelites were headed for the promised land. This land is a picture of Jesus, the “new creation”. God creates so that he may fill that creation with a relationship with his people. But in order for that to happen we have to abandon the life of sin. What the people saw in the mountain and heard in the law is what we see on the cross: God’s absolute abhorence of sin and uncompromising punishment of it. They rightly feared God’s wrath, for they were a sinful people.

This is shown so clearly in that even when they did inherit the promised land they did not follow God’s instructions to drive out the pagan nations. Even after the law was given, sacrifices were made for their sins, and they had entered into the land of promise and been given a temple where God dwelled among them, they failed to drive out all the pagans and were eventual seduced by their godless living.

Have we also lost the fear of God? Have we forgotten the wrath of God poured out on the cross? If we disregard this life of God’s presence given to us as we are made part of the new creation and do not live according to the mercy given, what else is there for us? How else are we to be saved? Of course we haven’t rejected the truth of God’s word, the message of the gospel, but we also fail to live in it. We have found it easier to make a truce with the hidden sins of thought and habit than to drive them completely out of the land. We say “well they are conquered, under control” but they are not destroyed. What is not destroyed eventual overtakes.

What does it mean to say “All these things we will do”? Certainly we are like the Israelites: we fail. We have failed and continue to. But it’s not just God’s wrath that’s on the cross, it’s his wrath toward us. Why did the Israelites fear? Because they knew in their hearts that they were already guilty of breaking the law that he gave. But what they didn’t know was that the guilt was payed for. Oh they were taught it through allegory in making the blood sacrifices, but most did not have faith in the promise of salvation and so were lost.

We know we are saved, we know that our salvation is sure because Jesus has died and rose again and has given his life to us, and yet, there can be no basis for knowing this is ours if in our practical every day living we are not being vigilant to do all the things the LORD has spoken. Search the hidden sin and tremble before the the mighty God who knows and condemns all sin. For this is repentence. Without the fear of God there is no true repentance and therefore not true salvation. Salvation came through the death of him who knew no sin and yet became sin for us. So now, actively seek to die to yourself and drive out mercilessly every weight and hindrence that would keep you from striving toward the prize of eternal rest in his presence.

Christ of Egypt, the Gift of Thanksgiving

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

When Moses and the Hebrew people had followed God’s command and been spared the deaths of their firstborn in the worst and final plague that God brought upon the Egyptians, God instituted two festivals: the Passover and the Feast of Unleaven bread. He also instituded a ritual that was to be practiced throughout the entire year: the sacrifice of the first-born. As it is explained in Exodus 13:11-16:

11 “When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, 12 you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. 13 Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. 14 And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ 16 It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt” (ESV).

The celebration of salvation brought by the sacrificial lamb at passover was given once a year to remind the people of how God had delivered them From Egypt. The feast of Unleaven Bread was celebrated once a year to remind them of what God had delivered them from: the sin of Egypt which puffs up. Yet the response of God’s people in gratitude for all that he had done for them was to be practiced the entire year.

The first born animal, the first fruit of the season, and the first born of a man’s children are all the best a man can give. As sinners we were lost and enslaved in sin–in our Egypt. But the blood of the lamb which covers the sin of the all who believe has delivered us from that Egypt and made us a people, set free from bondage. That sin which holds us down demands all that we are, for we have rejected the life of God. All that is left is the shell of the flesh, enslaved to sinful passions. So what is the best we can give? We are unfulfilled, and slaves to our unfulfillment. For this reason it was the “first born of all creation” who came from heaven to give up his life. Not that Christ was incarnate before his birth, but that he is the greatest of all creation for he is God, veiled in human flesh.

We celebrate his death and resurrection for our deliverence from sin on various occasions throughout the year. But the reason that we were saved, the reason that Christ delivered us from Egypt, is so that we might enjoy abiding in him at all times, in all places. This means that we don’t need to keep pursuing the things on this earth that seem so promising, but yeild so little. We can celebrate the Feast of Unleaven Bread, for when we abandon the leaven of pride in possession and ability, we can truly feast on the fulfilling bread that came down from heaven: our Christ, the one who delivered us from Egypt and now gives himself to us for our spiritual nourishment.

This feast is the enjoyment of the life of Jesus Christ. He sacrificed his life so that we, being filled with the gratitude of his gift, would in turn sacrifice our own lives for his glory. Thanksgiving is the one thing that we are called to do in every moment of every day. This thanks is not just lip service, or even a constant ‘feeling’ of gratitude, but an active giving of the best that we have. Christ gave all that he is for us, and in thanksgiving we give all that we are for his use. Nothing we have is worthy of him; but thankfully he does not demand what he has not given. He never has. He has only desired that we give back to him the best of what he pours into our lives.

The Life of the Liturgy

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

By Aaron Schian

He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

–Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation

In the liturgy God gives to us sacramentally and we receive these heavenly treasures in faith. The liturgy after the liturgy is our vocations where we give ourselves sacrificially to our neighbor in love. Our vocations leads us to forgiveness which is found in the liturgy and the liturgy leads us to our calling in our vocations and so the two are connected.

