The Underside of Self-Centered Certainty

Thus continues my attempt to tease out for myself the differences between the certainty-anxiety combo I was exposed to as a youngster from what I think is a more productive, mature idea of faith. Yesterday I wrote about how that Southern Baptist version of faith-as-certainty can all too easily slide into a zone of self-centeredness. The hymn goes, "Oh, how I love Jesus/because He first loved me." But really, given the undercurrent of threat that saturated so much evangelical rhetoric, I wondered if "Oh how I love Jesus/because I don't want to burn" wouldn't have been more accurate.

I don't like the idea of Christianity's being presented as a get-out-of-Hell-free card, even such a presentation is only the initial pitch ("Better scared into heaven than comforted into hell," goes the logic). And yes, fear is often an effective short-term motivator. But the activated instinct for self-preservation generates a massive well of psychic gravity, warping other considerations, other elements of the Christian life. In my experience, this fear-distortion creates some unfortunate side-effects, particularly in terms of the Christian's relationship to others.

True confessions time: I remember once (well, several times) when in the course of explaining to some acquaintance the realities of heaven and hell I would meet with a "that's nice for you, but I just don't believe that" response on their part. Stymied at their apathy/agnosticism--how could someone not believe in, let alone not care about, hell?--I would more often than not retreat to a self-righteous, condescending-slow-head-shake: "Well, I'd hate to be you on Judgment Day. Guess we'll find out which of us is right then."

What happened there? I remember reflecting on those moments after they happened, knowing (with all the knowledge I then had) that I was right--I was going to heaven and they were going to hell. But still I knew that somehow I had committed a wrong, that something in my spirit had gone awry. I was supposed to be reaching out with love, leading this person to recognize their peril and act to let Christ save them. But I had ended in a place of pride.

More than pride--wounded pride. I was hurt that this person did not see the world the way I did, that they declined to take my word for the Realities Unseen that awaited them. I was certain, dammit! Didn't they see that? Did they think I was crazy or something? Didn't they know how hard it was for shy, nerdy me to expose myself like that?

And, going deeper, I recognized to my chagrin that part of my disappointment had to do with the fact that I couldn't count them on my list when I ascended to the pearly gates. Remember the Two Questions? I imagined God quizzing me in the afterlife: "Is your name in the Book of Life, John?" Yes, Lord. "Good. Now--second question: whom have you brought into heaven with you?" Well... I tried with ___, but he said no. "Hm. That's... disappointing. Come into heaven, I guess, my barely-adequate servant..."

Ugh. Like an Amway salesman who has to scratch a neighbor's name off his list of recruits after an unsuccessful pitch. To my credit, I suppose, I tried to militate against that notch-in-my-belt mentality by focusing intently on how much I wanted the person in heaven with me, how sad I would be (if one can be sad in heaven--I was vague on that) if they weren't with me in Eternal Bliss. And I did honestly want to share my Power-Droid-strewn heaven with everyone. Still, though: questions like "How many people have you led to the Lord this week?" are what passes for ice-breaking in some Southern Baptist circles. I wanted at least to have double-digits.

Beyond wounded pride and unsuccessful recruitment, though, I was threatened by this other person's unbelief. The knowledge of heaven and hell that formed the pretext for my faith was not mere trivia; it was the very matter that made up my worldview (that's a huge term, worldview--weltanschauung, and I'll be blogging a lot on that later).

I structured my existence--or a great deal of it, at least--around an active belief in the Final Judgment. Many's the morning when I would wake up, crane my neck up at my window, push aside the blinds, and try to catch a glimpse of open sky to see if it were ripped open. Whenever someone we knew died, I would always ask if that person had gone to heaven or hell. In times of fear (read: waking up from a particularly blood-curdling nightmare, certain I was about to be eaten by some slavering horror), I drew strength from the certainty that an eternal paradise awaited me.

For someone not to believe that--casually, calmly--shook me, made my certainty seem stilted and, well, a little crazy by comparison. It introduced the possibility that, in fact, the foundations of my worldview weren't actually necessary for everyone. And if that was the case, were they still actually foundations? Most of the time I didn't have to worry about that; I was lucky enough (if that's the word) to be surrounded most of the time by people who shared and fostered my worldview.

But evangelism requires outreach to those who are lost ("It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick..."). That meant that I was impelled to seek out and interact with people who did not necessarily share my worldview. But while the evangelical tricks and tactics for sharing faith I had learned functioned admirably to confirm to other evangelicals the basics of their worldview, I had surprisingly little to help me deal with someone who simply didn't buy the whole heaven/hell/Christ thing.

And so I resorted to the ugliness of pride: Just wait until my God comes back. Then you'll know. When you're burning up.

This kind of evangelistic ugliness, I'm convinced, is the flip side of evangelistic certainty, and it takes a variety of forms.

More tomorrow.

JF