On Having and Celebrating Life, Real/Eternal Life

Life ◈ Love ◈ Light ◈ Liberty: These are the “4-Ls” about which I wrote in my March 9 post. Today I am focusing on Life, the first of those four. Over the next few weeks, I will write about the other three.

Real life is more than physical life. As I said in the March 9 post, the foundation of my emphasis on life was Jesus’ words as recorded in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (v. 10, NRSV).

Having abundant life focuses on the quality of life, not just its quantity. Physical life is something that people either have or don’t have. That is, they are either alive or dead. But living abundantly means living with meaning, purpose, and joy.

The emphasis on life, real life, was prominent in the Christian Studies courses I conducted at Seinan Gakuin University in Japan. In 1975, I taught a required course for second-year Economics Department students. Horiuchi Akira-san was one of the students enrolled in that class.

On his 70^th birthday in January, Horiuchi-san posted the following comments (in Japanese) on Facebook: “When I was a second year university student, a missionary teacher of Christian Studies said, "The purpose of Christianity is to help people to have life and to have it abundantly."

In a personal exchange on Facebook Messenger, Horiuchi-san (whom I should call sensei since he has been a Christian pastor for most of the years since he finished his theological education in 1981) wrote, “I am who I am today because of my encounter with you. Thanks.”

Real life includes valuing and protecting physical life. Even though it is more than physical life, having real life leads to more than just enjoying the richness of one’s own life. It also seeks life for groups of people, robust physical life as well as meaningful societal life.

This generates opposition to war, to violence of all kinds, to capital punishment, to ecological destruction, and to all exploitation and/or degradation of people because of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else.  

Conservative Christians of the present have preserved the important emphasis of evangelicalism on real life for individuals by faith in God through Jesus Christ, but so many have largely failed to emphasize the equally important matter of helping marginalized groups to have vigorous physical life also.

The New Testament term eternal life is basically the same as what I call real life. I have used the latter term because of the misunderstanding or ambiguity of the word eternal, which was long expressed as everlasting in English.

For centuries, the majority of Protestants (including most Anglicans) read the King James Version of the Bible, which dates back to 1611. Many of us older people memorized John 3:16 in the KJV:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That was the basis for the widespread belief in unending life, which was generally understood as life after physical death.

But beginning with the American Standard Version, published in 1901, the Greek words previously translated as everlasting life began to be translated as eternal life. This became more widely the case after the Revised Standard Version was published in 1952.

Bible scholars increasingly began to emphasize that eternal, especially in the Gospel of John, primarily refers to the quality of life, not its quantity. Thus, eternal life is the type of life that we can have and enjoy now, not just life after physical death.

Life (real life) is the theme of Easter, which Christians around the world will be celebrating tomorrow.

It is because of the resurrected Jesus that all can receive new life = eternal life through him. That is the life that Horiuchi-san received the year after he heard about real life in my Christian Studies class in 1975.

His kind words of gratitude were primarily for my sharing the Gospel of life with him and his classmates, most of whom never accepted that message. He did and that made all the difference.

Happy Easter!

Is There a “World without End”?

Since watching several of Michael Dowd’s videos last month (and writing a bit about Dowd on Jan. 25) I have been thinking much about the end of the world as we know it—and about the traditional Christian belief in a “world without end.” Is it possible to affirm both?

The Traditional Christian Belief

There is little doubt that from New Testament times until the present Christianity has asserted a firm belief in a “world without end,” that is, the reality of an eternal world that in every way surpasses the present physical world in which we now live.

The New Testament says, “Unto [God] be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:21, KJV). Based on these words, the Catholic and some liturgical Protestant churches regularly sing the Gloria Patri doxology: 

As the “world without end” is understood as the abode of those who have received the gift of eternal life, the Apostles’ Creed ends with words affirming belief in “the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

And the Nicene Creed, which is also regularly repeated in public worship services of many churches, ends with these words: “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

Even those of us who grew up in non-liturgical churches, belief in “eternal life” and Heaven was central to our understanding of the Christian faith. But that basic belief seems to have been weakened, neglected, or even denied (in practice if not in words) by “progressive” or “liberal” forms of the faith.

