[Oe List ...] Salmon:A Reflective Paper on Our Changing Worldview

[William Salmon]

OUR CHANGING WORLDVIEW
The transformation inherent in this shift
Written by Dr. William E. Salmon to stimulate dialogue
January 2010
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	Attempting to make sense of our new paradigm using the old scientific lens of objectivity, rationalism, and the cognitive processes now leads us to fear, despair, illusion, and hopelessness. Who wants anything to do with that? This is where the Christian Church got into big trouble!
	I want to affirm that this message is theological and notes the paradigm shift in our world view and how this shift effects bible interpretation. The example I've used concerns Dr. Bart Ehrman who widely is considered to be an eminent New Testament scholar having written 23 scholarly books on the topic. He is a Kansan, baptized as a Baptist, raised as an Episcopalian, took his undergraduate work at Wheaton College (the alma mater of Billy Graham), schooled at Moody Bible Institute, did his graduate seminary work at Princeton and graduated Magna cum Laude. In other words, this guy is no mindless liberal but has deep conservative credentials. 
	One of his later books is titled, "The Problem of God: How the Bible Fails to Answer The Greatest Problem We Have-"Why do we suffer." In this book he testifies that the answers the Bible offers can be characterized (by me) as, "Suck it up," "Lean the Lesson," and "Survive the worst." Where is the Good News? 
	The result is that Ehrman is now an atheist because the Bible doesn't offer any Good News to his question: Why does God allow earthquakes in Haiti, or why do accidents happen, why is cancer rampant, why does God allow HIV/AIDS, why did our son, Wesley, die of leukemia, etc?
	With this in mind, please consider the following scenarios. 
The worldview of Jesus:
	God for the Jews--
	God is the meaning of everything. God is not absent but God is the very breath we breathe (Genesis creation). God is the IS-ness of the environment and of all things alive and human. 
	The Jewish Messiah--
	The Messiah will come as a demonstration of what it means to live with God as the center of our lives. The Messiah is not a personal aspect of God, but will initiate a new Messianic Era of selfless love for the whole nation of Israel.  
	The Jewish People of God--
	The People of God (Israel/Church) are the Awakened Nation dedicated to living out of the context of a loving community. 
	The Context--	
	This context is experiential (is lived as a demonstration), existential (we are changed/matured by our experiences), and relational (we are intimately related to everything and everyone a la the cultural beliefs of the American Indian).
	The Jews emphasized the communal role of the entire Hebrew nation. Individualism plays very little role in their understanding of faith/belief. The nation-encompassing all those who are Jewish women and circumcised men-bore the responsibility of demonstrating for all the world to see the benefits of fulfilling our intended creation. Just as a cow or tree exudes its IS-ness, so does the nation exuded its faithful IS-ness by living the corporate/communal humane life. 
	The People of God are those who live as a part of the Awakened Nation; those who will embody the Messianic Era.
	The Good News--
	The Good News is that Reality is Good; this goodness is not moral, but empirical and indicative-it is the way life is (TWLI). All is Good because we decide to experience it as good. When we do then we feel a profound sense of well-being, and of feeling At-One.
	The Doctrine of the Atonement (At-One-Ment) can be characterized in the axiom, "The Reward for the deed is found in the Deed itself." For instance, when we choose to obey the highway speed laws then the other drivers appreciate us, and the Patrol rewards us by not giving us a ticket; we are living At-One with our civil commitments. On the other hand, when we disobey the speed laws, our road-neighbors don't like us and the Patrol is likely to reward us with a speeding ticket. In this instance we are living in the antithesis of At-One-Ment which is one definition of sin. 
	Concerning the Good News, perhaps the following story will suffice.
	A man moves into a new city and gets a job at a downtown bank. He notices that the sign on the corner informs him that, "The Bus Stops Here Every 15 Minutes." 
	The next morning he starts out early, and waits at the bus stop for 15 minutes, then 30, and then 45 minutes. Finally, a neighbor across the street observes him waiting and comes over to inquire. "Are you waiting for the bus?" 	"Yes," is the exasperated reply.
	The neighbor then proclaims, "Well, I have good news for you. The bus doesn't stop here any more!"
	Why is this Good News?
	It is Good News because the man now can stop waiting and start walking.
Do we hear the Good News?
	From the Christian perspective we can add to this story this statement. The one who comes to tell us there is "No bus," is, at this moment, our Savior.
	Does this change our circumstances? In no way. BUT IT DOES CHANGE, OR TRANSFORMS, THE ONE WHO IS WAITING FOR AN UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION. 
	The Problem of Evil--
	Evil is an illusion of Reality; we are looking for a Lone Ranger to ride into our lives to kill the cause of our problems (get the bus to stop supernaturally, heal the cancer, stop the accidents, grow a new leg, etc.), then leave a silver bullet as a symbol of our salvation, and then ride off into the sun set on a white horse, wear a white hat, singing, "Heigh Ho Silver, Away!" 
	The Good News is there is no Lone Ranger that can alter the circumstances of life! The Real Good News is that the one who comes to tell us there is no Lone Ranger is, in fact, the Lone Ranger. Also s/he can be called the Messiah and/or the Savior; the One whose life, death and resurrection illuminate embracing our Reality to discover it is Good, and always it has been. Amen.   

