Marcus Borg introduced his book, <\/span>The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith<\/em>, by describing \u201cA Tale of Two Paradigms\u201d where he juxaposed the basic elements of \u201cthe earlier paradigm\u201d of the Christian tradition and life with what he labled \u201cthe emerging paradigm.\u201d \u00a0Many of us who promote an emerging paradigm and participate in the progressive Christian movement were once connected to traditional understandings and practices. The following conversation I had recently with my mother reveals how different these two versions of Christian faith are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once a month I visit with my mother who lives a couple of hours away. Typically, we talk for a couple of hours, I take her out to eat and we run some errands. Though I am a minister, spiritual teacher, and a writer, we rarely talk about religion. There is a reason for this.<\/span><\/p>\n On a recent visit, I took her a copy of my book, Being a Progressive Christian<\/em><\/a>, as I have done with all my books, because she is my mother. And because I am her son, she reads them. She doesn\u2019t read them quickly or easily, but she reads them.<\/p>\n She told me, \u201cThey\u2019re deep.\u201d What she really meant was, \u201cHow the hell did my son come to believe such nonsense?\u201d She would never admit this. She would severely object to the way I just used \u201chell,\u201d in her view a perfectly sound biblical teaching. I am joking of course . . . kind of.<\/p>\n The conversation turned toward the state of the world. Such a state signals for many conservative Christians that Jesus will soon return. She was reflecting, \u201cI\u2019m glad I am not going to be here. I am glad I will be caught up to heaven.\u201d She asked me initially, \u201cDo you believe Jesus is going to come back soon?\u201d Then, she remembered who she was talking to and rephrased the question rather tentatively, \u201cDo you believe Jesus is going to come back?\u201d She did not appear too optimistic about my response.<\/p>\n Not really wanting to get into a discussion about Jesus\u2019 return, I answered, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not sure what I believe about Jesus coming back.\u201d She couldn\u2019t understand how I could be unsure when it\u2019s clearly in the Bible. It was time to jump in, no matter how cold the water.<\/p>\n I responded, \u201cWell, the early Christians who wrote the New Testament also believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Paul told the unmarried people at Corinth to stay unmarried because he believed that the world as we know it was going to end soon (see 1 Cor. 7:27-31). It didn\u2019t happen. They were wrong. Maybe they were wrong about the whole idea of Jesus returning.\u201d At this point, I thought about doing an excursion into apocalyptic thought and imagery, but then came to my senses.<\/p>\n She said that the Bible cannot be wrong. I responded, \u201cSure it can. It has been wrong about a whole bunch of stuff. You can find support for genocide, for slavery, for female inferiority and subjugation to men\u2014it\u2019s all in the Bible.\u201d I continued, \u201cThe Bible contains both transformative texts and oppressive texts. There are both wonderful and terrible texts in the Bible. The Bible argues with itself on any number of issues.\u201d She wasn\u2019t buying it.<\/p>\n I asked, \u201cDo you know any infallible human beings?\u201d She most certainly didn\u2019t\u2014everyone she knew was full of flaws. I continued, \u201cFallible human beings wrote the Bible.\u201d Her response was that God made sure that what these fallible human beings wrote was infallible truth. She couldn\u2019t explain how that could be so, but she knew it was.<\/p>\n Then she asked, \u201cYou don\u2019t believe in hell do you?\u201d Apparently this was something she wanted to ask me for some time and so she seized the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I don\u2019t believe in hell as a literal place, but I do believe in judgment. Judgment, I believe, can be painful, though I think it is also hopeful. I believe in judgment the way I believe in a purifying fire that takes away all the dross and impurities. I believe in judgment the way I believe in the knife in the surgeon\u2019s hands who wounds in order to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut the Bible says . . .\u201d And so we were back to the infallibility of the Bible which I knew would take us nowhere. So I asked, \u201cDo you really believe a loving God would torture people?\u201d She tried to defend God, as most Christians who believe in a literal hell do, by saying that God doesn\u2019t send anyone to hell. \u201cWe are given a free will. People send themselves to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReally, you believe that?\u201d She did. I replied, \u201cIf there is a hell, who created it? If people end up in hell, surely it is because God has arranged things that way. If God knows that a person is evil and will always be evil and will never choose the good, couldn\u2019t God just terminate that person\u2019s existence? God wouldn\u2019t have to torture them if God didn\u2019t want to; after all, God is God right? Why would God do that? You wouldn\u2019t do that. I wouldn\u2019t do that. We wouldn\u2019t torture anyone. Are we more loving than God?