For example, in spite of his dire prognostication about the coming ecological crisis that will most likely result in the end of the world as we know it, Dowd, an ordained Christian minister, says nothing (at least that I have heard) about even the possibility of life beyond death.

The Problem of “Evangelical” Over-emphasis

Those who grew up in conservative evangelical circles, as I did, know how strong the emphasis was on “soul-winning,” that is, getting people “saved” so they would go to Heaven when they died.

During my boyhood years, pastors and especially traveling evangelists would regularly emphasize the Second Coming of Jesus and the concomitant end of this present world, focusing on the reality of “the world without end.”

These same emphases became even more pronounced in conservative evangelical churches after the publishing of Hal Lindsey’s bestselling book The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970.

And then from 1995 to 2007, the Left Behind series of sixteen books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins was highly popular and influential in evangelical circles.

But all of this emphasis on the “end times” was usually accompanied by a marked lack of interest in the plight of people living in the world now. Hardly any emphasis was placed on social issues such as war, systemic racism, poverty, destruction of the environment, etc.

The Problem of “Liberal” Under-emphasis

Although the roots go back much farther into the past, from the 1960s on “progressive” or “liberal” Christians placed more and more emphasis on the social issues of the present world and less and less emphasis on the idea/hope of a coming world without end.

The apocalyptic ideas/beliefs of the conservative evangelicals were mostly ignored, or even scoffed at by many liberals. Of primary interest and importance was the formation of a “beloved community” here and now and being on the right side of the arc of the universe which bends toward justice.

The coming of an ideal society, the Kingdom (or Kindom) of God, was a strong hope for the future of humankind on this earth.

How utterly sad it is if, as Dowd and many liberal Christians (as well as most people without any religious faith) acknowledge, all we can do now is to serenely accept the coming demise of the world with no hope for the future either on this earth or in a world without end.

Is there not some radiant center position between the two extremes?

A Longer Look at the Serenity Prayer

In my previous blog post, I recommended watching Michael Dowd’s 25-minute YouTube video titled “Serenity Prayer for the 21^st Century.” Since watching that video a couple of weeks ago, I have been thinking more about the serenity prayer and I invite you, too, to take a longer look at it.

Looking at the Serenity Prayer

In its shortest form, the serenity prayer consists of three simple petitions, artistically presented as follows: 

As you probably know, the serenity prayer is the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) prayer recited at the end of each AA meeting.

AA.com also has a link to a 12-page pdf titled “Origin of The Serenity Prayer: A Historical Paper.” In spite of similar statements made by various people, the conclusion is that American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892~1971) penned the prayer in its present form.

Even though Niebuhr’s prayer is universally known as the serenity prayer, it actually includes petitions for three things: serenity, courage, and wisdom. It is also noteworthy that serenity is linked to acceptance. Denying or struggling against the inevitable always destroys serenity.

This prayer, though, asks God for courage and wisdom as well as serenity, so perhaps it should be called the serenity/courage/wisdom prayer. Indeed, Niebuhr’s main intent may well have been a call to courageous action, rather than a serenity that fails to work for necessary changes in society.

Looking at the Longer Serenity Prayer

In the above-mentioned video, Dowd emphasizes the next three lines of the serenity prayer that, he says, a lot of people don’t know:

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace,

These are good words. Regardless of what we have faced in the past or are going to face in the future, living and enjoying one day/moment at a time is truly the pathway to personal peace.

Those words of Niebuhr written in the early 1940s are similar to the emphasis on mindfulness by Thích Nhất Hạnh, the venerable Vietnamese Buddhist monk who died on January 22. He taught,

When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

These words by Thích Nhất Hạnh, as well as the three lines in the serenity prayer that are not widely known, do nothing to help solve the crisis of global warming or the likely collapse of industrial civilization. But they do help us to live calmly and at peace in spite of looming crises.

