Fear of God and Hell

Ralph Martin’s recent article “Why Are We So Afraid - To Be Afraid of Hell” , in the National Catholic Register, unleashed a number of  completely unwarranted and un-Christian responses which bordered on the profane and what  can only call be called just plain evil.  The unfortunate use of the term ‘servile fear’, with its negative connotation, was found evident and present in some of these most troubled respondents.  When we read scripture we can hear Jesus repeatedly say “Do not be afraid”! And when he spoke about hell, he did so only on a few occasions and then only in metaphorical terms. Now is it the role of the church to create a fear of hell, or is it its role to be with and remove the fear of hell in people?  Dealing with cancer now for the second time, I have a pretty good understanding of hell.      

 

One of the regular writers for the NCregister, writing on ‘Fear of the Lord’ used this same term as follows  The bad kind of fear is what the Catholic Tradition calls “servile fear.” It is the fear a dog has of its master or, more precisely, that a slave has of his master. It is also the fear that the average atheist critic of Christianity posits of God.  – Mark Shea, on Fear of the Lord, Oct. 18, 2013  This contradiction is bound to cause considerable confusion among those Roman Catholics should they have read both articles. 

 

As an enthusiastic convert to Roman Catholicism it was my pleasure to accompany many inquirers in the RCIA process for more than twenty years. At no time would we have considered using the term “servile fear” to describe hell as an introduction or conclusion to the Christian faith.  ‘Fear of the Lord’, we were taught simply meant ‘respect’ for God above all.   If the intent of the ‘New Evangelization’ is to open doors of the hearts of people through the use of fear, then . . . . one should not be surprised to be told to go to h...! 

 

During the late eighties the Franciscan centre in Steubenville offered several exiting inspirational summer programs, which I attended, that spoke primarily about  the unconditional love of God. As my faith grew I began to gradually understand (largely thanks to another well known Franciscan) the inclusiveness of a God who meets people where they are – not where others would have them be. In more recent times Roman Catholic liturgy suddenly changed from a God who desired to save  ALL in the here in now, to  some or few in the afterlife. Those with authority in the Church seem to have adopted a position where they feel free to use fear and warn others  about their shortcomings. We are all in this spiritual search together or we are divided.  A humble servant by the name of Jesus a Jew did not limit his words and actions to members of his Jewish faith. Pope Francis seems to possess  a refreshing quality of humility which can bring some much needed hope and peace to ALL. Lets hope and pray others will join him.

 

The role of the Church, as Pope Francis has said is to serve. 

 bmerciful             

 

About Ralph Martin

Ralph Martin is the  president of Renewal Ministries an organization devoted to Catholic renewal and evangelization. He holds a doctorate in theology from the Angelicum University in Rome. In December of 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Ralph as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization for a five year term. 

He is the author of a number of articles and books, the most recent of which is The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints. He and his wife Anne reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

 

WILL EVERYONE GO TO HEAVEN- part 2

The definitive answer to the question "Will everyone go to heaven" cannot really be answered by anyone but God. You might not find it directly in any religious text, or hear it announced at your place place of religion.  Even if you did you might still harbour certain  doubts, until perhaps you heard it directly from God.

I have shared with readers the idea of dialogue with God as opposed to our usual monologue.The latter is typically practised in the form of group intercessory prayers and other means of prepared and rehearsed rituals, etc,.  In a public setting it would be impractical to ask each individual exactly what they heard God say, or not say, in response to their particular prayers or needs.  And, if we reduce our religious life to church attendance only it might explain why we find it hard to believe that God will speak to us directly.     

The idea of dialoging directly with to God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Abba Father, Creator or whatever name we are comfortable with, can be quite a scary experience for many of us. It becomes even more daunting when we decide to share that experience with other people (warning:be discerning).  Strangers could say we were crazy, and some professionals might even recommend psychiatric treatment. And all this gets even more absurd when we hear of extremist and cultist claiming it was God who demanded their violent actions.  

