Forgiveness

Last night I went and seen the movie Inception. It was an awesome movie that I would encourage people to see, but this post isn't about the movie. Its about a thought I had while watching the movie. A thought that was new to me and one that I wanted to explore more. A thought concerning forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not a new concept. Joseph was entreated to forgive his brothers for their ill-treatment of him in selling him into slavery. The psalms tell us that with God there is forgiveness. The Apostle Paul tells us that those who are forgiven are blessed. He also instructs us that we should forgive others just as God has forgiven us. We are told that if we confess our sins they will be forgiven and will not be remembered.

Forgiveness brings peace and unity. Forgiveness is just as important for the forgiver as it is for the person being forgiven. Perhaps it is more important for the forgiver. If I wrong you and you forgive me, you gain the peace that forgiveness grants whether I accept your forgiveness or not. In this sense forgiveness is not a conditional act.

I was reminded of this in the movie Inception. A character comes to the point of forgiveness and it is only through forgiveness that freedom can be realized and progress achieved. We are told that it is healthy for us to forgive others. That in forgiving those who wrong us we are able to let go of the burden of hatred and vengeance. The act of forgiving releases us from this weight, it frees us to be at peace and to love. It enables happiness and community. If we cease to forgive then relationship is impossible and the weight that bears down on us is a destructive force in our life.

We can see that for us, forgiveness is vitally important.

Does the same hold true for God?

This was my thought while watching Inception. That the act of forgiving is an important act for us for all of the reasons listed previously. The same must hold true for God.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, communion with God was irrevocably broken. Only through God's forgiveness could the relationship be mended, because it was humanity that was the transgressor. God would justifiably be angry. No matter what Adam and Eve did or what what we do, forgiveness cannot be forced. Just as in human terms, forgiveness can only come from within the forgiver and then only freely. It can not be compelled if it is to be true.

This leads me to two separate thoughts, both of which have been previously articulated by the Apostle Paul.

The first is that one should not see our sinful acts as a way of bringing peace to God. While it is true that when we forgive we are blessed by being divested of our burden of anger and vengeance, we don't go about seeking to be wronged so that we can forgive. It is important and vital that we do forgive when wronged but nobody wants to be wronged solely so that they can grant forgiveness. The same holds true for God.

The second is that forgiveness cannot be achieved through our own efforts. The forgiveness of God leads to salvation and salvation is not the result of our works, but rather it is God's gift that can only be experienced through faith in Christ Jesus. Just as we cannot force a person to forgive us through our own actions, we can't force God to forgive us our sins through our actions.

As it turns out this idea isn't new to me. I may not have consciously thought of forgiveness from God's perspective in this manner but the path had been laid out before me to follow.

Forgiveness is a wonderful blessing and I'm grateful to God, that I can know God's forgiveness through faith in my Lord and Saviour, Christ Jesus.

What's the point?

I'm a Christian.

I won't say that I'm a good Christian. I have my problems and my struggles, but I have faith in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus for my salvation. I have faith in the love of God and His sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Which one should expect when someone identifies themselves as Christian.

The label of Christian implies the person holds to certain beliefs: the incarnation of God in the person of Christ Jesus; the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus; that all have sinned and that salvation can only be found in the person and sacrifice of Christ Jesus. These are the central tenets of the Christian faith and can be seen in both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The thing that I don't understand is why people feel the need to take on a label that identifies them with a series of beliefs that they simply don't hold. I know its not uncommon. Some people do it wrap themselves in something that gives their actions or ideas an air of respectability, significance or authority. Counting on the fact that many people simply can't tell the difference between what is true or false.

For instance there is Fred Phelps, a famous "Christian" zealot who declares to anyone who is within line of sight how much God hates everyone. However if one reads the Bible one sees that far from hating humanity God loves humanity and strives for reconciliation. Perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible starts with "for God so loved the world ..."

I've recently come across a new one; Marilyn Sewel. I was unaware of her before encountering an interview that she conducted with one of the leaders of the new-atheist movment; Christopher Hitchens.

During the course of the interview Ms. Sewel identifies herself as a Christian, or more accurately, a liberal Christian. Yet she denies virtually all of what Christianity entails. Even the atheist Hitchens sees this.

MS: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I'm a liberal Christian, and I don't take the stories from the scripture literally. I don't believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make the distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

CH: I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningul sense a Christian.

Mr. Hitchens goes on to say:

[The Apostle] Paul says, very clearly, that if it is not true that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then we the Christians are of all people the most unhappy. If none of that's true, and you seem to say it isn't, I have no quarrel with you.

Hitchens then helps get Sewel to the heart of the matter:

MS: Well, probably not, because I agree with almost everything that you say. But I still consider myself a Christian and a person of faith.

CH: Do you mind if I ask you question? Faith in what? Faith in the resurrection?

