I'm a Christian, just not a good Christian. As Paul might (and did) say "the foremost of sinners." Well, that's hyperbole, but certainly I'm no model of sainthood.
I think I have the basics, though:
- First off, I understand that I am a sinner. It seems like a lot of people have a hard time with that step. People want to think of themselves as good.
- I can't successfully stop sinning. It's just part of my nature.
- God condemns sin. Uh-oh!
- Forgiveness of sin is available through faith in Jesus Christ -- being born again through Christ's sacrifice. Yay!
- Even after being born again, I still sin. *sigh*
Me, I just muddle along in the middle doing the best I can. I'm just going to have to see what God has to say about the job I did when I get there. He's a just God, right? Whatever he decides, I can hardly complain, right? I trust him to do the right thing as he sees it, and I recognize that it's possible what God thinks is the right thing may be something with which I am not happy.
Which brings me to my next point (and the subject of the post):
When Christians start listing the attributes of God, "just" is usually right up there in the top five or so: Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Just, Merciful, those are all real biggies. I'm sure if you're the type to ponder these things you can think of a few more to toss on there.
Anyway.
I became a Christian in an evangelical Church. Really big on the "Great Commission" -- "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Whether you were "witnessing" and "sharing the Gospel" was always on one's mind.
Unfortunately, I've always been troubled by this. Never felt the evangelical urge, even a little. I'm not a very social person, and I have little patience with trying to educate people. And I see logical flaws with the whole concept of an obligation to evangelize.
God's Just, right? He's not going to give me a better chance at salvation than some isolated Amazon tribesman just because I had the good fortune to be born with easy access to Christian literature and teachings, right?
One presumes that God wants everyone to have a fair chance at salvation. Furthermore, God is omnipotent and omniscient (those are pretty daunting labels, but typically God is regarded as having all power and knowledge that it's possible to have). It logically follows that if God wants that, God is going to get that. Regardless of what I do.
That Amazonian tribesman is going to get just as fair a shake at salvation at me, regardless of whether I pack off on a missionary journey to tell him about Jesus Christ. In fact, it would be presumptuous and blasphemous of me to presume that I could possibly thwart God's will for that tribesman. I mean -- God is God. I don't have that kind of power. My particular interpretation of Christianity is not Calvinist -- I believe we have free will, and I believe the tribesman has the free will to reject God. But, I believe that if God wills that the tribesman get a fair shot at making that decision, no one on earth can stop it.
I mean, think about it. Put yourself in the tribesman's shoes, "You mean I'm getting short-changed on getting my sins forgiven because some dude 4,000 miles away decided that trekking through the Amazon wasn't for him? Seriously? And God's letting it happen?" It seems ridiculous to think that God would operate that way.
So, why, exactly, would I be interested in evangelizing? God doesn't need me to do it. He's got the resources to get the job done himself. Clearly. I can only think of ultimately selfish reasons -- getting on God's good side, sucking up to him by being eager to be his tool to reach that tribesman.
You may say, "But if you are so thankful for God's salvation, don't you want to show love for God and others by being an active part of his plan?" Well, not exactly. I've never been fond of busy work. So, if a God of nigh-infinite powers and resources is determined to give the guy a fair shake regardless of what I do, I don't feel as if I'm really contributing a lot by being the particular, convenient agency.
Apply the reasoning to pretty much any mundane task you might be called on to do. Say you work at a dam, and your boss tells you that it's your job to open the overflow valves when the water rises to a certain level ... but you know that A) Those valves are already automated and there are fail-safes on the fail-safes. B) The boss is standing right there with you and even if the fail-safes on the fail-safes fail, he's going to turn the valve anyway -- and doing so won't take him away from any other vital task. Wouldn't you start wondering exactly what value you're bringing to the whole endeavor?
There are a lot of things in my life that I don't know God is going to do -- keeping my littlest daughter from running out into the street, making sure all my kids get good educations, and keeping bad people away from them. God doesn't really promise us a lot in our day-to-day lives. Many theologians have spent much time trying to explain why bad things happen to good people, and why the God of whom Jesus says, regarding sparrows, "not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will" lets little children "fall to the ground" every day.
I accept that God's ultimate spiritual purpose for us is so much more significant than our brief lives as to render the temporal events we perceive as tragedies meaningless in comparison, but I still have to get through that temporal existence and I have responsibilities close to home. God isn't going to cook my kids a meal or dress them or feed my dogs. If God wants that Amazonian tribesman's soul saved -- and it's my understanding that he does -- then God is in a far better position than me to make sure it gets done.
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