Chaos and Fictional Theology

by Ben Howard

As a writer who occasionally has opinions about Christianity I am required by divine fiat to have a definitive position on the issue of the afterlife. A footnote to this rule hastily added in recent years forces me to write about this topic at least once a year to stay in good standing with the (possibly imaginary) powers that be.

Now, before I dive into my very well thought-out, possibly genius, and definitely correct opinion, let me make one quick note: Almost all discussions about the afterlife are stupid, or at least whatever synonym of that word I need to use to both not insult the participants of the conversation and make it clear that I do not see the value in their thoughts on hell, heaven, or divine realms of puppies/ice cream/Backstreet Boys montages.

Clear? Good.

With that out of the way, I'd like to tell you my useless (but remember, totally correct) opinion. I believe in annihilationism.

If you're unfamiliar with annihilationism, be assured that you're not alone. While it was one of the beliefs about the nature of salvation and eternity that some of the Church Fathers subscribed to, it has been a minority view throughout history. At its essence, it bridges the gap between traditional beliefs in hell and universalism. There is no eternal conscious torment in annihilationism, but neither is eternal life granted to all. Instead of hell, those who are not saved are “annihilated,” which sounds a bit violent until you realize that it essentially means they die (like everybody else) and then stay dead instead of being resurrected.

To explain how I came to hold this position, let me discuss two things I hold as universal givens: sin and death. When I use the word sin, I don't mean sin as an individual’s actions or even habits and inclinations. Instead I use the word sin in a metaphysical sense, as the force that un-creates God's good creation. To my mind, this is the central crisis of the Christian story, creation vs. un-creation, existence vs. non-existence, with sin as the force which pushes us closer and closer towards the non-existent, un-created side of the equation. This act of un-creation ultimately results in death, not just the death of an individual, but the death of all existence, everything and everyone.

And while this may seem bleak, here's the kicker, in this telling of the story Christ's sacrifice doesn't save us from our sin. Instead he overcomes the consequences of our sin by resurrection and new creation. Resurrection and immortality are graciously bestowed on a grateful people rather than prizes earned by good behavior or gifts given to all without their desire or consent. Also, it eliminates the unjust punishment present in spending an eternity in hell for a finite number of crimes. We aren't punished for sin; we simply receive the natural consequences of our existence. We live and we die, just like everyone; there just isn't an infinity-length encore.

This belief is simply logical to me, it's clean and direct. It's a system wherein, if you believe in an afterlife, chances are you're right. If you don't believe in an afterlife, chances are you're right too. It treats everyone equally and we all experience the same fate for our actions. It's clear, it's to the point, and it's just.

It makes so much sense.

Which is why I'm also convinced it's completely wrong.

Think about your favorite book, or your favorite movie, or whatever fictional story happens to resonate with you. Think about how the story progresses, how it moves from point A to point B to point C, always laying down more narrative track following the route the author has laid out in advance. The author may even get a bit creative and jump around, perhaps it starts at point C and works backward, maybe it starts in the middle, exploring backstory as it goes, but it always tells an ordered story. If it's a good story you'll get little bits and pieces that explain the motivation of the characters, quick asides about their pasts, small scenes that further illuminate their personality, all of it building incrementally to the final climactic moments. All of it makes perfect sense.

But that's what fiction does; it makes sense.

In contrast, our own lives, our own stories, present us with a far less cohesive narrative structure. Of course order still holds sway over most areas of our lives, causes have their effects, questions have their answers, and crises have their resolutions, but there also exists something else: chaos. And chaos is what ushers in the unpredictability, it's what keeps things from being neatly arranged, ordered, tidy.

And it's the reason why, despite answering all the questions I may have about death and the afterlife, my own closely held beliefs are just too clean and orderly. They are fiction, not reality. 

Yet I don't know what an accurate theory about the afterlife would look like with it's chaos-inflected jagged lines and logic-averse inner constructs. My mind recoils at the complexity such a theory would require, like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a child who has just mastered the ability to count to three. Reality exists to boggle the mind.

But we must believe something, and in the end I believe what I believe, all the while uncertain and almost entirely convinced that what I believe is wholly incorrect. And with this uncertainty come the seeds of humility, not fully developed, but growing, slowly. The ability to listen to others, who I'm convinced are just as wrong as I, and respond with a modicum of grace. 

Universalism? No, but maybe.
Hell? No, but maybe.
Aliens? No...but maybe? 

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHowardOPT.  

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do here, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen.

You might also like:  

• On TV Shows and Process
• Time is a Trap
• Come As You Are

A Work In Progress

by Ryan Hawk

We are all a work in progress; that’s the true reality of sanctification. At no point do I ever fully understand the faith I claim or the church to which I belong. There are mysteries that are simply unknowable, mysteries in my heart which are unknown even to me.

I have been on a journey. My faith has moved: a path which has taken me from the inherited certainties of my childhood to a place of questioning and skepticism; a post-evangelical landscape where our former assumptions are scrutinized in the harsh light of our newly discovered realities. And on this journey, certain questions continue to dog my steps, questions I never would have heard without starting down this road, questions about meaning, and identity, and privilege, and what it means when I am still not certain.

I look around at my fellow travelers. In this place full of evangelical refugees, we are quick to mock and caricature the traditions from which we’ve emerged. There is anger. There are wounds. These caricatures are birthed out of legacies of pain. Yet some of our stereotypes, we make unfairly. 

We are all a work in progress.