\u201d<\/p>\n She made a decision at that point not to try to reason her way through it. She said tersely, \u201cIt\u2019s in the Bible and I believe it.\u201d She also believes that God is a loving God. I encounter this frequently; people who believe in a literal hell and in a loving God are rarely open to consider how utterly unreasonable and contrary to common sense that appears.<\/p>\n She just couldn\u2019t understand how I could believe these things. I said, \u201cMom, you believe what you believe because that\u2019s what you were taught. All the preachers and teachers you have ever trusted reinforced these beliefs. I use to believe all these things too, because that is what I was taught. These teachings were reinforced by friends, by professors and ministers I associated with, by the churches I belonged to. But there came a point in my life when I decided that I was going to pursue truth wherever truth could be found. So I am on a journey.\u201d<\/p>\n She declared, \u201cYou could be wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure, I could be wrong. So could you. I\u2019m sure we are all wrong about a whole lot of things. I am very comfortable admitting that. But you don\u2019t seem to be. Why do you think that is?\u201d She couldn\u2019t tell me.<\/p>\n This went on for a while, then she instructed, \u201cWhen you preach my funeral, I want you to make it simple. Don\u2019t preach all this other stuff.\u201d I assured her, \u201cI will make it simple.\u201d My assumption here is that \u201csimple\u201d is subject to interpretation.<\/p>\n Please understand that I love my mother. I tend to avoid religious conversations with her because this is typical of how it goes. However, I have some ground to hold a glimmer of hope. She knows what it is like to swim against the current.<\/p>\n In a conservative Southern Baptist church, my mother is a democrat. Before the 2012 election, it had become something of a sacred tradition in her Sunday School class to spend a few minutes bashing President Obama before beginning the lesson. She endured this for many weeks. Finally, she could take it no more. One Sunday she came out of the closet, \u201cI\u2019m a democrat and I voted for president Obama and will be voting for him again. Church is no place for partisan politics.\u201d There are still a lot of elephants in the room, but now they make less noise.<\/p>\n If I write another book, I will give my mother a copy. She will read it, as difficult a task as that will be for her. And I hope that she might lock on to something that will give her the courage to risk the movement from knowing the right answers to asking the right questions. I wish for her the courage to think and move beyond the certitudes that she was taught and explore other possibilities.<\/p>\n Thomas Merton captured it well:<\/p>\n In the progress toward religious understanding, one does not go from answer to answer but from question to question. One\u2019s questions are answered, not by clear, definitive answers, but by more pertinent and more crucial questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Without the capacity to live and love the questions, a spiritual life becomes stagnant. We become stuck in a rut. Most of us don\u2019t just fall into ruts, we dig them for ourselves. Then we curl up in them and settle in. There is no doubt that such places offer emotional security and comfort, but growth is sacrificed.<\/p>\n I wish for my mother and others like her the fortitude to confront their religious insecurities and fears, and to discover the Christian path as a journey into the mystery and wonder of a God too great and glorious to be encapsulated in a particular belief system.<\/p>\n Over the next several weeks I will be offering\u00a0Some Progressive Reflections on Traditional Christian Themes.<\/strong>\u00a0The reflections are adapted from my book,\u00a0Being a Progressive Christian (is not) for Dummies (nor for know-it-alls): An Evolution of Faith<\/em><\/a>. The following is a list of the reflection titles and themes to come:<\/p>\n The Bible Is Not an Answer Book (Scripture) \u00a0<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Chuck Queen is a Baptist minister and author of Being a Progressive Christian (is not) for Dummies (nor for know-it-alls): An Evolution of Faith<\/em><\/a>. He blogs at A Fresh Perspective.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marcus Borg introduced his book, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith, by describing \u201cA Tale of Two Paradigms\u201d where he juxaposed the basic elements of \u201cthe earlier paradigm\u201d of the Christian tradition and life with what he labled \u201cthe emerging paradigm.\u201d \u00a0Many of us who promote an emerging paradigm and participate in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1822,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[866,859,858,573,528,867,865],"class_list":["post-6105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biblical-authority","tag-jesus-return","tag-judgment","tag-marcus-borg","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-thomas-merton","tag-traditional-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nFaithfulness Is More Important Than Veneration (Faith)
\nChristianity Must Lose Its Dualism (Christianity)
\nWendell Berry and the Afterlife (Salvation)
\nJoel Osteen and the Scandalous Gospel of Jesus (Discipleship)
\nHungering for Justice (Beatitudes)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n