Faith receives the gifts from God in the liturgy and then takes on flesh and bone to serve our neighbor in love. Here a relationship is established between the liturgy and vocation that gives us an understanding of how God’s sacramental relationship with us leads us to a sacrificial relationship with our neighbor. The hinge between liturgy and vocation is Luther’s post communion collect: “We give thanks to thee, Almighty God, that thou hast refreshed us through this salutary gift; and we beseech Thee that of Thy mercy Thou wouldst strengthen us through the same in faith toward Thee and in fervent love toward one another.”

Faith and Evolution

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Evolution is proposed as the governing dynamic of the universe. It is supposed to explain both the micro- and macrocosmic origin and development of life. Even if this is not said to be a religion or faith, it is a world view and cultural perspective. We should approach it as such.

Whether the beliefs of animists are religious or cultural matters little when comparing them to Christianity; so also with evolution. If we are considering only the philosophy of religion in general, and comparing different philosophies of various religions, then evolutionists have already excluded themselves from the discussion: they contend that their teachings are not religious. They have disqualified themselves from making any statement concerning the truth of any religion; it is outside their realm of study.

If, however, we are examining all belief and teaching in light of our own religious perspective, then we should treat the theory of evolution as we do the teachings of Islam, Buddism, animism or any other worldview. We examine the basis for the belief, examine the observable facts, and come to a conclusion consistent with our spiritual interpretive framework.

We must define the parameters of discussion. If evolution is not a religion, then let the theory of evolution be proved or disproved by what is observed to be occurring today. If it is a faith, then let the fruit of that faith be compared to the fruit of the love of the body of Christ, founded in the literal interpretation of scripture as the interpretive framework for all of reality.

Blood, Death and Suffering

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

As mortals we fear death. Death is the end of what we define as life, the end of the known, and therefore terrifying. We try to reconcile ourselves to the idea that we all must die, but we rarely ever come to a sense of peace about it until, perhaps, our last moments.

Next to death, we fear suffering. All that we pursue in life

Fideism

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

All humans are subjective beings. There does not exist within the scope of human experience anything purely objective, for all creation is fundamentally relational, and all humans are personally and emotionally relational.

Reason is not objective. It is the part of a person which can operate almost entirely apart from emotion, but it is not purely objective. Its nature is however a constant among mentally healthy humans and is, therefore, universal

Being Shrewd With Our Money

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager, in Luke 16, is an unusual one, in that Jesus is not giving an example of how one should act, or on the nature of the kingdom of heaven, but he is giving and example of how the people of this world are shrewd with their money. His point is not to tell us to do as the manager did–it was a dishonest thing! He is telling us that we should be just as shrewd with our money in the practice of good. When his point is learned, it brings great freedom!

What’s Worth Believing?

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

A lead actor in the film “Second Hand Lions” states in a portion of his “What Every Boy Needs to Know About Being A Man” speech: Sometimes the things which may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that everyone is basically good, that good always wins over evil, and that love, true love, never dies.

Religion is the set of guidelines for the practical application of one’s spirituality, or faith. Faith is what ascribes meaning to knowledge. Therefore religion is that act of knowing, understanding it within a context of the meaning of the existence of all things, and acting upon it. If these actions are profitable for the advancement of civilization and the evolution of our species, some might argue that it is good to hold to religious belief regardless of our ability to prove its objective truth.

It is true that to believe in such things causes people to be better citizens. But it is also true that the Apostle Paul states that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then we [Christians] are to be pitied above all else. Doesn’t belief assume that the one who believes it is convinced that it is absolutely true? Even those who state that you cannot ever know if there is a God, believe that this statement is true.

Humans are not objective; they are helplessly subjective beings, so to some extent it can be stated that faith is self-actualizing; that to believe something causes it to be true in the life of a believer pragmatically speaking. And here is the crux: If one is to justify belief pragmatically, then one is condemned to a pragmatic religion.

However, personal, subjective inquiry into the nature of God and the purpose of humanity demands to know who we are, not just how we interact. Isn’t there something terribly wrong with holding to a belief only because it causes you to be a better person? Doesn’t our quest for purpose and meaning in life depend on our identity? If this is the case, wouldn’t the idea that we are deceiving ourselves for the sake of a better life fly in the face of what we are seeking to do: validate ourselves?

The truth is that who we are is a fallen, sinful, human race. This accounts for our desire to be better, to act better, to be fulfilled, because obviously we are hugely lacking if we have all these desires! But in Christ, we are what he is. We can recognize our guilt, our failures, our relational problems, our dysfunctional families, our frustrations, anger, sadness, and grief.

All those things are realities, and the truth which transcends it all is no less real: we are the body of Christ. The point of this statement is not so much to make us better people, but to make us a people to begin with! We were not a people, community, or good, we only were trying to pretend and make ourselves feel like we had some meaning on our own. But Jesus, the real Jesus who lived on this earth and really died and really rose again made us a people for him. He has washed us with his own goodness, perfection. He gives it to us, and that is our true identity. That is the only thing worth believing, because it is true; all else is despair.