Guest list: at the divine banquet

Christian Century, Dec 28, 2004 by Rodney Clapp

ACCORDING TO the claims of classical Christianity, there can be no salvation except through Christ. So what of those who reject or apparently never receive an imitation to join the party? Does God's generosity, and the generosity of classic Christian spirituality, extend only so far? If spurned, does God turn to spite and everlasting punishment?

Clearly the language of scripture and the tradition can be dramatic and severe on this point. There is in both no little talk of hellfire and God's implacable wrath. Heard from some distance, such talk often terminates any consideration of God or Christian spirituality as loving, generous and compassionate. But it is such distance--as well as the church's own clumsiness and sometime vindictiveness--that is the problem. When we draw a little closer to the tradition, we may see that the (inescapable and significant) doctrines of judgment have a place but can take on a light different from the red glow of hate.

It is affirmed in most if not every quarter of orthodox Christianity that clod desires the salvation--the willing and celebratory personal communion--of all. This entails the preservation of human freedom. God will never give up on any community or person, but God will not override the rejection of God by any community or person. In the kingdom of God, as in any party, the more the merrier. But full and ultimate salvation really is this personal communion, this divine party. Those who reject the imitation made in Israel and Christ cannot, by the nature of the case, enjoy the party. Thus the call or invitation to the party is enthusiastic and even urgent.

The Christian conviction on this count is like the modern rhetoric about diet and physical exercise. Exactly because our doctors believe we will be better and happier human beings for it, they and others often speak quite urgently and drastically about proper exercise and dieting. They tell us we must mount the exercise bikes and cut out the fatty Foods, or die. Of course, we will not die immediately or lose any hope of happiness if we persist with couch vigils and pizzas. But we could have so much more--fit, energetic bodies and alert minds--that the couch and pizzas are death by comparison.

On a much greater scale, the invitation to salvation is similar: life now and everlastingly in personal communion with the triune Cod is true and full life. Anything short of it can only be death by comparison. The prophets and apostles speak urgently for a reason.

Drawing closer to the tradition of classical Christian spirituality, we can see that much of the talk of judgment is directed first and foremost at those who have met God in Jesus Christ. In the Old and New Testament alike, the strongest condemnatory language is addressed to other members in the nation of Israel and in the church. Judgment begins "with the household of God" (1 Pet. 4:17). The apostle Paul declares, "What have I to do with judging those outside [the church]? Is it not those inside who you are trying to judge?" (1 Cor. 5:12-13).

Jesus says that the only unforgivable sin is rejection of the Holy Spirit, which the tradition has interpreted to apply to someone who has clearly and explicitly known the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, through Christ, but then perversely--willfully and deliberately--denounced and rejected that Spirit (Matt. 12:31).

Salvation in Christ is mediated, through scripture, church and sacraments. We know, to our sorrow, that not all mediations of Christ present him truly and winsomely. European Jews in the mid-20th century saw their parents or children hanged by Christian Nazis. African-American slaves were whipped by Christian masters. Muslims now encounter supposedly Christian attitudes at the point of a gun barrel or through mass media entertainment that seems grossly hedonistic, violent and greedy.

Less dramatically, there are many just across the street from Western churches who often see the Bible wielded against them, as a club to beat them over the head. How fully and accurately have these people encountered Christ? Many are rejecting not so much the real and true Christ as

Rodney Clapp is editorial director of Brazos Press. This article is excerpted from his book Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels, just published by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

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ugly and distorted representations of him--the Savior of the world obscured in a Frankenstein or Mengelian mask.

Traditional Christian spirituality has accounted or allowed for the possibility of these distortions. So the Bible speaks of God's patience in delaying the end and day of judgment (2 Pet. 3:8-9). The tradition--never denying that Christ is the only true light--has conjectured that the light may get through to many people in some form (such as general revelation) without their knowing exactly how to name or identify it. (Imagine that you had never encountered the electric lamp. Then you do. Its light shines objectively, illuminating you and your surroundings, even as you know nothing about electricity and may name it nothing more accurate than "a really bright torch.")