But God did invite us to listen to him and revealed himself to many individuals especially in the Old Testament.   However in the New Testament God's message becomes more universal. For example John (14:26)  tells us "The Holy Spirit will be your teacher  and will bring to your mind all I have said to you"? At the same time God frequently speaks to us through other people, nature and other forms off His creation.    

One of my most frequently visited blogs   ‘Will Everyone Go To Heaven?’  raises the question why so many people seem so concerned about getting to heaven and haven't gotten a convincing answer from the religious institution or anywhere else.  A quick scan of the web reveals that an awful lot of people want to know the answer to that question.  Here are some of their questions:

Do we go to heaven when we die?

Do homosexuals go to heaven?

Do good people go to heaven?

Do handicapped people go to heaven?

Do pets go to heaven?

Do Muslims go to heaven?

What happens to infants and children who die?

Do people who commit suicide go to heaven?

Do all nice people to heaven?

Do Christians go straight to heaven?

Where do we go when we die?

What must I do to get to heaven?

Do mentally ill people go to heaven?

Will all the righteous people go to heaven?

Will those who have never heard go to heaven?

Will rich people go to heaven?

Believe it or not the questions about heaven today produced not less than  165 Million hits on Google!

These are obviously serious concerns for a lot of people.   And it shows that our religious institutions are not doing a particularly good job at helping people to provide them with the answer to  one of the most basic questions on their minds.  Even more disturbing is the fact to I found more than double that amount (376 Million hits)  on Google dealing with questions (in some cases offerubg directions to) about hell.

Now I am sure that there are a variety of answers provided to  these questions  emanating from our religious institutions and others.  Some can be helpful, but many (actually most) are simply outrageous by providing more fear than assurance.   But what if you could hear it directly from your Creator (that is how you got here) would that not ultimately satisfy your mind and heart?   Now I am not recommending that you sit down right now and present your question to God without some necessary preparation.   On the other hand taking out time by yourself on a deserted beach, park bench, or any place where you are likely to be uninterrupted, could be of help to begin listening to God. For me Journaling has proven to be the most direct way to hear God.  Secondly being observant of the synchronicities in my life has revealed how God directs his inclusive plan for you and I in so many surprising ways.  Be assured that everone will finally hear God's voice in a manner that is congruent to their particular nature and makeup. It is the voice that resonates deep within your heart.

There is a  place (as I have discovered)  where we often give up our resistance to hearing God speak to us directly.  Unfortunately it is a place that most of us would rather avoid.   This place is usually found when we are confronted with persistant fear, pain or a sudden life changing/threatening condition .  Here, the voice if we dare to allow it, becomes so clear it instills us with an awe we probably have never experienced before.  It is here that we encounter the burning bush of God’s unconditional love and presence.  As I stated in my previous blog, it is here that God revealed that our life is not about us, but about God experiencing himself through us -experiencing all our pain, fear and suffering!   Fear and pain are a hell of place to be but we have been assured that Jesus both descends to and will rescues us  from,  that hell to bring us back to a life that is meant to be lived to the full. And it is here that we can safely release our concerns about heaven and hell.   

The Left Hand of God



The Prodigal Son - Rembrandt

Christian religion is becoming increasingly militant. Today God’s Judgment is often presented in strict terms beginning with punishment and banishment to hell for those who have strayed. Homosexuals are defined as deviants and not worthy of God’s love.  Women who seek abortions, for whatever medical reason and doctors who perform them are called murderers.   Ordinary folks who challenge church teachings are openly threatened with the withdrawal of the sacraments or simply asked to leave the church. Anti-abortion students are encouraged to publically parade with posters displaying graphic images of aborted fetuses. Some religious clerics are eager to ban children of gay parents the right to attend their publically supported schools. Theologians who did not follow church teachings to the letter have been banned by the hundreds from their teaching positions. Religious institutions are confining God’s unconditional love in strict legal terms. Volumes of religious edicts are being issued forth proclaiming that their religion is the only true one, etc. etc. Extremes of every kind are being enforced or applied at the expense of the right to obey our God given conscience.  

Under these conditions is it not entirely reasonable that more and more people are turning away from these ridged and dispassionate views of God and the religious institutions that support them?    

