A few weeks ago, a friend articulated the key difference between us, theologically, in this way: She believes in "justification by grace through faith" whereas I don't.
That isn't to say I believe salvation is accomplished through works. It isn't. I take the Bible seriously on this count: "Salvation is of God" (Revelation 19.1; Psalm 68.20; Titus 2.11; Philippians 2.12-13; Acts 4.12).
Lots of folks have preached and taught -- quite insistently -- all my life that salvation can't be earned.
And that's seemed so strange to me. Not because I think it's true, but because I think it's funny. Everyone I know has a hard time believing they can really, truly save themselves. Even drug addicts know they need help.
Rather, what strikes me is that folks believe there's plenty they can do to screw salvation up. So maybe that is what the fuss is all about, an attempt to lift the load of shame and guilt from people's shoulders.
I've grown up in an area known as "the Bible Belt". We take being Christian in these parts seriously. Sometimes even legalistically. A lot of my friends now in their 40s and 50s look back with a lot of anger about being made to feel that salvation was fragile and that God was an Angry Old Man out to zap you.
What's odd is that this hasn't happened to me.
What's kept me healthy when others around me have gone legalistic?
I think it's because I've internalized "original sin". Somewhere, deep down inside, I've always had this notion that we humans are all sorts of messed up. Now, a lot of people take this realization in a pretty dark direction, the depressing assessment that humans are depraved and rotten to the core and we all deserve punishment in hell.
Not me. I've felt that people were less depraved than, well, simply human. We were less evil than vain, foolish, and fearful. Sad more than sinful. Weak rather than wicked. Dumb more than demonic. (Maybe this is because Origen of Alexandria has so influenced my thinking. Or maybe it's because I "people watch" all the time. Or maybe both.)
Don't get me wrong: We humans have dark holes in our hearts that I call the absence of good, or evil. I've encountered folks with that in their lives. Most of the people I've met, though, were sort of like me, less evil than ridiculous. That's how I feel about myself. I feel more clownish than bad.
Given how ridiculous we all were it seemed pretty obvious, to my young mind, that God was going to have to do the heavy lifting. I just assumed, perhaps naively so, that God would take all our our foibles and moral ineptitude into consideration, that, to use biblical language, God wouldn't expect much of us because we are but dust.
This is why Psalm 103.13-14 has always been so important in my theology: "As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust".
In short, for some odd reason I internalized the doctrine of sin as comedy rather than tragedy. The doctrine of Original Sin made me feel lighter rather than heavier. Happier rather than oppressed. I felt an experience of grace rather than doom. (Maybe this is why Mediaeval theology is full of language like "O felix culpa!", "O happy fault!")
Again, not that there weren't a lot of bad people in the world. I didn't mind the idea of God zapping my bullies. But most people aren't bullies. So I couldn't ever emotionally resonate with the notion that God, in God's Wrath, was all ginned up and ready to send all us sinners to hell. "Really?", I thought, "God's that upset with us? Why? I mean, look at us. We're ridiculous and pathetic. We're dust. Dust! Why would God want to send dust to hell?"
So I never thought God was angry like so many did. God was more sad and compassionate. And sometimes laughing. The way you feel around something small and weak.
And I still think that.
(Because sadness, I think, is a deeper response than anger. It wells up from a longer relationship that has a deeper understanding of what's going on. Anger is easy. Sadness takes more.)
Again, I'm not trying to minimize real evil, injustice and suffering. I'm not trying to offer up here a mature and systematic theology of sin. I'm simply trying to communicate a feeling I had as a child. And a general line of thought I still think is true as an adult. This is my legalistic faith environment in the Bible Belt didn't affect me. I looked around at humanity and concluded that the bar was so low for us that God couldn't expect very much. And that if God wasn't expecting very much then God's fundamental stance toward humanity was pity rather than rage. I mean, if you saw a lost puppy wandering around the street you'd want to take care of it, not throw it into the barbecue pit.
In short, I looked around and felt enormous pity and sadness for my neighbors on earth. And sometimes I laughed at our foibles. Here we all were. Dust.
And who rages against dust? No one, I concluded.
And I'm still there.
What bothers me about "justification by grace through faith" is that it gets the emphasis all wrong. Salvation doesn't begin in me. Look at me, for heaven's sake! Salvation's source and goal is in God.
There's nothing I can do to earn it. And there's nothing I can do to screw it up. It's all God.