The worldview of the Greeks:
	When Paul took the Jewish operating contexts into the Roman/Greek world there was a profound shift in worldview. This necessitated a change in the pictures and language used to describe the nature of the Good News. We see this in the shift between Matthew, Mark and Luke (Jewish audiences) and John (a Greek audience.)
	The gift of the Romans is their international political and social organization and military might. However, a couple of hundred years before Jesus, the Greek Alexander the Great (356 BCE) conquered the entire known world and gave to it the gifts of a Greek philosophy, culture and language. Rome, at the time of Jesus and Paul, was decidedly a Greek culture and language.  
	God for the Greeks--
	God, for the Greeks, was philosophically absent in an upper realm of Heaven or authentic Reality, a reality that is located out beyond the edge of a Newtonian universe. Where we humans live is the antithesis of Heaven. This World is a shadow place of Un-Reality, and it is decidedly a bad for us because everything created dies; death is the Great Angst from which there is no escape. However, for those (Gnostics) able to find a secret knowledge to escape this world where they can live eternally in the presence of God whose abode is characterized as HEAVEN; it is a place of escape from the real (of human suffering) into the Really Real of living eternally in the presence and healing of God. 
	For Christians-living out of this Greek context---our escape is demonstrated by the death and resurrection of Jesus who defeated death; Jesus is our "secret knowledge." We participate in the death of Jesus during Christian Baptism so that when we enter the water we die "a death like his," and when we rise up out of the water we participate in "a resurrection like his." 
	The Greek Christ (Messiah)-
	For the Greek world, the Christ was not a Shepherd who lived and cared for lost (Unawakened) sheep, rather the Christ was "The Logos" or Word; this was an intellectual concept for describing the activity of an absent God, whose presence came to be observed in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ/Messiah/Anointed One.
	The People of God-
	The decided shift in thinking between the Jews and Greeks is the change of emphasis from the corporate/communal nation to an emphasis on the role of the individual. Christians are those who are saved by a personal Savior: we are saved from the horrors of living in meaninglessness, and we are saved to the joy of living in the actual/virtual objective presence of an eternal God.  	
	The Church is The Gathered of those who are SAVED.
	The Context-
	The Greek context is objective, (all of our Christian code words like God, Christ, Holy Spirit, and Heaven are places or personifications of IDEAS), it is rational, (it depends on an intellectual ascent), and it utilizes a cognitive process (formulating a large variety of IDEAS ABOUT a religious perspective). 
	It is this process that gets us into trouble because there is a Baptist perspective, a Catholic perspective, a Muslim, Methodist, conservative, liberal/progressive, atheist, and spiritualist perspectives from which we can argue on whose perspective is prime; "Hey Baby, It's gonna be my way or the highway!"
	The Good News:	
	In this context the Good News is an idea to be explored instead of an experience. 
	The Problem of Evil:
	In the Greek context, evil is an objective reality. The book of Revelation tells the GREEK story of the war between God's two armies, the one in charge of Heaven and the other in charge of the World. Evil is palpable and real; it is objective. 	



What is the imperative?
	A more meaningful worldview:
	My point in this recitation is to establish that the Jewish worldview gives us a more meaningful picture of Reality as Goodness than does the Greek worldview. The Hebrew worldview I characterize as Gut Trip Analysis and the Greek worldview as Head Trip Analysis. 
	To teach the Jew about the Mississippi River, the best way is to stick her/his feet in the Mississippi mud. The Jew learns through the bottoms of the feet, through the legs and into the bowels; God is their breath; the Holy Spirit is the breathing of God. The Christ is the experience of sacrificial goodness and the demonstration of what the Awakened Life is like when lived in At-One-Ment. This is a Gut Trip approach. 
	To teach the Greeks about the Mississippi River, we hire a teacher to open her/his head and pour in information. This is a Head Trip approach. Ever since the 15th and 16th Centuries with the birth of the Scientific Method, this is the approach still used in our schools and universities. We've used this approach for nearly 600 years. 