Michael Lerner in his book The Left Hand of God suggests that it is time to listen to the more loving, compassionate and justice seeking voice of God. Instead we seem to have been responding to a fearful voice which is often harsh, judgmental, power oriented and domination seeking.  Rabbi Lerner describes the left hand of God in these simple terms    “The Left Hand of God stands in marked contrast to the vision of God as the powerful avenger, the Force that will overthrow evil through superior power, the Force that seeks to exterminate enemies and suppress dissent. The vision of the Right Hand of God imagines that evil can be wiped out by one more war or by imposing rigid com­mandments about how to live and enforcing them through violence and punishment. It imagines that people can be coerced into goodness.

The human race needs and yearns for the Left Hand of God. It longs to be part of a world in which kindness, generosity, nonviolence, humility, inner and outer peace, love, and wonder at the grandeur of creation stand at the center of our political and economic systems and become the major realities of our daily life experience.

The spiritual consciousness that I call the Left Hand of God is not the exclusive property of any one party or movement.”

Recently I participated in an online exchange with an anonymous Catholic on the sensitive question of heaven and hell. Because my opponent expressed her understanding of hell only in literal terms I tried to present her with the Left Hand of God which presents a more healing image of God and hell.  What follows is a condensed version, which began on the subject of Indulgences and went on to the more serious question of hell:

Trebert:  

The practise of granting Indulgences is rooted in the belief that a penitent needed support by the prayers of the Church in the effort to pay the debt of penance. However, we cannot bargain, earn or win God’s love – it is His gift to all.
Sin cannot prevent us from our eternal reward with God in heaven – sin simply often keeps us in a self created hell on earth. The purpose of salvation is to free us from the burden of sin whenever we are willing to INDULGE and learn from our mistakes with the help of the Holy Spirit. God’s unconditional love heals comforts and forgives the unforgiveable because He does not remember our sins. (If we believe God gives up on people forever and does away with them by sentencing them to death in hell, then we can give up on some people forever and do away with such people by sentencing them to death through capital punishment). The image of God as a vengeful, demanding and punishing deity can literally drive us crazy! Punishment never heals, only love can heal.

Anon:
If sin cannot separate us from God, then there is no point of the Cross.
God does not send anybody to hell. Where did you get that idea from? It’s not a teaching of the church. Heaven is union with God. If someone does not want to be there God will not force them.
God cannot also give someone what does not exist. If they want to love God on their own selfish terms. God cannot give that to them. It does not exist. It's not a question of earning God's love. It's a question of expecting something that does not exist. Love demands justice. The cross is both the mercy and justice of God.

Trebert : Nothing can separate us from the love of God Romans 8:38-39). When we associate or interpret the meaning of the cross with punishment or fear we immediately diminish our understanding of God’s unconditional love. True Love cannot make demands. God’s mercy has everything to do with restorative justice not worldly punishment. Yes, God will not drag us into heaven ‘kicking and screaming’ but he is willing to descent into hell to offer his unconditional love which we may never have experienced or received while we inhabited this earthly place.

Anon:

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, means that nobody can snatch us out of the love of God, but that does not mean that we cannot opt out of it. "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21; cf. Matt. 10:33, 18:35).
The Catechism of the Catholic church states:
#633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom": "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell." Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.

Trebert: Are you perhaps more interested in fear, punishment, and eternal hell, etc. than  the love of God? Religion is for those who fear hell. Spirituality is for those who have been there! (anon)

Furthermore, "Hell exists, not as a place but as a state, a way of being of the person who suffers the pain of the deprivation of God.” Pope John Paul II Vatican on July 28, 1999.

Jesus' story of the rich man (Dives) and Lazarus (a poor beggar) is sometimes cited to prove that there are people in hell, or that once a person gets to hell he or she cannot leave. Lazarus, a poor beggar, dies and goes to heaven where he is in the bosom of Abraham. Dives, who had not reached out to help Lazarus, dies and goes to hell. Dives asks if he can go back and warn his five brothers so that they will not end up in hell too. Abraham refuses.

