What Truth

I've already mentioned John Shuck, a Presbyterian pastor in Tennessee. So please remember when you read this that it isn't about John Shuck, but the ideas in question.

He has decided to preach a sermon about how "Good Friday" was not good, and how the cross is not good news. In his article, Good Friday is Not Good, he gives this summary of the concept of substitutionary atonement:

Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden. In so doing they sinned. They committed the original sin. By sinning they dishonored God and could not be in God's presence. So they were cast from the garden. Not only that, but their sin was transmuted generation by generation. All humanity, by nature of its humanity, is in a state of sin. They owe a debt to God that they cannot pay. Humans owe the debt but only God can forgive the debt. But God just can't cancel it. So God becomes human. Because Jesus is born of a virgin, he is not tainted by human sin. Jesus, the God/human cancels the debt by dying on the cross taking the sin of the world onto himself. Jesus is substituted for us. All who believe in this story have their debt of sin cancelled. They get to go to heaven when they die. All who do not believe in this story are still in their sin. They get to go to hell.

We'll leave off the juvenile "believe in this story" approach. Any Christian knows it is not "believe in this story", but "faith in Christ" that saves. But we'll move on. He tells us how he came to the conclusion that this story is not valid:

I think ultimately, it was Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that put this dogma in the museum of "fossilized beliefs that once were interesting." If humans evolved from lower life-forms and over billions of years of evolution, then the Adam and Eve story is obviously a myth.

We are fortunate to have science along now, the god of this age, to correct any foolish notions that religion might have had. Heaven and Hell, "in the image of God", and all that nonsense is fortunately available for discard, or, as he puts it "in the museum of 'fossilized beliefs that once were interesting'."

Finally, on the meaning of the cross, this is what he comes up with:

The cross symbolizes the meaninglessness of terror, cruelty, and violence for which there is no answer. If the cross is to mean anything for us today, it is that it represents the absence of goodness. It is the horror of humanity's crimes against humanity.

I know that Christians everywhere would like to respond with ire and Scripture. Don't bother. If Adam and Eve are myths, and the Resurrection is a myth, if essentially all those Bible stories are fabrications made simply to make a point, not to express truth, then arguing that the Gospel consists of Christ crucified and resurrected won't carry much weight. Save yourself the effort.

I don't seem to be able to gather the ire that perhaps I should. There is no outrage in me. I'm saddened that someone who calls himself a "Christian pastor" has decided to toss out everything that makes it "Christian." I'm disappointed that someone who associates himself with a major church organization like the PCUSA does so with complete disregard for what the PCUSA claims to believe. To me, the honest thing for people who disagree with the stated beliefs of an organization would be to leave that organization, not attempt to subvert its beliefs. And I'm confused with this position at all. If there is no need for atonement, by what means do we suppose that we can be right with God? If we just "want to" and God chooses to accept that, in what sense can He be called "just"? And if "science" is the determiner (by the way, most of science has discarded Darwin's theory of evolution because it just didn't work), how are we to determine anything at all? Science by definition is constantly in flux, finding, correcting, changing, discovering. How can we know anything if that which is our prime source is constantly shifting? It's all painted very nice, but it's all so confusing when you give it any thought.

I'm not angry with Pastor Shuck. I'm saddened by his position that eliminates anything "Christian" from Christianity. I'm disappointed by his dishonesty as a "Presbyterian" who disavows Presbyterian theology. And I'm confused by his ideas which seem to leave me with fewer answers than before. But I suspect that there would be no dialog in cases like these. I'll just be labeled "intolerant" or "narrow-minded" or some other name for believing that the Bible is actually the Word of God and science might be wrong and the discussion would end. It's sad. I know that "the truth shall set you free", but I can't figure out how this "truth" frees anybody.