Looking at the Longer Serenity Prayer

The longest version of the serenity prayer as given on the website of Alcoholics Anonymous (and elsewhere) includes all of the lines cited above followed by these words:

Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make things right
If I surrender to His will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

These final lines of the serenity prayer regularly spoken by AA members are even less widely known than the three lines mentioned in the previous section—and are not mentioned by Dowd at all.

What does it mean to be “supremely happy with Him [God] forever and ever in the “next” life? And how come Dowd, an ordained Christian minister, didn’t mention these words at all?

From New Testament times on, Christians have affirmed the reality of a coming “world without end.” Why is that emphasized so little in so much of contemporary Christianity? This is what I will continue to ponder as I prepare my next blog posting. 

Are Humans Like the Dog Named Rover?

Perhaps it is not so popular now, but Rover has been one of the most common names for dogs, perhaps second only to Fido. But what happens when Rover or other pet dogs—or humans—die?

Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

As a means of comforting children—or adults—who are grieving over the death of a beloved pet dog, it is sometimes emphasized that the pet has gone to Heaven and is happily waiting for the grieving person to join them there in the (hopefully distant) future.

While, admittedly, such talk likely has comforting value to the person grieving, the credibility of dogs going to Heaven is highly questionable.

For most who think about the matter seriously, the likely conclusion is that, no, dogs (and other pets) do not go to Heaven in any literal sense.

This latter assumption lies behind what the famous American short story writer O. Henry (1862~1910) once said when asked about the afterlife:

I had a little dog

And his name was Rover
And when he died
He died all over

This apparently meant that O. Henry thought that death, whether for humans or for dogs, means the end of one’s existence.

Do Humans Have Immortal Souls?

Those who deny that dogs go to Heaven most likely do so because they do not believe that dogs have immortal souls. Many of those same people, however, unhesitatingly affirm that human beings do have immortal souls.

The idea of the “immortality of the soul” has a long history and was particularly strong among ancient Greeks.

Most great BCE Greek philosophers, it seems, believed that the human body was the tomb of the soul and that the soul was liberated from the body at death. That belief is sometimes explained like this: the sōma (σῶμα=body) is the sēma (σῆμα=tomb) of the soul.

There is no question but that this idea infiltrated Christian thinking at an early date and has been a widely-held belief of many Christians through the centuries.

Nevertheless, this is not the basic Christian idea and is not necessarily true.

The characteristic Christian concept of the afterlife of human beings is based on belief in resurrection, not natural immortality. That belief affirms eternal life as a gift from God, not as a natural human attribute.

So, What Happens at Death?

In keeping with the basic belief in resurrection, some Christian theologians have rightly seen death as the end of existence—until resurrection. According to the repeated teaching of the Bible, some people receive the gift of eternal life.

What about those who do not receive that gift—especially those who not only reject it but also consciously reject God and God’s grace?

Traditionally, such people were thought to go to Hell where they are punished endlessly.

Last month I wrote (here) about annihilationism, an explanation of what happens at death that rejects the cruel idea of unending punishment. Still, some interpret God’s annihilating the “wicked” or “non-believers” as vengeful and unloving.

Annihilationism has long been linked to the idea of “conditional immortality,” the belief that humans do not have immortal souls. This latter position, sometimes just called “conditionalism,” is probably a better term than the more common label of annihilationism.

It is amazing how the traditional view of Hell is linked so often to John 3:16, that key verse of the Bible that declares, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life” (CEB). 

Here, however, it seems quite clear that eternal life is a gift and that those who reject that gracious gift perish (=die like the dog named Rover).

Do You Want To Live Forever?

What if there were a new drug discovered that would make it possible for you to live forever? Would you try to procure that drug and take it?

What if that drug were widely available—but only for people who were willing to sign a declaration that they would not have children? What kind of society would that produce?

