(I get a steady stream of email from people who are struggling with the great questions of faith. It is a privilege to be in dialogue with them about these issues. Here I share an email exchange with Mitch. I got to know him when he and his wife brought their child to Sausalito Presbyterian to be baptized. After the ceremony, Mitch and I got into a long dialogue about matters theological which has continued over email for a couple of years now. He’s an especially thoughtful, sensitive spiritual seeker and I value our ongoing conversation a great deal. Here’s our latest exchange, about a subject of practically universal interest: the afterlife.)
Dear Jim:
We haven't spoken in a while, but I do think of you often. I'm just getting around to reading some of your Musings and this one made me want to get in touch with you.
I've been kicking around this idea that in order to be true to Christ's message that one shouldn't believe in an afterlife. Let me explain. It seems to me that too many people turn to Christ (or even religion) because of some promise of great reward in the afterlife. To me this seems to be off message of what Christ was saying. It also seems very selfish. "I don't really want to love my neighbor, but I have to in order to get a bigger swimming pool in my backyard in heaven." This "afterlife reward" is not what Christ was saying. One should find joy, peace and happiness by living a life of love. That is the reward in itself.
So, recently I have begun calling myself a Christian without a net. I believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings, but I'm doing it because it brings me joy. I don't want the promise of an afterlife.
So here's my question - does this mean that I can't be a Christian? Does one need to believe in "heaven" in order to be a Christian?
Thanks for listening.
Mitch
Dear Mitch:
Good news: you definitely do not have to believe in an "afterlife" to be a Christian. For one thing, when Jesus talked about "heaven", his words were put into his mouth by early Christians who literally believed that the structure of the cosmos had just been changed by Jesus' life and death and resurrection. They believed that before Jesus, the ancient Ptolemaic structure of the universe prevailed, with heaven in the realm beyond the sky, and six levels of "heavens" below it, each in descending order of power derived from God from the highest heaven. Through Jesus, the early Christians believed that God had broken through all the lower levels of heaven and had come to earth to rule directly and personally. So the early Christian idea was that, literally, heaven had come to earth! It wasn't about life after death, but about life on earth right then and there, and about an imminent end to death altogether. They believed that when Jesus returned, which they expected to happen in their lifetimes, believers would never die and that believers who had died would be brought back to life.
Jesus himself appears to have referred to heaven as the rule of God on earth; he was very much focused on redeeming life here and now. Eternal life was for him a state of being that we can experience while we are alive, a state of being in full communion with God.
The idea of heaven as we associate it with Christianity actually came later, as the Christians saw that Jesus wasn't coming back any time soon, and that the world was going on pretty much as before. They went back to the Ptolemaic universe idea (the seven levels or spheres of heaven), and figured that at death, the saved were taken up to the highest heaven to be with God. Hence all the imagery of heaven as a place with clouds and angels with wings flying around.
Of course, that idea began to fall apart when Galileo and others realized that the earth was not the center of the universe, nor were there any levels of heaven as the old structure suggested.
I believe that there is such a thing as "eternal life", however. But it's not someplace in the sky. It is a subjective experience that people have during life when they experience oneness with God, when they have powerful experiences of love and awe. It is also a subjective experience in the death process, reported often by people who have almost died or been revived from heart stoppage. As the body dies, it ceases to send signals to the brain that would give it a sense of "time" as we usually know it. The brain is left with its own inner experience, which it never knows to end. We never know that we are dead when we are dead - we only know we're alive while we're alive. So it is possible to experience something we might call "eternal life" subjectively, even though objectively there is a moment when life ceases. I believe that religion can be extremely helpful in preparing for this subjective experience, by encouraging us to meditate and know the presence of God, by filling our minds with positive images, metaphors, and stories, by feeding our "dream life" in creative ways.
What do you think of all of this??
Take care!
Jim