MS: The way I believe in the resurrection is I believe that one can go from death in this life, in the sense of being dead to the world and dead to other people, and can be resurrected to new life. When I preach about Easter and the resurrection, it's in a metaphorical sense.

CH: I hate to say it - we've hardly been introduced - but maybe you are simply living on the inheritance of a monstrous fraud that was preached to millions of people as the literal truth - as you put it, "the ground of being."

MS: Times change and, you know, people's beliefs change. I don't believe that you have to be fundamentalist and literalist to be a Christian. You do: You're something of a fundamentalist, actually.

CH: Well, I'm sorry, fundamentalist simply means those who think that the Bible is a serious book and should be taken seriously.

MS: I take it very seriously. I have my grandmother's Bible and I still read it, but I don't take it as literal truth. I take it as metaphorical truth. The stories, the narrative, are what's important.

CH: But then, show me what there is, ethically, in any religion that can't be duplicated by Humanism. In other words, can you name me a single moral action performed or moral statment uttered by a person of faith that couldn't be just as well pronounced or undertaken by a civilian?

Mr. Hitchen's final point is the one that shows us how far Ms. Sewel's supposed Christian faith is from actual Christianity.

You see, Marilyn Sewel identifies herself as a Christian, but denies Christ. She has taken Christ out of Christianity and put in His place herself. She has transformed the eternal truth of Christ and His resurrection into a transitory interpretation that has no implication outside of the mind of individual. She has made the faith little more than a comforting thought in order to wrap herself in the trappings of Christianity so that when people see her they will think one thing all the while being ingnorant to the fact that her proclomations of Chrisitian faith are a disguise that she uses to gain respectability and a following for her heretical ideas.

She has no idea what Christianity is. More importantly she seemingly has no idea of what she actually believes in. She doesn't want to believe in the God of the Bible, so she makes the Bible a collection of stories that can be seen as metaphor or simply ignored. She has stripped the Bible of its power and substance. Yet she is too weak psychologically to openly deny the existence of God as that would remove her disguise and be seen for who she is and for what she believes.

She says as much herself:

MS: If you would like for me to talk a little bit about what I believe ...

CH: Well I would actually.

MS: I don't know whether or not God exists in the first place, let me say that. I certainly don't think that God is an old man in the sky, I don't believe that God intervenes to give me goodies if I ask for them.

CH: You don't believe he's an interventionist of any kind?

MS: I'm kind of an agnostic on that one. God is a mystery to me. I choose to believe because - and this is a very practical thing for me - I seem to live with more integrity when I find myself accountable to something larger than myself. That thing larger than myself, I call God, but it's a metaphor. That God i an emptiness out of which everything comes. Perhaps I would say "reality" or "what is" because we're trying to describe the infinite with language of the finite. My faith is that I put all that I am and all that I have ont he line for that which I do not know.

God is a mystery to her?

She doesn't know if God exists or not?

The resurrection never happened?

God doesn't intervene in the world?

These are the claims of a Christian?

God is a mystery to her and yet a Christian response to the challenge of knowing God is that He provided not only His inspired word, the Bible, so that we may know Him but also provided for us His indwelling Spirit. A Christian won't claim that God is completely knowable but it is possible to know Him.

She says that God does not intervene in the world and yet the crux of Christianity is God's intervention into the world in the incarnation of Christ Jesus. I won't say that God micro-manages human experience but it is impossible to claim, as a Christian, that God does not intervene in the world.

The focal point of Christianity is the resurrection of Christ Jesus. It is the one point on which all others depend. To deny the resurrection is to deny Christianity, yet Ms. Sewel does this and yet still claims to be a Christian. Its an impossibility.

I appreciate Ms. Sewel's honesty during this interview. She acknowleged her lack of understanding of core Christian doctrine and belief. She acknowleged her true nature as a non-Christian. I only wish that she would continue her honesty and drop the label of Christian as she only does it harm.

Part 6: Bangkok

What to say?

I didn't like Bangkok.

During my time in Bangkok I kept trying to figure out how I would describe Bangkok.

My first attempt is that Bangkok made me feel like an ATM; having my buttons pushed by so many hands trying to find the right combination that would have me spit out money.

My second attempt is that Bangkok is like a filthy dollar store seeded liberally with hookers and massage parlors.

In all honesty by the time I got to Bangkok I was rather tired of it all.

I found cities are like coins; dual sides. The first side is the city itself. The second side are the attractions the cities offers. Cities are something that I use, rather than something I appreciate. When I went to Hanoi it was for Ha Long Bay, and the Hanoi Hilton. Phnom Penh was for Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields. The cities themselves held no interest for me.

I found Bangkok had little of interest. The markets were filled with cheap knockoff crap. Seeing an eight or nine year old girl hanging out in front of a whore house with some of the workers was depressing. The Lamborghini and Maserati I got to see there were kind of cool.

The best part of the week was my final day in Bangkok when I hung out at the Siam mall and got to see Avatar in Imax 3D.