Thursday, June 6, 2013

Preaching the Devil: What the Pope Didn’t Say

On May 22, Pope Francis delivered a homily—like he does every day—where he said that even atheists could be redeemed. Of course, the (American) media erupted at this proclamation of apparent inclusivity and tolerance from the head of the Roman Catholic Church, arguably one of the most theologically exclusive communities this world knows. It behooves us to think more critically, however, than our everyday reporter about what the pope said—and what he didn’t say.

His Holiness is right. Redemption is for atheists as much as it’s for Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. It’s the simple radicality of the gospel:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. –John 3:16
The redemption of Jesus Christ is for the whole world—not exclusively for those in a particular denomination. What gets hairy, however, is the question of salvation and whether the pope said all people are saved. That’s a question of soteriology—the area of theology dealing with how creation is saved. It might seem like a fine line, this line between redemption and salvation—because it is. The pope simply stated what Christians have long held to be true—Christ’s sacrifice on the cross avails for all people, no one is excluded.

What the pope didn’t preach, however, was the gospel of moralistic therapeutic deism. The kind of reaction from the American media and its consumers shows to what extent this way of thinking and believing have imbedded themselves into the collective psyche.

Moralistic therapeutic deism is the notion that God is on standby for times of trouble but doesn’t interfere with my life unless I need help. God’s greatest desire for my life and for all people and creation is that we do our best to do the greatest good. In the end, we all go to heaven because God is a merciful God and doesn’t damn anyone to hell—even if we don’t do as much good as God might like. This belief, especially as it pertains to salvation, allows people to jump directly from “God redeems atheists” to “the pope says non-believers are going to heaven!”

The idea is rooted in the false moralistic assumption that our salvation has something to do with our goodness. This is candidly and patently false. Our salvation comes completely and wholly as the product of God’s goodness—namely, through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ on the cross. No amount of our goodness earns us salvation, and no amount of our abstinence from evil does either. Our salvation rests completely and wholly in the nail-wounded hands of God’s son Jesus Christ.

In his homily, the pope makes it clear that the goodness of atheists comes form their nature as creatures made in God’s image. It’s the image of God, not their own beings in and of themselves, that forces them to obey the commandment to do good over evil. Their goodness exists outside of themselves precisely because God made them, and what God makes is good. Evil comes from elsewhere.

The belief is also rooted in the false therapeutic assumption that all good people go to heaven. This is where the difference about redemption and salvation comes to bear. Redemption avails for all people, but salvation happens for those who have faith that Christ’s goodness is sufficient for them.

God’s promise to everyone is that salvation is sure on account of faith in Jesus Christ. It’s therapeutic—and idolatrous—for us to create a god of our own fashioning who behaves according to our own notions of goodness, mercy, and fairness. Theology that states “God saves all good people” is theology about such a god.*

Nailing Christ to the Cross: Gustav Doré
The vast majority of American society—and arguably the world—believes that good people go to heaven. This ties closely with the moralistic coloring of the whole concept. If I’m good enough, my salvation is secure. This way of thinking completely robs Christ of his sacrifice of the cross and renders it completely and utterly useless.

The other side of this same coin belies a completely anthropocentric understanding of salvation as opposed to a Christocentric one. Because I’m good, I go to heaven as opposed to because Christ was faithful, I experience heaven’s joys by the grace of God. American individualism that creates a culture of narcissism and self-centeredism allows this kind of anthropocentric salvation to flourish, and we see it in many a televangelist’s weekly sermon. Here, the preaching from Francis’s first papal homily rings poignantly—“Whenever we do not confess Jesus Christ, we confess the worldliness of the devil.” Insisting on our own goodness as necessary means to salvation is nothing more than the deceiver’s greatest lie.

This way of thinking about God is also deistic in so far as it sees God’s action as relatively limited beyond the moment of creation and the final judgment where my good actions are deemed worthy of admittance to my golden heavenly palace. Only if I need God and summon for aid does the divine helping hand swoop in and relieve me of all life’s burdens.

God is anything but a God who waits on standby for creation to ask for help. God is intimately involved with creation. The extent of God’s involvement in this world was shown most fully in the life and death of Jesus Christ. God loved the world so much to enter this world, become a human being in Jesus Christ, and die so that each and every person who believes in him would enjoy abundant life—both now and through eternity. God’s action in this world is not limited to when creation was first spoken into being and when we need help outside ourselves. God’s action in this world is continual and unending. God sustains this world and maintains it. Without God’s action, this world wouldn’t be.

The pope, in calling out atheists, doesn’t say that God’s activity in this world is moot. He’s saying the exact opposite. Even atheists are created in God’s image and by this nature they must do good. The commandment to do good is written on their heart by their creator. By calling out atheists who do good, the pope’s pointing to God’s action in this world, even in unbelievers, as very real evidence that God hasn’t stepped back and left the ticker keep time on its own. God is constantly adjusting the pendulum and gears so that the entire clock keeps perfect time—even when we don’t think we need sustenance or ask for help. God’s hand is active in this world, and the pope points to the good works of atheists, created like all human beings in the image of God, as hard and fast proof that this is a real truth.


The Gospel for May 22, 2013: Mark 9:38-40
John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out dæmons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.
In light of the gospel for the day Francis preached this homily, the insistence to call the good works of atheists divinely inspired is hardly radical—especially for those who believe that God’s activity in the world is real and constant. The pope was merely stating the obvious and chiding self-righteous Catholics to regard even the good works of atheists as deeds done on account of God’s goodness. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Atheists can’t do good deeds of their own will anymore than a good Catholic can because in the end, even though they’re both created in imago Dei, they’re natures are corrupted and turned in on themselves by the cunning machination of the Devil. Therefore, regard the good that atheists do as good, and don’t stop them. When someone’s casting out dæmons, no matter who they are, the world is just that much less evil. Who’d sanely complain about that?

For those, however, who believe God takes a hands-off approach to creation and will save all the good people in the end because they did their best—then when the pope says “God redeems atheists” they would be especially exuberant. It would appear to them, with their moralistic therapeutic deistic view of the world and God’s activity in it, that the leader of the world’s roughly one billion Catholics confirmed their system of beliefs. That is not what the pope preached to his flock. He preached Christ—namely, that the redemption of Jesus Christ on the cross avails for all, even the non-believer. To preach anything other, in the spirit of his own words, would be to preach nothing other than the Devil.

-DS

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*In the future, I hope to write about universalism. Are all people going to heaven, and if not, do some people go to hell?

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