I Survived the Christian Right: Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 9
Embrace Universal Life

Before I went to Malawi and early on in my evangelical walk in 1982 I got one major thing right. Faith in Jesus includes emulating his concern for the poor. I packed my bags, joined an evangelical relief agency and headed off to the “ends of the earth,” in this case Somalia, to aid refugees devastated by war.

I also wanted to share my faith with Muslims. My evangelical theology taught me they were lost without someone like me converting them. It didn’t take long to see the logical conclusion of that doctrine. The overwhelming majority of Muslims, steeped in their own fundamentalist religion since birth, were not coming to Jesus. They were toast. Burnt toast and destined for an eternity in hell according to evangelical theology. Problem was, I didn’t buy it. Since I experienced God’s love personally and felt divine love for my Muslim friends, I surmised God’s character demands Henot destine people to eternal separation and torment. I adopted, and kept secret for the most part, the very minority position of inclusivism…that salvation is possible outside of Christendom.

Fast forward to my seventeenth (I lost count) crisis of faith in 2007. Having changed my view on scriptural inerrancy and authority, the church, tithing, the return of Jesus, sexuality, and gay rights, why not go for broke? I had become an open-minded seeker desperately trying to prevent my brains from leaking out. After reading three thoughtful, progressive evangelical authors⁶¹ and another former Pentecostal minister,⁶² a long-time puzzle was solved. Through a combination of Bible abuse and upholding man-made tradition, the evangelical church had squelched a view of salvation that had been espoused by several church fathers including Origen and Gregory of Nyasa.⁶³ It was universal reconciliation…that all would eventually be reconciled to God, thus more in line with God’s character of unconditional love. “Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”⁶⁴

Turns out that pesky word “eternal” used in conjunction with “punishment” and supposedly talking about hell doesn’t really mean forever. A better translation is “punishment of the age to come,” for the Greek word aionios is more accurately rendered “pertaining to an age.”⁶⁵ Also, the Greek word for “punishment” always refers to the remedial variety.⁶⁶ So, universal reconciliation doesn’t mean God doesn’t punish evil, just that it’s temporary. I concluded that Paul was right all along: “As in Adam, all will die, in Christ, all will be made alive.”⁶⁷

If you’re going to believe, believe in the really good news.⁶⁸

Certain and Uncertain

As much as I defend these nine lessons, I’m not insisting I’ve suddenly arrived at absolute certain truth. What I am saying is that we must be willing to go where the evidence leads even if it goes against out long-standing tradition or personal bias. Although I believe Christians can be certain of many things (the historical Jesus, his practical and spiritual wisdom, a transcendent meaning and power in the world…God…and a new way of relating to God found in the good news of Jesus), we should hold many views lightly because most of us don’t have a clue what really was happening culturally when Jesus spoke about his coming again, or the aionios punishment of the age, or when Paul spoke of porneia or arsenokoitai, or how the Bible was compiled, copied, and made into a canon of scripture by an editorial committee in the fourth century. There will always be an element of mystery and uncertainty.⁶⁹ If we are to come to sound conclusions about the Christian faith, we must ensure we humbly attempt to follow a reasoned course and not swallow whole what others before us have said…be they conservative or liberal…without careful evaluation.

[61] Talbot, Thomas, The Inescapable Love of God, MacDonald, Gregory, The Evangelical Universalist, and Keith DeRose, http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/univ.htm

[62] Pearson, Carlton, The Gospel of Inclusion

[63] MacDonald, Gregory, The Evangelical Universalist, page 173

[64] Romans 5:8

[65] MacDonald, George, Op. cit. page 147

[66] Talbot, Thomas, The Inescapable Love of God

[67] I Corinthians 15:22

[68] Luke 2:10 – “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”

[69] Schaeffer, Frank, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)

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I Survived the Christian Right: Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 8
Science vs. Religion – Go Where the Evidence Leads

Us vs. them attitudes are in the science vs. religion and creation vs. evolution debates. Typically, the people debating are the extremists, who only see things in black and white. There can be no mixing of their cherished positions. Fundamentalist young-earth creationists who believe in a 10,000 year-old earth based on a literal interpretation of the Bible are pitted against fundamentalist evolutionists, like the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris as opposed to reasonable atheists like Michael Ruse), who mock all theists for believing in the myth of God and the fairytale of religion. Yet 67 percent of Americans say it is possible to believe in both God and evolution.⁴⁸ The media often reinforces these polarities by distorting any moderate views. For example, they rarely differentiate non-literalist old-earth creationists (who include reputable scientists and technically, theistic evolutionists who believe God created the first life forms) and lump them together with the antiquated ideas of the Dark Ages. Given these realities, here are the lessons I learned:

Evolution is not the enemy. First, it’s possible to reconcile evolution with a biblical worldview. Francis Collins does it persuasively.⁴⁹ Don’t let staunch atheists who have an axe to grind tell you evolution proves there is no God. They delude themselves.⁵⁰ Nor should you allow staunch creationists to argue evolution is incompatible with the Bible. They hold to a rigid literalism.

