there are five main purposes, and the final purpose, as it turns out and as revealed by rick's father from his deathbed, is to "save one more for Jesus!"
up to that point i was attracted to the daily revelation of purpose: turn from worldly pursuits, serve your community, be inclusive (at least, of believers and their faults).
while warren does not overtly come out for or against homosexuality, he does use patriarchal language in refering to god only in the masculine, he opposes abortion, and he avows that he is a conservative christian. i infer that his personal stance on homosexuality falls in line with other conservatives.
however, none of these views is mainline to his purpose, nor me seeking my purpose, and i read on through the 40 days' deluge. but when i heard that death-bed cry of salvation, i realized that the real purpose of a christian is to espouse the unique moral superiority of being christian and save every nonbeliever from the sinking ship SS Humanity.
which has bothered me for decades. and it continued to bother me this past year as i returned to church. moral superiority is a sin with which i'm well-acquainted; it is a paintbrush with which i've painted myself many times in the past, and am sure to do so again. i might be doing it right now, as i wonder if warren's Salvation-Only-Thru-Christ is morally bankrupt in our multicultural and pluralistic world. there are many people, non-christians, who live devout, self-sacrificing lives. their evident faith and action are integrated. if they were christian, they'd be sainted, they'd be saved.
and do i paint myself again when i wonder if i'm morally superior to hypocritical Christians who deny full communion with their fellow christians on the grounds of their sexual orientation, or their gender?
in the beginning, the real purpose of warren's book is stated in the first paragraph. here it is in its entirety:
It's not about you.
it's not about me, it's about god. or at least my search for god. to a degree, i agree with warren that the purpose-driven life of a christian seeks five things: (1) worship god, (2) grow in fellowship with others in god, (3) serve god, (4) grow like christ, and (5) move in this world driven by worship and fellowship and service and growing. the last is my re-interpretation of warren's fifth, evangelical purpose: "to be on a mission with God in the world," because i don't like the context of 'mission,' which is loaded with that "solo Christos sola" (Spanish for 'Only Christ Saves") evangelism, that dying battle-cry, "Save another one for Jesus!"
over time, my moral superiority, whether as an atheist or as an ardent christian, has hurt a lot of people. in many ways i prefer the humbleness of my agnostic days, when it wasn't about me and god was ineffable and i was more open to the mystery of the universe and the love that is all around me.
perhaps that is my path as a christian, a path of humility, to worship, to serve, to commune, to grow, and to move.
2 comments:
It's not about me. It's not about my religion, which is no better than anybody else's religion. My Christianity is not superior to my neighbour's Islam, or anything else. Not even Jesus called himself good. And yet he was chosen and sent as the unique Way in the world. His uniqueness is not in superiority, as he himself put it, but in humility (birth, death, "I came not to be served but to serve..."), which will one day be shown to be the superior way (delicious irony, in my view). He came to serve and offer his life as a ransom for many. He wants all to be 'saved' - rescued from me-ism, which is death, hell, ultimate loneliness.
I very much like the framework of the Purpose Driven Life for my life, as I like the framework of the Purpose Driven Church for the church. Saddleback, the church out of which this comes (which I spent a week at in 2001) is a wonderful place, but is marred (still, I think) by its persistent partriarchy, as you call it. I experienced not one prominent woman leader. This remains a troubling puzzle to me. But I still find value in the teaching from there, since it is just a way of drawing out in a way that people (even I) can 'get' - some essential Bible teaching that is (to turn the phrase around a bit) not 'about them' or tied to what is wrong in their approach, however serious.
Well, I think it IS all about me - and everyone else in this world. As an atheist, and as someone who has tried to change other people in my past, I believe that each of us can only change ourselves. We have the power, or motivation, or possibility, to do things differently, or better. We can't change others, though we can help others in need, in pain, or who are lonely. I don't see how believing in a god or Jesus makes one act any better - to me it's no different than changing yourself for someone else. I guess I just don't get it, eh, Peter....BTW, I haven't read the book and have no plans to at this time.
Post a Comment