A clue that this story is not to be taken literally as proof that some people are in an eternal state of hell is Dives' desire to help others and Abraham's refusal to permit it. If we define heaven as a state of giving and receiving love, and hell as a state of total alienation in which no love is given or received and repentance is impossible, then the compassionate, unselfish, repentant Dives is at this point behaving more like a resident of heaven than is Abraham. What the story does seem to be saying is two things. First, social standing in this world can be turned upside down in the next. Secondly, if you ignore your brothers and sisters in need (as Dives did previously), you will feel like hell. Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn & Matthew Linn, S.J., Good Goats – Healing Our Image of God, Paulist Press, 1994.

Anon: The love of God does not deny the existence of sin and its consequences - just as a parent disciplines their child, because they do not want them to go astray. Jesus said "Not everybody who calls me, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven." Do you claim to know more than Jesus? Only angels are spiritual without being religious. Human beings are a body, soul unity. We are bodily persons. This is how we experience the world.

Trebert: The consequence of sin (missing the mark) often results in the experience of hell.  Jesus never condemned anyone who went astray and neither should we. God (Jesus) is unknowable (St. Thomas Aquinas).  When we attend church regularly but do not reflect a basic Christian attitude our pleas “Lord, Lord but will not bring us into the kingdom of heaven.  If religion does not bring us into a direct relationship with God we will not understand the meaning of ‘spirituality’.    

In conclusion to these exchanges the aforementioned book by the Linn family is an excellent Catholic understanding of God’s Left Hand. I highly recommend it for those who yearn for a more healing image of God.

WILL EVERYONE GO TO HEAVEN?

"Religion is for people afraid of going to hell, Spirituality is for those who have been there."

 A recent article in the online religion section of the National Post about self professed atheist and author Christopher Hitchens leads to the age old question, so popular among many fundamentalist believers today, which asks' exactly who will go to heaven?'

In an attempt to respond to that question lets begin with a modern parable as told by master story teller Anthony de Mello, S.J.

COMFORT FOR THE DEVIL

An ancient Christian legend:

When the Son of God was nailed to the cross and died, he went straight down to hell from the cross and set free all the sinners who were there in torment.

And the devil wept and mourned, for he thought he would get no more sinners for hell.

Then God said to him, "Do not weep, for I shall send you all those who are self-righteous in their condemnation of sinners And hell shall be filled up once more until I return

It seems that there are many who would like to take over the role of judge and jury to decide who gets into heaven and who should be banished to an eternal hell. Any suggestion that perhaps everyone goes to heaven is quickly met with a great deal of opposition. "No, no, absolutely not, that would mean that we would have to share heaven with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and a host of other evil individuals." Still others (sadly) presented several recent serial killers and emphatically stated that these individuals should not be allowed to even dirty heaven's doorstep.
Catholics should first take a great deal of solace from their Creed which states: 'On the third day [Jesus] descended to the dead' as a reminder that Jesus comes to be with us in hell! This would include those who rejected God because they were denied or never introduced to the real presence of God's unconditional love. (for more on this topic readers are invited to 'Good Goats - Healing Our Image of God' by the Linn family available at every online bookstore)
When we ignore God's love and become too focussed on the sinful behaviours of people it can be easy to make judgment. And if we're not carefull will fall into the trap of demanding justice based on revenge and punishment. When some arrogantly announce on behalf of God, who is going to heaven and who is not; they seem oblivious to their own self-righteousness. Surely such an attitude cannot be from an unconditionally loving God. Instead we have made an Ego based judgment withour realizing that God's Last Judgment has nothing to do with punishment! On the contrary it has everything to do with restoration. It has to do with restoring the love of God that you and I never received. And, it has everything to do with healing and compassion. Perhaps the real purpose of purgatory is to purge us from the many false images which we have projected onto the world, ourselves and others.

Without transformation we will continue to see the parable of the prodigal son with jaded eyes. Is it not easier to identify with the older son? Should the father not respond to the prodigal son with "well O.K. you can come back, but I think you should first apologize to me and your older brother, who has worked so hard, while you just wasted your inheritance, and . . . . . now go and clean out the pig-pen! Instead we know deep down that God the father like any good parent is always ready to love by forgiving and forgetting.