Evolution is not immune to criticism. Evolution is usually portrayed as one specific unified theory held by all reputable scientists. There are in fact several competing theories and many ways to look at the scientific data. Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldridge proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium that critiqued the Darwinian view of continuous gradual evolution. Gould said the absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions of biological design was a nagging problem for gradualistic evolution.⁵¹ Eldredge said the fossil record screams loudly that what Darwin theorized…slow, steady, evolution…is not the case.⁵² Molecular Biologist Michael Denton critiqued orthodox Darwinism in his landmark book⁵³ and subsequently made the case for a form of guided evolution.⁵⁴ Biologist Dean Kenyon, who pioneered evolutionary self-organizational theory, later repudiated it and embraced a design hypothesis.⁵⁵

Intelligent design is neither the enemy nor immune to criticism. Intelligent Design (ID) theory is commonly represented as a fundamentalist wolf in sheep’s clothing. The facts don’t warrant this. ID theory is misused by the Christian Right to bolster their exclusivism⁵⁶ and therefore deemed guilty by association. It should be examined critically, but remarkably diverse intellectuals support the idea. These include agnostic mathematician and Darwinism-critic David Berlinski⁵⁷ and the former most renowned atheist in the world, Antony Flew, who announced to a shocked world that intelligent design must have been involved in the origin of the coded chemistry in DNA.⁵⁸ Moreover, ID is not incompatible with evolution. Tenured professor of microbiology Michael Behe, a leading ID proponent, holds to the evolutionary tenet of common descent.⁵⁹ Finally, critics who claim ID is not a real scientific theory probably have not carefully evaluated the case.⁶⁰

Question the rhetoric of the extremists and look carefully at the evidence for both theistic evolution and intelligent design. Go where the evidence leads.

[48] CBS News poll, October 23, 2005

[49] Collins, Francis, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

[50] Berlinski, David, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

[51] Gould, Stephen J., Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging? Paleobiology, vol 6 (1), p. 119-130 (1980)

[52] Eldredge, Niles, Confessions of a Darwinist, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2006

[53] Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

[54] Denton, Michael, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe

[55] I heard Kenyon speak at a Discovery Institute event in Seattle, WA in the summer of 2007

[56] The Christian Right-influenced Dover, PA school board forced teachers to make a pro intelligent-design statement in classrooms, despite the advice of the Discovery Institute not to do so.

[57] Berlinski, David, The Deniable Darwin

[58] Flew, Antony, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, page 95 and 123

[59] Behe, Michael, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, page 182.

[60] Meyer, Stephen C., Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, pages 403-415

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I Survived the Christian Right: Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 7
Support Gay Rights Not Wrongs

Most of my evangelical friends thought I went off the deep end when I changed my view on this issue. I have to admit, for years I had wondered how anyone could defend homosexuality in light of certain passages of the Bible. But that was before 2004, when I did an honest study of those passages and discovered misinterpretations andbefore I learned that several words in those passages are almost certainly mistranslated.

It started when I began hearing stories from Christian gay people on how they had pleaded for God’s help to overcome their “sin” of homosexuality. They were saying it didn’t work. A personal friend told me a similar story. Despite seeking help in “ex-gay” ministries, God wasn’t changing them into heterosexuals nor taking away their sex drives.⁴⁰ I read a Philip Yancey book⁴¹ where he recommended people read Mel White’s story (without endorsing his conclusions).⁴² White was a former ghostwriter for evangelical heavy weights and had come out declaring his homosexuality and the futility of trying to change. It was then that I clearly saw there was a pastoral problem with homosexuality. But was there a scriptural problem? Was there evidence evangelicals were misreading the Bible on this issue?

Turns out there is. For instance, one word in the Greek New Testament commonly translated “homosexual,” is the word, arsenokoitai, which is rarely found in ancient literature and whose meaning is uncertain.⁴³ It must be a condemned sexual behavior but does not denote homosexuality across the board. To translate it “homosexual” without at least including a footnote about its ambiguity is irresponsible. To understand what the New Testament teaches on homosexuality, one must understand the landscape of sexual practices in the first century.⁴⁴

For instance, when Paul talks of homosexuality in Romans, he’s speaking in the context of idolatry. Historical and literary context leads many scholars to conclude that when the Bible alludes to homosexuality it is talking about common forms of it in the ancient world, namely pederasty,⁴⁵ cultic prostitution,⁴⁶ and homosexual rape (e.g. implied in the story of Sodom), and not committed, loving homosexual relationships, which are supported by Christian movements like Metropolitan Community Church, SoulForce, and even the late Lewis Smedes,⁴⁷ an evangelical author who taught at Fuller Seminary.