Malley’s dystopian novels about everlasting life

While working on my Dec. 31 blog article about resistance, I came across and subsequently read two thought-provoking science fiction novels: The Declaration and The Resistance (both published in 2008) by British author Gemma Malley. They are set in the 22nd century when a new drug, called Longevity, makes it possible for people to live forever.

Although written for young readers, I found Malley’s dystopian novels fascinating. They also raised some exceedingly important questions about the practical problems that might well occur with the advent of everlasting life on earth.

The current search for everlasting life

Some of you may recognize the name Peter Thiel. The German-American Thiel (b. 1967) is, among other things, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. He is, specifically, a billionaire who founded PayPal in 1999.

As a few of you may remember, Thiel spoke at the Republican National Convention in July and then in November became a member of the POTUS’s transition team. 

Back in September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation. He gave the following reasons for his pledge: 

Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I’m backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones. 

The SENS Research Foundation, headed by de Grey and supported by Thiel, is working to achieve the reversal of biological aging.

As far back as 2005, de Grey was saying that some people living now may have a lifespan that is “likely to exceed 1000 years.” And some journalists are suggesting he may be on the cusp of finding “the key to eternal life.” (See this 4/15 WaPo article.)

Everlasting life or eternal life?

The words “everlasting life” and “eternal life” are often used interchangeably. In the article about Peter Thiel just referred to, as well as many times in the Malley novels, unending human life on earth is referred to as eternal life.

I grew up with the King James Version of the Bible and early on learned from John 3:16 about the possibility of “everlasting life.” Later I learned that there is a difference between “eternal life,” which is found in most “modern” translations, and everlasting life.

Everlasting life is quantitative, a measurement in time. Eternal life a timeless concept that is qualitative. That significant difference is not widely recognized by many regular Bible readers nor by the general public, so, as we have seen, the words are often used interchangeably.

While I am all for eternal life, I am quite sure that everlasting life on this earth is not a good thing. (Consider the quotes from Malley’s novels I have posted here and here.)

And I am not sure having a man who is passionate about finding a way to “enable people to live forever” in the top echelon of the POTUS’s transition team is a good thing either.

-30-

What Happens After Death?

Death is one of the most persistent problems faced by us human beings--and by the religions of the world. Of central concern is what happens to individuals when they die.

There are many ways the central questions of what happens after death can be answered. Three such possibilities are: (1) "Eternal life" in full fellowship with God and other people--a belief that in Christianity is tied to the concept of resurrection, however that might be understood. (2) Reincarnation--the "transmigration" of the soul after death into another form of existence, human or otherwise. (3) Complete cessation of existence--except for the memories that linger in the minds of family, friends, and acquaintances.

It is obvious, I think, that all three of these possibilities can't possibly be true. It is possible that all three are wrong and that the truth of what happens after death is something distinctly different from all three. If someone adopts any one of the three possibilities given above, though, logically that means the rejection of the other two.

I bring this topic up in order to make a point about relativism or religious pluralism. As I indicated in my posting on September 5, when there are conflicting truth claims (as there often are), one possible response is to say that both (or all) are (somehow) true and there is no need to choose between them. This kind of thinking is usually linked to the idea of relativism, the concept that truth depends on the social location and philosophical perspective of any given person.

But does relativism work for a concrete question, such as about what happens after death? Could it possibly be true that if a Christian believes in conscious, personal life after death that will be what he or she will experience whereas if Buddhists believes in reincarnation, that is what they will experience? That seems highly unlikely. While perceptions of reality may, and do, vary greatly, reality is not shaped by perceptions.

Some may say that we don't know what happens after death, so we shouldn't make any strong statements about the subject and just let everyone believe what they will. Of course it is true that we don't know with absolute certainty, and of course people should be free to believe whatever they think is right.

But what is the basis of the Christian belief in eternal life? And what are the consequences of such a belief in comparison with the other two mentioned? Don't the basis and the consequences make the Christian view worth witnessing to and commending to other people, regardless of what position they might hold?