Why DOES suffering exist?
	I find that the Jewish theological argument to answer the question of why suffering exists is far more satisfying and reassuring, while I find the Greek argument leads to despair, illusion and hopelessness. 
	The Jewish view is that God is love and is not responsible for accidents and other situations or circumstances. Instead, God is discovered IN everything as the meaning of it. When we hit our thumbs with a hammer what do we say? For the Jew the response is to ask for the meaning of the experience? If such an accident does not hurt, then I'm probably dead. If it does hurt, then I can Thank God that I'm still alive; the pain becomes a gift to remind me that I am alive. God didn't cause the accident, but the affirmation is evidence that God-Goodness-is in the reality. 
	The reality of accidents is that they are accidental. No one is being punished. The nature of the common cold is that germs are just doing their thing; they are not out to punish us, in fact it can be said that we are abusing the germs by killing them off; but that is another argument for a later time, eh?
	Where was God during the Haiti earthquake? God was inside of the people as they died, God was in those who were trapped in the rubble, and God cried as they died. 
	Then, the international response began. God was in the midst of the helpful response working to make good things happen out of bad. (Shades of Rabbi Kusher and Viktor Frankl). The presence of God is clear in those who volunteer to pull people out of collapsed buildings, sometimes at their own peril. God is in the generosity of the nations responding with huge gifts of money, goods and services. 

	Now, what has the Greek world view to offer? God is absent and responsible for every tragedy; just ask the insurance companies when they deny some claims because they are "acts of God." Come on. Give me a break!
	How is God in charge? God is in charge because the role of the Angels of Evil produces such events to demonstrate their power and control of human destiny. 
	In these ways the Greek worldview fails us:
Despair: there is no hope because we are, finally, all destined to the grave;
Hopelessness: there is no escape, or as Sartre once wrote, there is "No Exit;'
Illusion: The Big Lie, or the Big Liar, this OBJECTIVE reality is in charge of The World and wants to convince us there is no reason to live. 

	Why is this illusionary? 
	All of us are victimized in a variety of ways. My response to this victimization is to choose either to be a victim or a victor. Those who choose to live as a victim make themselves, and everybody around them, miserable. This is a sure sign that people believe themselves to have no hope. 
	On a recent mid-night chaplain's visit to the Saline Co. Jail, I was asked to visit with "Mary." This is a 45 year-old woman whose appearance was wasted and lost; she looked 90! 
	Her first words out of her mouth were, "Chaplain, I am so sad, and I've been this way all of my life."
	I looked at her and said, "Why Mary, that makes God cry."
	She took this in for a moment, and then asked, "Why would this make God cry?"
	I said, "This is not what God intends for you. God wants you to find a sense of peace, contentment, and satisfaction. That's why God created us. Not to experience these things is the opposite of why we are born."
	Again, she took this in for a few moments, and then she asked, "Well, how can I make God smile?"
	"That's an easy one to answer," I observed. "Go back to the Women's Cell Block and just be nice; be humane. This will make you feel better, and it will make your cell mates appreciate you."
	Immediately, she got up and started to leave. 
	"Whoa there," I said. "Where are you going?"
	"I'm going back to the Women's Cell Block because there are women who need to hear this." Off she went. 
	About two weeks later, I was near the Women's Cell Block and asked the Attendant, "How is Mary getting along?" Her reply startled me.
	"I don't know what you said to Mary, but she came back a changed woman. She got up the next day, washed her face and combed her hair, and then gathered the women who were getting ready to go to court hearings, and they said a prayer for each other. This was not Mary's normal response to things. Then, she started a Bible study group; Mary had never read the Bible before." 

	Now, do you think that God is smiling? 

	A summary of our human condition:	
	The reason that Dr. Bart Ehrman is now an atheist, and the reason why an imminent New Testament scholar can't see the work of an active, loving and forgiving God is that the tools he uses are those of the Modern Era: objective, rational, and using a cognitive process; he is blind and un-Awakened. Ehrman can only blame God for bringing death, destruction and suffering to the world. He is blinded because of a worldview that prevents him from seeing into the depths of human experience. 
	Our Modern worldview, with which we have lived for 600 years, supports this objective approach to reading the Bible. But the Post-Modern worldview, based on the physics of Einstein makes a mockery of a Heaven located out on the fringes of space; E=MC2 defines space without an end. Heaven as a place can no longer be supported.  
	"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. . . ."
	Rabbi Kushner is correct. God is not responsible for doing bad things to good people; life has its own hammer. As Victor Frankl discovered and revealed in his book, Man's Search For Meaning, those who live out of a worldview in which the meaning of life is taking a positive relationship to their situation, then even those in the Nazi death camps found joy in the midst of their suffering; they did not define themselves by the horror of their particular earthquake. Rather, they define themselves by DISCOVERING THAT THEY CAN CHOOSE TO BE PEACEFUL in spite of-or even because of-their suffering. Suffering did not define the relationship they took to the pain of their circumstances. They could choose to be the happiest suffering people. Note, this choice does not change their suffering, but their choice changed them. This is existentialism at its best.  

	Their story can also be our story. In this same way, the Jesus Story can be our story because it illuminates that we, like Jesus, can choose to die to the barriers preventing us from finding meaning within our human circumstance, or even because of them. When we do, then we are experiencing the very presence of The Christ within us.  
	
	Can you live with this, or what do you think?
 
	Inner Peace, 
	Pastor Bill
 

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