A Christianity Worth Believing 3

Chapter 14 was short and sweet. The main point I gathered from it is that all of us are at some point no longer integrated with God because that is what comes along with the territory of living life on earth but we should not be defined as people by the misdeeds we do and our disintegration from God but we should live to be fully integrated with God, eradicating any sin that springs up in our lives because we can.

As I read this chapter over again I see so much Tapestry of Hope stuff in it. On page 169 he says, “When we think of sin as disintegration, as the unraveling of life and goodness, we hold on to the hope that there is healing and integration, that a life can be woven back together from the threads that remain.” YEAH! I fully believe that. Going to church with registered sex offenders, a guy currently out on bond on a sex crime charge, pornography addicts, and alcoholics, I have seen God do just that. He has taken us, and not only woven my threads back together, his threads back together, and her threads back together, but he has woven my threads with his threads and her threads and we as a faith community come together as a marvelous display of God’s beautiful restoration and creativity.

So, once again I really like where Pagitt gets with this chapter (the main point as I gathered it) but I still don’t see why depravity theology gets kicked out. I think depravity theology is straight up theology from David in Psalm 51 and from Paul in Romans. I'm not one of these guys that believes in the five points of Calvinism or the million points of Calvinism (a la John Piper) but this is one of those things that seems to me to be too straight forward to ignore.

On 163 Pagitt says that hope is missing from the legal model. Whenever he talks about the legal model I think about the metaphor of the judge who steps out from behind the bench to pay our debt. I totally see hope in that. I hope in the fact that because I am an adopted son that the judge is my father and he actually already has paid the price for my sins when Jesus went to the cross and I don’t have to do anything to get him to come out from behind that bench. All I have to do is accept the payment and I get to live a life of freedom. That sounds pretty hopeful to me. If one is seeing (in that metaphor) that the payment is not being made until after we die and are in some kind of cosmic courtroom waiting to see if we are really going to make it into heaven and escape the flames of hell then I think that person is really missing the point of the gospel. I, unfortunately, thought like this for years but like I said in the last post, Jesus didn’t come to give us a get out of hell free card. He came to be a savior once for all and today. He came to give us a live life to the fullest invitation.

Pagitt, you make me think. On page 165 he says, “We were talking about how the story of fallenness would suggest that Alice, even in her sweet little four-month-old body, was capable of only evil because she had not been baptized, but that Laura, who had been baptized and was an active believer in Jesus, would be thought of as the one who was less influenced by sin.” On first reading I thought, “That is ridic! I don’t know anyone who thinks like that!” But I read it again and actually that is certainly how our boy Augustine put it and it seems to be the way it gets taught a lot today. That is a good one for me to chew on. I immediately think of how when the Israelites rebelled in the wilderness only the ones over 18 were sentenced to not enter the Promised Land. So, somehow the evils committed by children are not as offensive, or at least don’t get the same punishment, as evils committed by adults? I have been thinking here for a while and this is a pretty big hairy deal. Basically the way I see it is that I am created in the image of God but because I am a son of Adam there is no way I am not going to be disintegrated from God, no matter where I live or who I grow up around because I am sinful from birth.

I don’t see babies as full of evil and myself as freed from sin and growing in goodness. Obviously Jesus saw children as a role model of faith so there is something that even believers can look up to in children. The thing I disagree with is the thought that we could possibly avoid a kid being screwed up by sin. I believe we are screwed up by sin from birth. The systems, hurts, and patterns of our world do create FURTHER disharmony with God and one another but I think we are already in disharmony with God from the time we are born. Illness and sin are here and get more and more prevalent as we continue to live our lives in our decaying bodies but I don’t think living life on earth creates illness. Certainly it can but illness is found even in babies before they are born.

I love everything in the rest of that section (166 and 167) and I love the stories about Chico but just because I still see some truth and worth in the judicial model and I believe in the fallenness of mankind doesn’t mean that I think it is unchangeable or that humanity should be pitied. The legal model doesn’t drive me to despair and self-loathing or improper fear of God(I do think there is some proper fear of God. Is it because I hold to some of the legal model and some of the disintegration model that I feel that way? Am I cherry picking the legal model and therefore think it’s not all that bad?

In the end, I believe that we are more than our misdeeds and struggles. We shouldn’t say that humanity sucks because we were made in the image of God and God said it was very good. We all need to remember what it feels like to be the sad and the bad and minister from our wounds. Through Christ I can be who I was originally created to be – the wonderful, valued, image-bearer of God.