A God of love...

Many skeptics say they can’t believe in “the God of the Bible,” who punishes and judges people, because they believe in a “God of love.” But where does the notion
of God as love originate?  Certainly one cannot point to life in the world today – with all of it tragedies and wars - and say, “Here is evidence that the God of the world is a God of love”?  Furthermore, one cannot even appeal to the various religious texts and conclude that God is a God of love. By no means is love the dominant, ruling attribute of God as understood in any of the major faiths.

To believe in God being pure love—who accepts everyone and judges no one—is quite clearly, then, a powerful act of faith since there is no evidence for it in the natural order, and there is no historical, religious textual support for it - outside of Christianity. 

The source for understanding that God is a God of love is the Judeo-Christian Bible.  Yet, it is important to note, this same Bible goes further and informs us that the God of love is also a God of judgment.

Christianity stands out as not only being unique among religions but also as having the most reasonable understanding of what God has conveyed to His creation about His nature and what our collective and individual response to Him should be.

In the next series of articles, we will examine justifications for taking the Bible “at its word.”

Truly "catholic" (i.e. universal)

Culturally, Christianity was first dominated by Jews and centered in Jerusalem.  Later it was dominated by Hellenists and centered in the Mediterranean. Later the barbarians of Northern Europe received the faith and Christianity came to be dominated by western Europeans and then North Americans.

Today most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity soon will be centered in the southern and eastern hemispheres. in 1900 more than 80% of Christians lived in Europe and America. Today 60% live in the developing world.  And this growth comes after the end of colonialism. Introduced by foreign occupiers, the faith now thrives without them.

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith in Acts 15, it was declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture. The converts had to work out a Hellenistic way of being a Christian. So no one ethnicity owns the Christian faith. There is no “Christian culture” the way there is an “Islamic culture” which is recognized from Pakistan to Tunisia to Morocco.  Contrary to popular opinion, then, Christianity is not a Western religion that destroys local cultures.  Rather, Christianity has taken more culturally diverse forms than other faiths. It has deep layers of insight from the Hebrew, Greek, and European cultures.  And over the next hundred years will be further shaped by Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Christianity may become the most truly “catholic vision of the world,” having opened its leadership over the centuries to people from "every tongue, tribe, people and nation."

Next time, Christianity’s unique understanding of God.  In Christ…

Discussing Religion; Evangelization; Growth "by attraction"

FYI - According to the Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, Catholics are more likely to “avoid discussing religion” than members of other faiths or even atheists.

Following are pertinent excerpts from Pope Francis’ The Joy of the Gospel:

It would be wrong to see [evangelization] as a heroic individual undertaking, for it is first and foremost the Lord’s work, surpassing anything which we can see and understand. We “cannot passively and calmly wait in our church buildings”; we need to move from a pastoral ministry of mere conservation to a decidedly missionary pastoral ministry.

[Yet evangelizers] must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral... who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ.

Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but “by attraction.”

The goal is not to make enemies but to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed... Let us try a little harder to take the first step and to become involved…  If this invitation does not radiate forcefully and attractively, the edifice of the Church’s moral teaching risks becoming a house of cards…

Next Time, more of the Cultural Context of Christianity. In Christ…

Christian Cultural Context

Christianity, more than any other major religion, has been able to infiltrate many radically different cultures. While there is, a core of teachings (e.g. the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments) to which all forms of Christianity are faithful, there is a great deal of freedom in how these absolutes are expressed and take form within a particular culture.  For example, the Bible directs Christians to unite in acts of musical praise, but it doesn’t prescribe meter, rhythm, level of emotional expressiveness, or instrumentation—all this is left to be culturally expressed in a variety of ways. [With Catholicism this is even more so than with other Christian faiths but more on that in a future post]

Other religions are generally constrained by cultural context linked to geography.  The center and majority of Islam’s population is still in the place of its origin—the Middle East. Buddhism, at best, has only regional impact with only a few followers in the West as adherents are primarily found in Southern and Eastern Asia. It never established itself even in India, the land of its founding. And in South Korea, Christians now outnumber Buddhists. Similarly, the original lands that have been the demographic centers of Hinduism, and Confucianism have remained so.

By contrast, Christianity is a force on every continent and in every major region of the world, with the sole exception of the heartland of Islam, the Middle East.

Next time: A pause to reflect on The Joy of the Gospel. In Christ…