In Search of a Universal: It Ain't Hell

Unlike it was for the ancient Jew or the earlier Christian YHWH believer, the modern Christian’s Christianity is predicated upon the notion that the main point of the religion is to avoid hell and get into heaven.  I don’t think many people would easily admit the above point, but as a matter of practicality, Christianity in the 21st century western world has really been reduced to that.  The natural conclusions of a religion whose main point is present investment for a post-death payout usually ends with some kind of a spreadsheet of dos and don’ts by which one attempts to muster his way passed the pearly gates via the brute force of a perfectly disciplined and applied will.   As I read through the Bible, the text doesn’t seem to support the 21st century American set of assumptions about Christianity very well, if at all.  As I read through the Bible, I am struck with several questions and a drive to find a premise of belief that is more true to the religion’s intent. 

If one takes the claims of scripture seriously, one has to admit the existence of some kind of heaven and hell because they are each claimed to be a reality by authoritative figures like Christ.  Besides confirming their existence, scripture does not say much about heaven and hell.  Most of our mind pictures and assumptions concerning these two places come from the imaginations of medieval theologians and authors of epic fiction.  Without Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy,” which, by the way, was a poem that came about centuries after the death of Christ, we would not have the developed concept of hell that we enjoy today.  Without guys like Thomas Aquinas we simply would not have the involved concepts of heaven and hell that we assume come straight from the pages of scripture.  Knowing this makes me wonder why, if not heaven and hell, what?  What have people believed in the past; are their reasons good reasons for us?

I often wonder: If the majority of scripture represents the pre-Christ YHWH believer, and if that representation makes little accommodation for a developed concept of the after-life, if the majority of believers have worshipped God (to His satisfaction?) with only a rudimentary concept of heaven and hell, how then can Christianity be planted on the foundation of hell evasion?  I don’t think Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had the promise of paradise in mind when they made their hard stance saying: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18, NASB)  Something drove their convictions; something beyond the starting point of the modern believer.  

What motivated the ancient Jew or early Christian to worship God and often times die for Him if not the dangling carrot of Heaven and the threat of eternal damnation did not?  Certainly the disciples of Christ did not follow, especially not initially, because they were sold on the reward and punishment.  As I read it, scripture insists that proper teaching put God as the center point.  Genesis opens up with God as central to the story.  From that point on God is  seen constantly vying for the center point as mankind endlessly campaigns for that seat as well.  If it is true that proper theology has God at the center and not mankind; if scripture is about reconciling us to God from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, then placing rewards and punishments into the foundation of belief is to put mankind and his/her desire in the center seat which is then a delegitimization of the belief.  That is, if proper theology insists on God-centeredness as a mark of authentication for true YWHW belief and service, then a self-centered sub-belief is not legitimate and subverts the belief.  Knowing this bothers me and drives me to look for a universal which is understood more properly as the quintessential element of the foundation of the Judeo-Christian belief.  

I have landed somewhere at approximately fear and obedience.  The book of Ecclesiastes makes the claim that: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.”  (Ecclesiastes 12:13, NASB) The idea of the fear of God is nearly foreign to our culture and deserves involved development which is material for another conversation altogether.  Suffice it to say that the fear of God is directly related to His centrality and mankind in relation to it.  Obedience, as I have come to understand it, is the one philosophic key that exists which allows mankind through the door of other-centeredness.  The caveat is that obedience must be a heart-felt expression in response to God’s revealed intent that, though it is aware of and acknowledges reward and punishment, is not motivated by them; it is motivated by the fear of God/ God centrality.   

I have observed that the Levitical/ Deuteronomical law was given to a group of people whose culture, though it remained distinct, was subsumed by 400 years of Egyptian worship, law, socio-economics, and culture.  In an act of emergency society making, YHWH put forth temporary rules that would, if followed, establish a peaceful society wherein human relations were: harmonious and as equitable as possible within rubric of their contemporary cultures, were compatible with relating effectively to YHWH, and in which the ecology would thrive best under the strain of its occupants.  Simply put, His law was a set up for ideal relationships.  It was a platform that would set the stage for an evolutionary trajectory of a developmental mankind who was to grow in his/her ideal and emotional maturity as it pertains to those relationships.  Jesus summed up the whole notion by saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 23: 37b-40, NASB)

The point is that we are to “do” Christianity, not from a motive of hell evasion or heaven securance, not from a self-centered starting point, but from a God-centered starting point which, it turns out, is a stance of love; a stance of ideal relationship mastery.  Starting with self, with reward and punishment as the guiding force, ends with a Christian-like expression that ends in do’s and don’ts as a universal.  On the other hand, starting with love as the universal, the God-centered stance, drives a developed implementation of principles that often lands outside of the do’s and don’ts box.  The love universal requires an intimate understanding of who God is and how He is in any given situation.  It is not a stance that can be made while encumbered with insecurity.  The proper starting point is the Biblical idea of the fear of God and the response of obedience.