Hopeful Christianity

These days if you ask people what Christianity means a lot of them will say something like, "Christians think God is sending everyone but them to hell for ever and ever." Increasingly Christianity is seen as a religion which divides humanity into "keepers" and "expendables". Christianity is seen less and less as being about grace and restoration, and more and more as being about judgment and eternal rejection. Phillip Yancey, in his book Vanishing Grace, writes about this phenomenon. At the beginning of his book Yancey writes:

"I decided to write this book after I saw the results of surveys by the George Barna group. A few telling statistics jumped off the page. In 1996, 85 percent of Americans who had no religious commitment still viewed Christianity favorably. Thirteen years later, in 2009, only 16 percent of young “outsiders” had a favorable impression of Christianity, and just 3 percent had a good impression of evangelicals. I wanted to explore what caused that dramatic plunge in such a relatively short time. Why do Christians stir up hostile feelings — ​ and what, if anything, should we do about it?"

Yancey also notes in his book the phenomenon of the "nones." The "nones" are those who, when polled about religious preference, respond by saying, "none." Yancey writes, "…surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, those who claim no religion, a category now larger than all Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans combined." These people aren't necessarily anti-spiritual, but they are increasingly hesitant to be associated with institutional spirituality, i.e. churches.

According to Christian author and teacher Richard Rohr, the popular conception that Christianity necessarily teaches a God who torments spiritual failures in hell forever and ever has resulted in, what he dramatically calls, "a culture that hates its religion." Rohr puts it like this, "No culture can survive if it hates its religion. And that's where we're at right now." Rohr argues the case that Christianity in America and Europe is viewed with, "…to an amazing degree a distrust, a dislike, a cynicism, and a desire to reject."

All of this leads to a bracing question, "What can be done to rescue Christianity from its downward spiral, especially in Europe and America?"

In my opinion, what we should do about it is recover the optimism which was much more present in the early years of the faith. As I see it, Christianity has lost its early optimism and this early optimism needs to be rediscovered, re-appreciated, restored, and added to with the help of modern scholarship. I believe that the more the early optimism of Christianity is restored the better the reputation of Christianity will become.

What most people don't know is that we in the western world (especially Europe and America) have inherited a later, pessimistic from of Christianity from which we need to recover. Christianity wasn't always so pessimistic, so focused on the problem of original sin and the threat of eternal hell. To the surprise of many today, in the earliest days of Christianity there was a very optimistic form of the faith, and it's making a comeback today. My purpose in writing is to add to this comeback.

So, what is this early, optimistic Christianity I'm talking about? It's a form of the Christian faith which comes down to us from some of the most respected early church leaders, called early church "Fathers." These optimistic early church Fathers believed the heart of Christianity was the announcement that God, who is love, had accomplished the salvation of the world through Jesus. This optimistic early Christianity proclaimed the incredible value of each person in the eyes of God and encouraged people to have faith and to enter now into the forgiveness and hope and beauty found in Christ. These early church Fathers believed in the judgment of God, but they believed that this judgment was part of God's love and designed ultimately bring all sinners back home, even if coming back home meant them having to go through judgment/hell. If this way of being Christian was more understood and accepted, I believe more people would consider becoming Christian.

About these optimistic early church Fathers, someone might say, "Well did they read the Bible in its original language, or did they rely on translations of the Bible into their own language?" Actually, it's the other way around. The optimistic early church Fathers all read the New Testament in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written. These early church Fathers came with a background in Greek culture and language. They understood all the nuances of Greek language without having to try because it was the language they used every day. It wasn't until much later, when Rome made Christianity its official religion that things really started to change. In Roman Christianity, the New Testament was no longer read in Greek, but now in Latin. And Roman Christianity was, I believe, influenced by Roman culture and the way the New Testament was read and understood after it was translated into Latin. The greatest and most influential theologian of Roman Christianity, Augustine, did not even read Greek and depended on a translation of the Bible into Latin, called the Vulgate. Yet it was Augustine's quite pessimistic theology which would become the standard for Christianity for centuries to come. Ironically, Augustine himself admitted that during his day there were a great many Christians whose theology was not as harsh as his was. But before we get into Augustine's theology we will look at the earlier, Greek-language based, optimistic theology which came from the Greek early church Fathers who came before Augustine.

Discussion Questions:

Why do you think Christianity is viewed negatively by so many today?

Do you agree with Richard Rohr that we are now in a situation in which our culture hates its religion?

Have you ever felt negatively about Christianity?

How aware are you of the optimistic theology in early Christianity?

How do you think Christianity changed when it became the religion of the Roman Empire and the New Testament began to be read in Latin?

In order to be a Christian how many people must you believe will be lost to God in hell forever?

In your opinion does the New Testament clearly teach that there is a hell of eternal, conscious torment to which all spiritual failures must go?

Notes:

Quotes from Phillip Yancey are from his 2014 book, Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News? (p. 15). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.