If there's something you don't hear much any more in affluent Western Christianity (Roman and Protestant, liberal and evangelical) it's the theme of the final judgment of all mankind.
Mainliners and liberals have pretty much jettisoned the whole concept of final judgment and hell. Evangelicals and conservatives--who haven't jettisoned the doctrine--seem to be more interested in therapeutic seeker services, which do not lend themselves to talking about the subject.
Ours is a too-tame Jesus. Our Jesus is the one who loves everyone. He's always smiling, and always exhorting us to "Look on the bright side of life" and to spend all our days in comfortable upper middle-class affluence. This is the WASP-ish "gentle Jesus meek and mild."
But it ain't the real Jesus. Nor is it a saving Jesus. I've been told that the subject Jesus discusses most of all is that of hell. Whether or not that is the case, this same Jesus who gave us the two great commandments, this same Jesus who exhorts all who are weary and heavy-laden to come to him, is also the same Jesus who says:
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:31-46)
And so we pray:
Kontakion of the Sunday of the Last Judgment Tone One
When Thou, O God, wilt come to earth with glory, and all things tremble,
and the river of fire floweth before the Judgment Seat
and the books are opened and the hidden things made public,
then deliver me from the unquenchable fire,
and deem me worthy to stand at Thy right hand, O most righteous Judge.
To the extent we ignore or dismiss the clear teaching of Jesus, the Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church that there will be a final judgment of all mankind, to the same extent we lose both a real understanding of sin and the reality of the hope the Gospel provides. Religion has been indicted as an "opiate for the masses" by which the powerful propertied class keeps the wage labor class under control. And the dogma of the final judgment has been psychoanalyzed as something like the inability to handle the present realities of one's life and circumstances. Or, the picture of God in the final judgment gets caricatured as a vindictive God full of deep emotional problems. A truly loving God, after all, will accept everyone just as they are.
The only problem with these deeply flawed understandings is that they miss an important reality: the evil that lurks in the human heart and finds expression in our actions. The powerful still control the powerless, through economic and legal machinations. The inability to handle life's present realities has not gone away with the dismissal of religion. It has only put in place a new priesthood of therapists, professional and lay. And though the present-day "gospel" is one of a God who gives without asking anything in return is on everyone's lips, the same intolerance obtains. Those preaching tolerance and unconditional acceptance are the same ones who push out those who disagree with them. The tolerant preach dialogue, but only so that "the other" will ultimately change their mind and become like the "tolerant."
No, the true Gospel, the one which preaches God's love, the one that teaches of a God that respects each person enough to allow them the freedom to reject his love forever, it is only this Gospel which provides freedom and hope. And so we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God himself works in us both to will and to do the good acts which he has stored up for us to do.
And it is the nature of these acts, which today get confused. As Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann writes:
If God loves every man it is because He alone knows the priceless and absolutely uniqute treasure, the "soul" or "person" He gave every man. Christian love then is the participation in that divine knowledge and the gift of that divine love. There is no "impersonal" love because love is the wonderful discovery of the "person" in "man," of the personal and unique in the common and general. It is the discovery in each man of that which is "lovable" in him, of that which is from God.
In this respect, Christian love is sometimes the opposite of "social activism" with which one so often identifies Christianity today. To a "social activist" the object of love is not "person" but man, an abstract unit of a not less abstract "humanity." But for Christianity, man is "lovable" because he is person. There person is reduced to man; here man is seen only as person. The "social activist" has no interest in the personal, and easily sacrifices it to the "common interest." . . . Social activism is always "futuristic" in its approach; it always acts in the name of justice, order, happiness to come, to be achieved. Christianity cares little about that problematic future but puts the whole emphasis on the now--the only decisive time for love. The two attitudes are not mutually exclusive, but they must not be confused. . . . Christian love, however, aims beyond "this world." (Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pp. 25-26)Posted by Clifton at February 15, 2004 08:00 AM | TrackBack