So many aspects of Christian theology seem to take it for granted that Jesus made a better world. That the world after Jesus was better than the world before Jesus.
If this was truly so, then the world should have undergone a very obvious transformation in or around 33AD.
One would expect massive disagreement as to why this had happened, and even disagreement about whether or not this massive change had been for the better or worse. But that this had happened - that the world (indeed the universe) had been transformed at this time would - presumably - have been so obvious as to require no argument.
Yet that is not the case. Nobody seriously argues that the world underwent an unique and qualitative change around AD33.
I regard this as a powerful argument against this-worldly interpretations of Christianity - and this-worldly interpretations of Christianity were those that I nearly always came across when I was an atheist.
On the other hand, if we take Jesus as his own word in the Fourth Gospel; then his work was not about this world, but the next world: not so much about what happens in life, but instead mostly about what happens after death.
Therefore it is unsurprising if the world did not change in any obvious way during or after the ministry and death of Jesus.
I put this forward as an instance of the way in which Christians need to be careful, much more careful than they generally have been, about how they describe the faith, and the aspects that they emphasise. To advocate Christianity as a means to the end of a better life or a better world, seems like a good idea in the short term - but it is fundamentally false and alien to reality. And, sooner or later, this tactic will - and rightly - discredit Christianity.
2 comments:
I was puzzling over forgiveness and what it is that I don’t like about the typical Christian attitude toward it (I won’t say “teaching” because it is much vaguer than that and more about my discernment regarding what they do or don’t do in practice). And I realized it relates to this post, that they love to emphasize how Jesus transformed them *in this life* because they view this life as purely about salvation not learning. And as a result, when they sin post-conversion, they really gloss over the confession and restitution aspects of repentance and therefore also the learning and just focus on the future “I won’t do that again.” They believe it’s wrong to “dwell” on past sin bc it shows weak faith in Christ’s forgiveness of sins…because this life is just about the salvation, not the learning. As a result they don’t understand themselves, don’t really understand sin, and really seem to me to morally stagnate.
Does that make sense?
Religion seems to have changed a lot. Animal sacrifices gone. Most religions have a book that is important. Belief and worship is universal instead of being centered on a local cult or holy site. Most still have a few universal holy sites. But I suppose that mostly happened a few hundred years after A.D. 33, and the economic, military, and political spheres stayed within normal historical variance.
Lets ask the question in reverse - was there a time when the world has drastically changed outside of historical precedent? Yes. It does seem the world went on a sharply ahistorical trajectory starting sometime in the 15 or 1600s. Does that signify something? It's not obvious that it does.
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