A 'quiz' from someone in my Coursera class.
Below is my off the cuff reply to some questions posed by someone in my latest class on Coursera....
Ooooh! A quiz!! :)
1. Did All Those Humans who lived tens and hundreds of thousand of years before the Bible was written have a chance to go to heaven?
Which definition of Heaven are you referring to? The idea of a magical place that is unattainable except upon death and only accessible by a certain few who do a certain thing or things to earn it? Or to the 'Kingdom of God'/'Kingdom of Heaven' that Jesus spoke of?
2. Did Jesus die for the sins of Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, etc. ? If not, why not?
Sure! Why wouldn't He? :) In my understanding Jesus died 'Once for All' - to fulfill and thus eradicate the need for the sacrificial system that was established by humans to appease god/gods in a limited (and still progressing) understanding of the nature of God. In doing so, Jesus ushered in a new, open and free access to God available to all - past, present and future (God being the Alpha and Omega and all, ya know!)....
You may be interested in the DVD by Rob Bell entitled 'The gods aren't angry' for more about this.
3. Why is it the case that even now, 2000 years after Jesus, that most people alive today know little or nothing about Jesus and Christianity? Is this a failure of God to implement an effective plan for the salvation of humanity?
That's a new stat for me...Christianity is one of the largest and fastest growing religions in the world....But even if that stat is accurate - the world ain't done yet, so as long as folks continue to share the awesomeness of Jesus then probably word will reach everyone eventually and folks everywhere will learn that they have always been loved crazily by God if they didn't already realize that through the Spirit's interaction with them through (gasp!) non-Christian means.
3b. Wouldn't it be better to have never heard of Jesus and just be a good lady or guy? Once you've heard of Jesus there's a higher standard to reach and you have to become a Christian to get to Heaven. But apparently if you lived in a remote African village 500 years ago and you never heard of Him you simply had to be good enough in life and God gave you the benefit of the doubt.
Jesus never said one had to become a 'Christian'.
In my world, knowing Jesus takes the pressure off of me and does not cause me to have to attain a 'higher standard'. Jesus teaches me that there is simply nothing that I (or anyone else) can do at all to earn the love of God. It just is. That is true for everyone and always has been. Any distance between people and God has been in the mind of people, not in the heart of God. The Christian Scriptures (in 1 John) teach that 'anyone who loves knows God.' Jesus himself taught that anyone who does the 'Will of My Father' (IE - lives in the spirit of love) is His brother. So, as far as I can tell, anyone anywhere at anytime who loves another enters the eternal realm of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' as a brother of Jesus whether or not they are aware of that or follow a particular religious path. The Spirit of God (aka the Holy Spirit, the Great Spirit, etc) knows no bounds, therefore the Spirit is not containable to the box of the religion of Christianity.
4. If you were switched at birth and spent your whole life in a small Indian village populated by Hindu believing neighbors and family, would you be a firm believer in multiple gods?
Probably!
5. Do you think Hinduisms, Voodoo and the thousands of other religions on Earth are just as spiritually satisfying as your version of Christianity?
Perhaps for some. Perhaps for others not so much - just like with anyone in any religion. Some believe it, some do not. I feel quite fulfilled in my relationship with Christ but that was not always the case. I internalized some toxic junk in my lifelong Christian journey and I am glad to be rid of the crap.
6.. Can Jews and Muslims go to heaven, even though the New Testament makes it clear that you have to accept Jesus as Savior to get there? If not, are all those poor Jews and Muslims going to burn in hell forever?
See response to Question number 1 and 3b...This question seems to assume more of Dante's idea of hell rather than the hell spoken about in Scripture.
I recommend Brian McLaren's 'A New Kind of Christianity' and 'A Generous Orthodoxy' for some mind blowing stuff. And also Rob Bell's book 'Love Wins' for some great questions to consider about the ideas of hell that we have inherited over the history of the Christian faith.
7. Why does each generation believe in a revised Christianity, even though God has a permanent set of rules and the bible is the same book for over a thousand years?
Permanent set of rules? You mean the ones that Jesus often revised ('you have heard it said...but I say.....') and God Himself revised (see the story of Peter's vision of the white sheet in Acts Chapter 10). We are still evolving in our understanding of God/the Universe. God continues to reveal more and more about himself to any willing to tune in (in Churchy McChurcherite language we might say 'we are moving from glory to glory')... If there was a dot on a blank chalkboard, that might represent what we truly understand about God and the rest of the blackboard would be what we don't. Each generation does the best it can to grasp in its limited mind something/someone enormous and eternal.
8. When Christianity eventually accepts homosexuality and gay marriage (which I am sure it eventually will have to), does that mean God accepted those ideas all along?
There will probably always be sects of Christianity which will not 'accept' homosexuality or gay marriage. The hope is that eventually there will be more willingness to love unconditionally. Period.
My personal belief regarding the issue of sexuality is that whether one is gay or straight, the healthiest choices are fidelity or abstinence - according to the overall teaching of Scripture what matters is love and how we treat one another. Sexual looseness no matter what one's orientation rarely gains anyone much lasting happiness and cheapens the sacredness of the intimacy of sexual relationships based in love.