Don’t misread the Bible on homosexuality. Open your heart to the plight of gay people who can’t change their orientation despite well-intentioned efforts.

[40] Stossel, John, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel…Why Everything You Know is Wrong, page 185.

[41] Yancey, Philip, What’s So Amazing About Grace

[42] White, Mel, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America.

[43] See Campolo, Tony, Speaking my Mind, page 67 and Rogers, Jack, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, pages 73-74

[44] Helminiak, Daniel, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality and Cannon, Justin R., The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality

[45] The oppressive male-initiation practice in the Greco-Roman world of men having sex with boys

[46] For example, Cybelene worship in Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, and Rome, which included castrated male priests, and the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, which had 1000 sacred female prostitutes. See Stark, Rodney, Cities of God, pages 50 and 92.

[47] http://www.soulforce.org/article/748

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I Survived the Christian Right: Ten Lessons I Learned on My Journey Home

Lesson 6
Have Sensible Sex

By now, I’m sure some have declared me a full-fledged heretic. Brace yourself, there’s more. Now for something totally uncomfortable…the subject of religion and sex. In my experience, with some noble exceptions (there are some excellent evangelical marriage manuals on sex), the evangelical church has largely been sex-negative, in other words, either it has suppressed open discussion or portrayal of sex for fear of promoting immorality, or it has condemned certain sexual behaviors, from nudity to masturbation to oral sex to all pre-marital sex, based on misinterpretations of the Bible.³¹

My historical studies reveal today’s church views on sex have more to do with Greco-Roman Platonism and Augustine’s warped perspective…despite his wisdom on other topics…than a rational reading of scripture. For instance, the Jewish tradition from which Christianity arose was sex affirming. Correspondingly, contrary to popular belief, the Greco-Roman world, in which the early church grew, was not wholly a debauched sexual culture. The sex-negating Platonists and Stoics, who had fearful attitudes toward “irrational” sexual pleasure, influenced much of it.³² This had impact on early church fathers like Augustine.

One specific is how these sex-negative Greco-Roman values influenced the English translation of the Greek New Testament word porneia. Raymond Lawrence calls it “perhaps the most deliberately mistranslated word in the biblical literature,”³³ when it is rendered “fornication,” and I would argue when it is also translated “sexual immorality” (as in ‘flee sexual immorality’³⁴). Conservative Biblicists have condemned a host of sexual behaviors under that one word, commonly summing it up as perverted sex or all sex outside of monogamous marriage, without understanding what it meant to the original audience. One scholar believes a better translation is “harlotry,”³⁵ for the connotation of porneia is selling oneself to break covenant. Moreover, it is not always about sex, as is evidenced by the times it or its Hebrew equivalent is translated as “idolatry.”

Despite the fact that I would never endorse polygamy as a good idea, the fact is polygamy is never condemned in the Bible nor is monogamy strictly endorsed. In fact, the Torah commands polygamy in the case of the Leverite law³⁶ and supports it at times.³⁷ Polygamy and concubinage were practiced by Old Testament heroes of the faith from Abraham to Jacob to Gideon to David and never censured by God, except excessive polygamy with foreign women outside the faith. The truth is that if Bathsheba had not been married to Uriah, David would not have committed adultery. The biblical literature defines adultery differently than we do in our modern context.³⁸

Likewise with pre-marital sex, the Bible puts limitations on it because of the Jewish concern for pure lineage and because unmarried women were considered property of their fathers. There was no equivalent of today’s single woman, living outside her family’s home. Therefore, the Bible does not specifically condemn all singles sexuality.³⁹

This is not to say that we should emulate the male-dominated society of the Bible or married men have license to run out and grab the first single, pretty woman they see bathing on a rooftop (how David first saw Bathsheba). Promiscuity rooted in selfish, personal gratification cannot be defended. However, it does mean, if we are honest, that we should take the above facts into account when we decide on a sexual ethic for today.

In sex, let the admonitions to love one another, treat each other kindly, and be responsible in our relationships, be the guiding principal, not absolutist rules that were never a part of the Bible’s historical and cultural milieu.

[31] Thelos, Philo, Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition

[32] Lawrence, Raymond, The Poisoning of Eros

[33] Lawrence, Raymond, Op. cit., page 2

[34] I Corinthians 6:18

[35] Countryman, William, Dirt, Greed, and Sex

[36] Deuteronomy 25:5-10

[37] Deuteronomy 21:15-17

[38] Countryman, Op. cit., page 159

[39] Countryman, Op. cit., page 264.

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