Fr. Anthony de Mello on Loves Forgetfulness

"Why do you keep talking about my past mistakes?" said the husband.

"I thought you had forgiven and forgotten."

"I have, indeed, forgiven and forgotten," said the wife. "But I want to make sure you don't forget that I have forgiven and forgotten."

Sinner: "Remember not my sins, O Lord!"

Lord: "What sins? You'll have to

prod my memory. I forgot them long ago."

Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13).

When we become too focussed on sin and punishment, we often fail to understand what it means to love and be loved by our Creator. There are many among us who have never experienced God's love through their parent, sibling, teacher, neighbour and especially from members of our own religious institution. In the absence of such love we learn to hate, and condemn, become twisted, broken, sick etc.. Many people today have not experienced God's healing love. So how do we accept God's calling to become real lovers in this troubled world? Teresa of Avila said it this way:

"Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world."

Are there any among you who are prepared to cast the first stone at those that do not belong in heaven? Then first read Isaiah 43:25, Heb. 8:12, 10:17.

Finally, Origen Adamantius (185 – 254), a scholar and one of the greatest  theologians of early Christian interest in Alexandria, wrote that "In the end all will be saved, and the official Church condemned him.

NEW February 2012:  see also "Will Everyone Go To Heaven - part 2.

NEW May 30,2014

OUR DESTINATION

Resurrection is incarnation come to its logical and lull conclusion. It fully demonstrates that this world, this flesh, this physicality is part of the eternal truth and forever matters to God. Again, the early church seemed to get this much more than we do. Read, for example, St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius in their classic texts from the second and fourth centuries.9 Resurrection is saying that matter and spirit have been working together from the first moment of the big bang. Resurrection is not a miracle to be proven; it is a manifestation of the wholeness that we are all meant to experience, even in this world-not time as "chronological moments of endless duration" but time as momentous and revealing the whole.` When "time comes to a fullness" (Mark 1:15) as in a moment of love, childbirth, union, peaceful death, or beauty, you have then experienced a moment of eternal life. Resurrection is when one moment reveals the meaning of all moments. Without such moments, it will either be very hard for you to imagine resurrection or, conversely, you will long for it like no one else, which is the concise meaning of the virtue of hope.

The Risen Christ is the standing icon of humanity in its final and full destiny. He is the pledge and guarantee of what God will do with all of our crucifixions. At last, we can meaningfully live with hope. It is no longer an absurd or tragic universe. Our hurts now become the home for our greatest hopes. Without such implanted hope, it is very hard not to be cynical, bitter, and tired by the second half of our lives.

It is no accident that Luke's Resurrection account in the Gospel has Jesus saying, "I am not a ghost! I have flesh and bones, as you can see" (24:39-41). To Thomas he says, "Put your finger in the wounds!" (John 20:27). In other words, "I am human!"—which means to be wounded and resurrected at the same time. He returns to his physical body, and yet he is now unlimited by space or time and is without any regret or recrimination -while still, ironically, carrying his wounds. (That they do not disappear is telling.) It was quite a feat to communicate this whole message in such a subtle and refined way, which is precisely the power of symbol. "Our wounds are our glory," as Lady Julian of Norwich puts it, is the utterly counterintuitive message of the risen Jesus.

The major point is that Jesus has not left the human sphere; he is revealing the goal, the fullness, and the purpose of humanity itself, which is "that we are able to share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), even in this wounded and wounding world. Yes, resurrection is saying something about Jesus, but it is also saying a lot about us, which is even harder to believe. It is saying that we also are larger than life, Being Itself, and therefore made for something good, united, and beautiful. Our code word for that is heaven.

Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond – the Search for Our True Self, (2013). P 83-85

On Heaven and Hell

Several years ago my wife Ann counseled a dear Catholic friend (Mary (not her real name) about a particular crisis Mary was dealing with. At one point during the conversation Ann suggested that Mary present her problem directly to Jesus and wait for his response. “Oh, no I couldn’t do that!” Mary promptly responded” “For heavens sake", Ann replied “Why not?” “Because”, Mary sobbed, “ I couldn’t possible present Jesus with my silly little problem while he is hanging on the cross”.

