{"id":1147,"date":"2012-01-10T16:28:43","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T16:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christianpiatt\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2012-01-10T16:28:43","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T16:28:43","slug":"none-is-saved-while-one-still-suffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christianpiatt\/2012\/01\/none-is-saved-while-one-still-suffers\/","title":{"rendered":"None is Saved While One Still Suffers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

For some, the central message of Christianity is about personal salvation. What it is exactly that we need saving from is debatable, depending on who you ask: from the fires of hell; from ourselves, from an apocalyptic end to the world as we know it. But I\u2019ve been thinking about this quite a lot lately and I\u2019m beginning to think that we\u2019re going about the whole salvation thing the wrong way. <\/p>\n

The idea first arose when I was going over the possible questions to be included in my next Banned Questions<\/a><\/em> book, which is about Christians. The question reads:<\/p>\n

When a baby is conceived, where do Christians believe that soul comes from? Is it created at that moment or has it been floating in existence in the universe from the beginning of time?<\/em><\/p>\n

For starters, this assumes a relatively modern Western mindset that places the individual center stage. This has not always been the case. In fact, human beings were more community-minded for most of history before the fierce individualism of today\u2019s world took hold. The ancient Jewish notion of sin wasn\u2019t so much focused on individual deeds as it was referring to the collective well-being and orientation of an entire group. <\/p>\n

Taking this difference in perspective and applying it to the concept of the human soul, I began to wonder if we\u2019re beginning with a fundamental distortion of what it means to have a soul. While mulling this idea over in bed at 2 in the morning, a quote from Louis CK\u2019s show, Louie<\/a>, came to mind. In this particular scene, Louis CK is talking to a friend, Eddie (Doug Stanhope) who is contemplating suicide, and who is looking to CK for a reason not to follow through with his plan. Finally exasperated, CK hits him between the eyes with a profound truth:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what,\u201d he says to Eddie, \u201cit\u2019s not your life. It\u2019s life. Life is bigger than you. If you can imagine that. Life isn\u2019t something that you possess; it\u2019s something that you take part in, and you witness.\u201d <\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way we got this idea that we were given this thing known as a life, which has a beginning and end as defined by our own personal human experience on Earth. But what if CK is right? What if life just is, and we\u2019re jumping in mid-stream to participate in an ongoing conversation that was, is and will be much larger than us? How, then, does this change our perspective on our right to life, or our responsibility for it, be it occupied by us or someone else? <\/p>\n

If we really begin so see no distinction between our own lives and the lives of others \u2013 at the deepest existential level \u2013 how profoundly might this affect the way we understand everything else?<\/p>\n

Back to the idea of the human soul. I\u2019ve always imagined souls like the question suggests. There\u2019s some sort of warehouse somewhere that checks out souls as there are bodies to employ them. Perhaps they get re-used, or perhaps they\u2019re as unique as fingerprints. But lately I\u2019m beginning to think the very idea of the soul has fallen victim to the same sort of fierce individualism that our understanding of life, God and personal salvation suffer from.<\/p>\n

What if we don\u2019t each possess \u201ca soul?\u201d What if there is some greater Collective Soul (no, not the nineties garage band) in which we get to take part, but which we never own, so to speak? <\/p>\n

And if we\u2019re all participants in the same Collective Soul, what does this mean for the Christian message of salvation?<\/p>\n

I grew up hearing that the crux of Christianity lay in the proclamation of faith that would then ensure your passage into an afterlife in communion with God. You effectively protected the fate of \u201cyour\u201d eternal soul by doing so, and that your life\u2019s mission beyond this proclamation was to go and get others do to likewise.<\/p>\n

But the idea of a single, Collective Soul blows up this entire concept of personal salvation. There\u2019s no longer a possibility of individual salvation while others still suffer. Now, for some this might mean that the entire world has to be converted to Christianity before we can be truly reconciled with God. But I tend to think, based on Jesus\u2019 life and teaching, that it has more to do with lifting one another up and making ourselves collectively whole by working together toward the eradication of suffering, be it physical, emotional or spiritual.<\/p>\n

This also re-frames the idea of the phrase \u201cThy Kingdom come\u201d in the so-called Lord\u2019s Prayer. Whereas some consider this a plea to God to bring some sort of yet-to-be experienced kingdom here to earth, what if it\u2019s meant to be a pledge from us to God? What if it\u2019s we who are responsible for invoking God\u2019s kingdom, by living as if there truly is no man, woman, slave, free, Muslim, Jew, gay, straight, Republican or Democrat?\u2019<\/p>\n

The responsibility for \u201cGod\u2019s Kingdom come\u201d then is on us. Rather than waiting on God to act, we bear the burden for making real the perfectly complete love of which Jesus spoke. In doing so, it\u2019s hard to imagine that I could sit back and consider my own personal salvation, however you interpret that, while others still suffer.<\/p>\n

After all, their life is also my life. <\/p>\n

Their soul is also my soul.<\/p>\n

Their salvation is also my salvation.<\/p>\n

To make any other distinction is to place \u201cself\u201d above \u201cother\u201d and thus take a step back from fully realizing the vision glimpsed in Jesus\u2019 life and ministry. It\u2019s not about you. It\u2019s not about me. It\u2019s about us. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some, the central message of Christianity is about personal salvation. What it is exactly that we need saving from is debatable, depending on who you ask: from the fires of hell; from ourselves, from an apocalyptic end to the world as we know it. 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