In the first post on pathos, I talked about the existential fear of ending up on the wrong side of an eternal power. Another aspect of Christianity's appeal is its inherent tribalism. (This post is in a series.)
Now wait, isn't Christianity a universal experience? Isn't it available to all? Doesn't Jesus say, “Make disciples of all nations...”?
And yes, Christianity is universalist in that sense. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, said so:
Since I teach rhetoric, I’m always looking for ways to give my students an edge and this leads me down all sorts of great rabbit trails: books on hypnotism, psychology, watching speeches by famous politicians, ancient rhetorical manuals, books on family systems communication, and even books on marketing.
Today I started Victor Schwab’s classic, How to Write a Good Advertisement.
He wrote it in the 1940s and one of his main points is that you have to advertise to the people who will be buying your product, not to the person you are, that you wish you were, or that you wish everybody was. He gave this list of what he thought was an alarming trend in the United States in the 40s. He thought people were leaning toward:
My first emotional reason for being a Christian is the one that is often treated as the least worthy reason to care about Jesus. It’s the doctrine of hell.
The doctrine of hell, some experience of post-mortem divine punishment for misdeeds in the present life is rejected by many intellectually and by even more practically. In fact, many people seem to reject the notion of God precisely because they find the doctrine of any sort of hell unconscionable. I’m not writing this to defend the notion of hell. Remember, this is in my emotional reasons section for why I’m a Christian. But think of it this way, instead of rejecting the notion of God because hell is a terrifying notion, consider the possibility that it is real. Whatever it is: eternal destruction, eternal torture, fire, darkness, hanging out with all the losers and jerk you hate and who hate you for eternity, etc, it can’t be pleasant. On top is hell clearly being terrible, versions of it have been believed by billions of people. Now, billions can be wrong and often are, but our instincts have a tendency to point us in the right direction if we consider them at the bar of reason. The possibility of a post-mortem punishment for immoral behavior worth checking out. Here’s why I care about hell. In real life, my normal motivation for doing the right thing is usually ease in the moment. My life is set up so that moral behavior requires little effort. I’m not sure how good of a person I would be if times got tough. But nevertheless my desire for ease does cause me to consider the possibility of hell with concern. If misdeeds are punished, then that conflicts with my desire for ease. Because of the possibility of hell there are three things I can think of to do just in case (these are not contradictory):
A few months ago I reevaluated this question from the angle of rhetorical appeal.
I did this because as I’ve grown older I’ve had two somewhat opposite experiences:
I had never read anything by John Ortberg until now. I picked up his book “Soul Keeping,” simply because I found it for next to nothing and knew that he had been friends with Dallas Willard. The book, as far as I’ve gotten anyhow, ranges in quality. He has a kind of mega-church pastor style of telling anecdotes and give lots of examples. For instance, in the beginning he spends several pages explaining how frequently the word soul is used in English.
In Scott Adams great little book, How to Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big, he says that putting yourself first is crucial for being able to help other people:
"In hard times, or even presuccess times, society and at least one cartoonist want you to take care of yourself first. If you pursue your selfish objectives, and you do it well, someday your focus will turn outward. It’s an extraordinary feeling. I hope you can experience it." Adams, Scott (2013-10-22). How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 50). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.For many Christians, this kind of talk sounds verboten. At first glance it appears to contradict several data points in Scripture:
Not but that a man should take care of his worldly affairs, and look well unto them, and provide things honest in the sight of all men, for himself and his family, otherwise he would be worse than an infidel; but he is not to seek his own private advantage, and prefer it to a public good; accordingly the Syriac version reads it, "neither let anyone be careful of himself, but also everyone of his neighbour"; and the Arabic version thus, "and let none of you look to that which conduces to himself alone, but let everyone of you look to those things which may conduce to his friend"; but this respects spiritual things, and spiritual gifts: a Christian should not seek his own honour and applause, and to have his own will, and a point in a church carried his own way, but should consult the honour of Christ, the good of others, and the peace of the church; he should not look upon his own gifts, he may look upon them, and ascribe them to the grace of God, and make use of them to his glory, but not to admire them, or himself for them, and pride himself in them, and lift up himself above others, neglecting and taking no notice of the superior abilities of othersBut, if we were to read Scott's word "selfish" to mean "self-interested," then I think the playing field changes. The Bible teaches self-interest and indeed condemns selfishness in the name of self-interest:
On the other hand, is selfishness, as I defined it above, evil? Yes.
In Luther’s 95 theses, he observes, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”
I think that Luther is correct here. For instance, in Romans 12:2, Paul summarizes the Christian life as being “transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Luther’s thought is that the entire Christian life is looking to God’s revelation in Christ, looking to ourselves as sinful and in need of grace and mercy, and transforming our minds on the basis of that revelation.
In previous posts I’ve been writing about God’s grace and what it means to grow in that grace.
To grow in anything, at least on purpose, we need to have three things. Vision, Intention, and Means.
Today, we learn about means. By what means can we grow in God’s grace?
A word about means, means are method or instruments for accomplishing something.
For instance, if I am fastening two boards together, the means by which I do it could be a nail or an adhesive like glue. The means by which I drive the nail is a hammer.
In a previous post, I explained how to become a Christian.
In this post, I wish to explain (briefly, not in full) why to become a Christian.
One of the most unfortunate losses during the reformation was the loss of focus on the four cardinal virtues as simple excellencies that are praiseworthy in anybody, but find their truest expression in the Christian Scriptures.
I've written about the cardinal virtues (justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom) briefly in the past and their place in the Bible in the past. They are called cardinal because other virtues tend to hinge on them. For instance power depends upon courage because one must act to gain power, generosity depends up temperance and justice because one must first give to those who deserve and moderate his own desires in order to have extra to give to the needy. I don't intend to say that the cardinal virtues are actually the only hinge virtues, but I see no reason to deviate from a helpful rubric for thinking about human virtue until it is proven useless or wrong. Showing it to be incomplete would be no more damning to the system than showing modern physics to need improvements would be a proof that we should abandon it.