A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [53]
That means that some faith communities are good for some of us, even though they would not challenge others of us, because we have already learned the lessons they are ready to teach. Other faith communities are over our head; they’re doing calculus while we’re still struggling with binomials. And that realization, of course, has implications not only for how we deal with other denominations, but for how we deal with other religions as well, a subject to which we will return in our ninth question.
In light of this unfolding understanding of biblical revelation, when we ask why God appears so violent in some passages of the Bible, we can suggest this hypothesis: if the human beings who produced those passages were violent in their own development, they would naturally see God through the lens of their experience. The fact that those disturbing descriptions are found in the Bible doesn’t mean that we are stuck with them, any more than we are stuck with “You cannot subtract a larger number from a smaller number” just because that statement still exists in our second-grade textbook. Remember, the Bible is not a constitution. It is like the library of math texts that shows the history of the development of mathematical reasoning among human beings.
I’ve found that a second analogy sometimes helps people understand—although not necessarily agree with!—what I’m trying to say. Imagine we go through a time machine to the year 3013. (You might imagine that the machine will be invented in 3012, and some of our descendants have decided to use the new machine to come back in time, take us to see what their world is like, and learn from us what our world is like.)
When we arrive, we find that people in the future are deeply spiritual. They have continued to grow in the knowledge and ways of the Lord over these many centuries. And they have grown socially as well as spiritually. Three huge social differences strike us immediately. First, they no longer fight wars. All conflicts are resolved through peaceful negotiation. Second, they no longer eat meat. They live more ecologically sustainable lives as vegetarians. And third, they long ago outgrew the use of fossil fuels, having seen their catastrophic effects on human society and the global climate.
We are invited to be on a talk show where viewers call in to ask questions about the past. (I know, any culture that made these three advances would probably have long ago moved beyond TV and talk shows, but we’re just being playful here.) The first caller asks: “Is it true that some of you claim to be believers in God and still believe in war? Is it true that some of you even pray that God will bless your nation’s war efforts? And is it true that only a minority of people who claim to be followers of Jesus are opposed to war?” We stumble through an answer, feeling a bit defensive: “Yes, we hold to something called just-war theory, and of course we pray for victory in war, because we know God is on the side of justice, and our cause is just. And yes, a small, idealistic minority of followers of Christ oppose war, but most of us consider them impractical and unrealistic.”
The talk-show host looks a little shocked and then brings in the second caller, who asks: “How can you possibly kill your fellow creatures for food? Don’t you know that all creatures are made by God, and that therefore all life is sacred? Aren’t you pro-life? And aren’t you aware that the planet can only sustain a limited number of meat eaters, but that it can provide sustenance for far more vegetarians? How can you be so selfish?” Again, we do our best to respond, but the question is based on assumptions that we don’t share. After explaining to the best of our ability, we add, “Besides, there’s nothing better