It is rare that I meet someone of my age who doesn’t have painful stories about the faith of their youth. Whether it be the doctrines that bound us, or the church leaders who preyed on their followers, or who let us down when we put full faith in their promises. The church is flawed because people are flawed, and it will be so until the new creation. 

That may not be optimistic, but it’s true. And this means I am flawed too. I am part of this same flawed body. Though I have left the institutions of my youth, it continues to be a part of the church universal. I cannot run away. I cannot forsake them. If I am critical of them (and I must be critical of them) I must never be so without the virtues of love and grace.

A professor of mine in seminary once taught me about the “ladder of inference.” It is a series of unconscious assumptions shaped by our context and experiences, which allow us to move from perceived facts to a conclusion or action. As a result, we are a shaped by all that has come before; it does not allow us to start over. We are molded by our history, our education, our place of birth, our families, our churches and their teachings. Whether we have attempted to relinquish those assumptions and move onto something new, or whether we continue to hold to them, they still shape us profoundly. We can’t escape that fact.

The church has failed many of us. But does this mean that Christ has failed us as well? Do the missteps of the institution invalidate the authenticity of faith? This is where hope comforts. If the church is to be like Christ, then there are plenty of reasons to say that Christ has indeed failed, but hope assures us that the stumbles along the way do not negate the journey. It’s a path, and we are climbing.
 
Failure on this journey is not found in the stumbles and falls, no matter how many times they occur. Failure is assuming that one has arrived, to make camp long before the end – when we grow comfortable by trading certainty for certainty; replacing the inherited assumptions from our youth with the new-found assumptions of our adulthood – when we feel justified sitting back, and mocking those who “haven’t arrived.”

But we are all on a journey; we are all a work in progress. And that compels us to seek truth with humility, to love with empathy, to extend mercy without condition. Challenge yourself. Read something you disagree with; talk to someone who doesn’t see eye to eye with you, because even those we disagree with must be looked upon with grace; they, too, are a work in progress.

Ryan David Hawk is a recovering cynic living in Colorado who looks good in a hat. His writings cannot be found anywhere because he struggles to deal with the pressures of blogging after trying and failing too many times. He sometimes uses Twitter and can be followed @ryandavidhawk.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. 

You might also like:

• On Macklemore, Webb, and Being Safe for the Whole Family
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Rob Bell
• On Cynicism (Or, Beware the Ides of March)

We Are So Sure

by Amanda Taylor

I think someone just decided not to be with me because I am a Christian.

I feel certain it wasn’t my WWJD bracelet. It wasn’t my weatherworn journal/bible combo that I take to (insert hip local coffee shop), my cross necklace, fish bumper sticker, Chick-fil-A sandwich, or compulsion to remind folks Jesus is my homeboy on my super hip loose-fit v-neck tee.

It wasn’t any of those things because those are the things in life that make me want to punch a baby. I can’t wear my faith proudly around like a shiny banner of joy and peace, because I’m too busy silently brooding about how nonsensical Christianity is today.

And brood I do. I analyze. I watch. I listen. I contemplate. I assess. I obsess. I’m so engulfed in this cycle of frustration and fatigue that whoever responds to this fresh break-up of mine with an “everything happens for a reason” is not safe from a sincere and biting face-punch.

Not babies though, thank goodness. They can’t talk yet.

As I sit here, I can’t tell what hurts more: the fact that this beautiful, wonderful person is walking away, or that my own brothers and sisters in Christ have caused it. I have caused it. For all my cynicism, he knows how important faith is to me. He’s seen through the cold exterior of skepticism to a meek and seeking heart, one that needs Jesus. And it terrifies him.

Why?

It’s probably not an encouraging sign that he kept calling it “the religion thing”. “Back to the religion thing.” Yes, yes, let’s discuss that dumb thing called religion that has ostracized you, dumbfounded you, belittled you, told you that you weren’t good enough for someone. That religion thing. Yes, that’s my thing. Let’s talk about it.

I am no longer sure how many of us think eating a chicken sandwich is a meaningful way to follow Christ. It depends on which day you ask me. I’m inclined to believe most Christians don’t think tokens or phrases or buildings are the way to heaven, but I do worry that too many of us think we know the way with far too much certainty.

We know what Jesus thinks, we know what God wants, we know what it means for society and the way we must govern ourselves throughout the world. We are so sure.

Christians have had to continue to draw new lines in order to make sense out of the great mysteries of our Lord and Creator. The Great I Am. As we simplify the complexities of the good book into chewable bites, we find ourselves comfortably arranging our faith around these tokens and routines and phrases that provide us comfort and sensibility as they help us identify. Good. Bad. Me. You. Me. Other. In. Out.

This story that Christians are telling resonates far and deep into society, but we’re shielding ourselves from the repercussions of the tale. Life is HARD. It is hard. But God is supposed to make sense of it, to explain it, and to make it better. The harsh and acerbic reality of our lives is boxed up and wrapped in pretty fish-decorated, God-approved paper and passed around the world giving the “gift of Christ” to those in need. But what do they find when they open it? 

What is so frustrating is that this guy, my dear friend, doesn’t hate me, or Christians, or faith. He’s just not sure about it all because the story he’s hearing is one full of mistrust, and rules, and hierarchy. He’s an outsider. He’s afraid he’ll be a disappointment to me for not being sure enough.  

We are so sure. 

(Christianity) is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up.  It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.  So let us leave behind all these boys’ philosophies – these over-simple answers.  The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either.  – C.S. Lewis

 

You can follow Amanda on Twitter @tayloram03.