What If God Doesn't Care What We Believe About Him/Her/Whatever?
What if God doesn’t really care what we “believe”? Radical question, I know. Unpopular, I realize. “Unorthodox”, perhaps.
Get your torches and pitch forks, I get it.
But.
Follow me here - what if at the end of the day God, Jesus, the Divine, the Spirit … whatever … what if God isn’t really all that concerned with what I believe?
And I wonder that because in the church we often build God into this Divine Being whose ultimate concern is that I believe the right things before I die so that when I meet him face to face he can let me into heaven instead of showing me the door to hell.
And, I mean, we can pretty that narrative up all we want and decorate it with nice words and phrases that seem to lighten the gut punch that such a theology brings, but at the end of the day THIS is what the Gospel or Good News is for so many people.
Right?
“Jesus died for your sins.”
“You have to believe this!”
“If you don’t believe this, this right here, what it says in this book and believe it in the way that I’m interpreting it for you. Well. You’re going to hell when you die.”
Why?
Because (apparently) what we intellectually believe about God is so important to him that even if we live 80 years of life on earth…
Serving the poor.
And treating others like we want to be treated.
And loving my neighbor as myself.
And forgiving my enemies.
And being radically inclusive of everyone.
(You know, following the commands of Jesus.)
… Even if we do all of those things really, really well, the reality is that if we don’t believe in this narrative that Jesus died for my sins then we will spend billions and trillions of years being tortured for all of eternity, in regret for believing the wrong things during our 80 years of life.
And.
All of this is true because (again, apparently) the grace of God has a limit - it covers me while I live on earth for 80-ish years, but suddenly is ripped away from me when I close my eyes for the last time. This same God who asks me to have patience with my enemies and love them and forgive them runs out of his own patience when he looks at me at the end of my life and takes stock of my beliefs about …
Him.
And Jesus.
And (let’s be real) the very confusing stories we have in a 2000+ year old text.
“I’m not sure how much clearer it could be, having been written in an ancient language and translated in 32 different ways and interpreted in 5,000 different ways by 10,000 different denominations. I know you lived well during your life, but had you believed better. Well. Then I would let you in.”
But.
What if we’re wrong? Like, what if all of that is completely and 100% backwards? What if that’s not really all that important to God? And what if Jesus didn’t die so that I could believe in him and go to heaven? And what if God really doesn’t care what I believe about him? What if the verses we often use to make that argument don’t really mean those things at all?
Like, John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
First, I think it’s interesting that we’ve equated “perish” with “hell” when (in reality) John never even mentions hell in his whole Gospel. Like, if John never mentions hell in his whole letter then why in the world would he have Jesus telling people they’re headed to hell if they don’t “believe” in him?
Why have we made hell a part of John’s Gospel when he doesn’t even mention it?
Second, “believe”. There are 2 Greek words for the word “believe” - 1 is a verb and 1 is a noun. Interestingly in John “believe” always appears as the VERB and never the NOUN.
Why?
Because for John “believe” isn’t something that sits in our minds as much as it is something we actually get up and “do”. In other words, for John “believe” carries with it action - it does something with our hands and bodies as opposed to merely sitting statically in our minds.
And so what if … what if the point that John was making wasn’t that we need to “hold onto” certain beliefs so that we can go to heaven when we die instead of hell, but what if his point was that we need to act on the teachings of Christ (which aren’t all that unique to him, if we’re going to be honest - love your neighbor, treat others as yourself, take care of creation, honor your creator, etc … these teachings are found in most of the world’s religions) so much so that our lives are reflections of the life he lived because this is a life whose goodness and works will help make earth more like heaven and (therefore) last for all of eternity.
They will, as John says, “never perish” because they are the works of people who are truly human, who are fully alive, who are dripping with a pulsing divinity.
What if?
I realize all of that won’t be popular with people from my old evangelical tribe and it might even seem radical for other people too … but, I don’t know. I’m not here to tickle people’s ears and tell them what they want to hear or have always heard. I lived that life and I find it boring. I was taught the above-mentioned narrative or theology or whatever for 30+ years of my life and was educated in it as well, but I’m at a place in my life today where I’m beginning to see a sliver of light breaking through the backdrop of what I always assumed was true and I feel myself becoming more and more alive every day and more and more drawn to whatever that light is.
And so … what if?
Much love,
(OH. PS, if you want to hear more about the John 3:16 stuff, check out this convo I had with Doug Pagitt.)