That was fun...Thanks for asking!
Ooooh! A quiz!! :)
1. Did All Those Humans who lived tens and hundreds of thousand of years before the Bible was written have a chance to go to heaven?
Which definition of Heaven are you referring to? The idea of a magical place that is unattainable except upon death and only accessible by a certain few who do a certain thing or things to earn it? Or to the 'Kingdom of God'/'Kingdom of Heaven' that Jesus spoke of?
2. Did Jesus die for the sins of Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, etc. ? If not, why not?
Sure! Why wouldn't He? :) In my understanding Jesus died 'Once for All' - to fulfill and thus eradicate the need for the sacrificial system that was established by humans to appease god/gods in a limited (and still progressing) understanding of the nature of God. In doing so, Jesus ushered in a new, open and free access to God available to all - past, present and future (God being the Alpha and Omega and all, ya know!)....
You may be interested in the DVD by Rob Bell entitled 'The gods aren't angry' for more about this.
3. Why is it the case that even now, 2000 years after Jesus, that most people alive today know little or nothing about Jesus and Christianity? Is this a failure of God to implement an effective plan for the salvation of humanity?
That's a new stat for me...Christianity is one of the largest and fastest growing religions in the world....But even if that stat is accurate - the world ain't done yet, so as long as folks continue to share the awesomeness of Jesus then probably word will reach everyone eventually and folks everywhere will learn that they have always been loved crazily by God if they didn't already realize that through the Spirit's interaction with them through (gasp!) non-Christian means.
3b. Wouldn't it be better to have never heard of Jesus and just be a good lady or guy? Once you've heard of Jesus there's a higher standard to reach and you have to become a Christian to get to Heaven. But apparently if you lived in a remote African village 500 years ago and you never heard of Him you simply had to be good enough in life and God gave you the benefit of the doubt.
Jesus never said one had to become a 'Christian'.
In my world, knowing Jesus takes the pressure off of me and does not cause me to have to attain a 'higher standard'. Jesus teaches me that there is simply nothing that I (or anyone else) can do at all to earn the love of God. It just is. That is true for everyone and always has been. Any distance between people and God has been in the mind of people, not in the heart of God. The Christian Scriptures (in 1 John) teach that 'anyone who loves knows God.' Jesus himself taught that anyone who does the 'Will of My Father' (IE - lives in the spirit of love) is His brother. So, as far as I can tell, anyone anywhere at anytime who loves another enters the eternal realm of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' as a brother of Jesus whether or not they are aware of that or follow a particular religious path. The Spirit of God (aka the Holy Spirit, the Great Spirit, etc) knows no bounds, therefore the Spirit is not containable to the box of the religion of Christianity.
4. If you were switched at birth and spent your whole life in a small Indian village populated by Hindu believing neighbors and family, would you be a firm believer in multiple gods?
Probably!
5. Do you think Hinduisms, Voodoo and the thousands of other religions on Earth are just as spiritually satisfying as your version of Christianity?
Perhaps for some. Perhaps for others not so much - just like with anyone in any religion. Some believe it, some do not. I feel quite fulfilled in my relationship with Christ but that was not always the case. I internalized some toxic junk in my lifelong Christian journey and I am glad to be rid of the crap.
6.. Can Jews and Muslims go to heaven, even though the New Testament makes it clear that you have to accept Jesus as Savior to get there? If not, are all those poor Jews and Muslims going to burn in hell forever?
See response to Question number 1 and 3b...This question seems to assume more of Dante's idea of hell rather than the hell spoken about in Scripture.
I recommend Brian McLaren's 'A New Kind of Christianity' and 'A Generous Orthodoxy' for some mind blowing stuff. And also Rob Bell's book 'Love Wins' for some great questions to consider about the ideas of hell that we have inherited over the history of the Christian faith.
7. Why does each generation believe in a revised Christianity, even though God has a permanent set of rules and the bible is the same book for over a thousand years?
Permanent set of rules? You mean the ones that Jesus often revised ('you have heard it said...but I say.....') and God Himself revised (see the story of Peter's vision of the white sheet in Acts Chapter 10). We are still evolving in our understanding of God/the Universe. God continues to reveal more and more about himself to any willing to tune in (in Churchy McChurcherite language we might say 'we are moving from glory to glory')... If there was a dot on a blank chalkboard, that might represent what we truly understand about God and the rest of the blackboard would be what we don't. Each generation does the best it can to grasp in its limited mind something/someone enormous and eternal.
8. When Christianity eventually accepts homosexuality and gay marriage (which I am sure it eventually will have to), does that mean God accepted those ideas all along?
There will probably always be sects of Christianity which will not 'accept' homosexuality or gay marriage. The hope is that eventually there will be more willingness to love unconditionally. Period.
My personal belief regarding the issue of sexuality is that whether one is gay or straight, the healthiest choices are fidelity or abstinence - according to the overall teaching of Scripture what matters is love and how we treat one another. Sexual looseness no matter what one's orientation rarely gains anyone much lasting happiness and cheapens the sacredness of the intimacy of sexual relationships based in love.
That was fun...Thanks for asking!
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