Religion: A dichotomy or a spectrum?

Someone asked me last night if I was planning to keep blogging now that the marathon is over. Well, the truth is that my inspiration to blog usually comes when I’m on a long run, and since the marathon I really haven’t done any long runs, until today. I did 10 miles (on a treadmill), and it felt absolutely fantastic. I am excited to get back into the habit of doing one long-ish run each week, because it really helps me mentally and emotionally, and provides a great base for when I want to start training for my next run. Today’s run, coupled with a really fantastic message I heard at church, made me decide to get back on the blog wagon.

People who know me well know that I very much enjoy discussing and learning about religions and theology. I don't mind dissent and disagreement, I love to listen to ideas, and I’m not afraid to tell people what I believe. Sometimes it seems like nearly everyone disagrees with me, because I fall neither into the fundamentalist “Christian” camp, or the “spiritual but not religious” camp. Today’s message at church was about this (false) dichotomy. It is often assumed that people fall into one of two categories: fundamentalist (this could apply to any religion, but for the sake of this post, I’m going to use Christian terms), or anything-goes “spiritual but not religious”. On the fundamentalist side are the things that studies have shown most non-Christians view Christians as: narrow minded, exclusivist, very focused on who’s in or who’s out (aka who is “saved”). On the other side is a person who doesn’t hold on to any set of beliefs about God or divinity, or who picks and chooses “cafeteria style” what they want to believe. I would argue that every single person holds cafeteria style faith, but that’s a whole other topic in itself.

Part of the message that I heard today focused on the idea that these two points of view are not dichotomous, but rather are two extremes of a spectrum, and that it’s okay - and positive - to fall in the middle. I’m not sure. If these views are on a spectrum, I definitely don’t think it’s a “normal curve”, with most people in the middle. It seems that most people fall on one end or the other. Maybe it just seems that way because the people who do fall on the extremes are the “loudest”.

I have to admit that I feel more comfortable talking to people on the left end of the “spectrum” than the right. I absolutely cannot subscribe to the idea of a God that would only “save” those who hold a certain religious belief. The fundamentalist Christian view is that God “saves” (i.e. sends to heaven) only those who believe that Jesus is God-incarnate and was resurrected from the dead. This idea is so absurd to me that it’s hard to even talk about rationally. You’re telling me that the Creator/Sustainer of the universe would only let people into heaven if they believe that one man rose from the dead 2,000 years ago?? And every other human being who has ever lived gets condemned to an eternal hell?? It makes NO SENSE in my mind. If my choice is to believe in that or nothing, I would definitely choose nothing.

But maybe there is a third choice.

Today’s message introduced me to the idea that Jesus himself was not exclusivist, and that these exclusionary ideas that are held by some Christians are not the message that Jesus came to bring. After all, Jesus talked to people of all kinds, accepted people of all kinds, welcomed people of all kinds. I’m struggling with this idea, though, because fundamentalists use quotes from Jesus like “no one comes to the father except through me” as evidence that a person who doesn’t believe in Jesus is not following God and therefore is not “saved”. But is it possible that those verses have been taken out of context by people who want to scare others into conforming to their ideas? Is it possible that following Jesus actually means to live one’s life in the way that he did – closing the door to “us vs. them” thinking, treating all people equally, loving one another without regard to differences, helping those who need help? And that it means doing these thing not with the ulterior motive of changing other people’s religious beliefs, but simply because it is the right thing to do? Maybe that’s a view that more of us who fall “in the middle of the spectrum” can get behind.

I welcome any and all feedback regarding these ideas or others. I view beliefs/religions, just like everything else in life, as fluid and dynamic and a constant learning process, not something that is decided upon one time and unchangeable. The views I hold now are nowhere close to those I held 10 years ago, and I would guess that in 10 more years I will be saying the same thing. I'm grateful for the ability to learn, grow, and change.