For those who still hold a view of a punishing or impotent God and tremble with fear of hell , Saving Paradise will help them to recover an ancient world view that is life transforming and earth affirming. It reminds us of a biblical perspective that does not reserve paradise for the dead but invites the living to find grace, justice, peace and compassion – here and now- amid the jangling discord of violence and war. It may mark the beginning of a paradigm shift in contemporary Christian understanding and interfaith dialogue.

This remarkable book reveals that during their first millennium, Christians filled their sanctuaries with images of Christ ... as a shepherd, a teacher, a healer, an enthroned god; he is an infant, a youth, and a bearded elder. But there were no images of a dead crucified Christ. Neither will you find any references to purgatory and hell as a place of eternal of pain and suffering.

Saving Paradise turns upside down the history of the church's view of Jesus' crucifixion and its stress on the importance of suffering. The authors attempt to show that for the first thousand years of its existence, the Christian church placed much more emphasis on the resurrection and paradise than the crucifixion. The Christian church of the first millennium never stressed that Jesus' suffering on the cross was necessary for the salvation of humanity.

What changed? How did the Christian churches, until this day, come to embrace such terrifying images as hell and purgatory? Why do they still exist today? One can still find booklets such as What Will Hell Be Like? filled with terrifying images of suffering and pain supposedly attributed to St. Alponsus Liguori (1696 –1787). At the same time many evangelical churches continue to spread the word of God under a similar threat of heaven and hell.

Many people today would be surprised to learn that these fearful images and theological ideas did not prevail in the Church until the ninth century beginning with the Carolingian campaign to subdue the Saxons.

The authors tackle what they consider the subversion of the Christian message -- exemplified by the ninth-century Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, who instituted the death penalty for conquered people who refused to convert. The Carolingians constructed a Christian piety that used violence to convert pagans and then taught its victims to regard their violation as justified and sanctified.

The Carolingian theology of the Eucharist drew humanity to the dead Christ and separated believers from the living Christ with his power to teach, heal, and give life to all. Christ no longer offered love and abundant life but judgment to be feared and suffering to be repeated by the faithful. Salvation, once a community of life in paradise, now meant escape from guilt and punishment.

The crucified Christ confronted communicants at every Eucharist, accusing them of killing him. To be an unrepentant, sinful Christian was to be judged a murderer by Christ the victim and judge. Those who knelt before the divine victim petitioned for mercy for their sins, hoping not to be condemned to hell.

The Carolingians cut the connections between great power and great responsibility, and denied divine power in humanity, forfeiting their ethical obligations to protect life on earth.

Was the Eucharist the crucified body or the resurrection of life? The Carolingian Eucharist placed ritual murder at its center and a dead body on the altar of life. This new theology of the Eucharist took away the life-giving love of Christ and made him a victim. His corpse’s power to judge sin alienated Christians from communion with Christ and from the love and support of the community of the saints. It isolated individuals and left them terrified.

Now the Christian trembled in the presence of the crucified Savior, guilty and overcome, begging for mercy

Penalties and punishments proliferated for the faithful and unfaithful alike. The torments of the martyrs, like that of the good thief became standard in devotional images.

The ninth century’s new focus on the crucified Christ coincided with a shift in the Christian prohibition against the shedding of human blood. For centuries, the church had taught that participation in warfare was evil, that killing broke the fifth commandment, and that soldiers were to perform penance to cleanse their soul from the stain of blood. At the dawn of the Holy Roman Empire, Christianity began to lose its grip on the sinfulness of killing. A new age began – one in which the execution of Jesus would become a sacrifice to be repeated, first on the Eucharistic altar and then in the ravages of a full-blown holy war (crusades).

To this day the most recognized symbol of the Roman Catholic Church remains the figure of the crucified Christ. The theology that supports that symbol is largely based on the ideas first put forward by St. Anselm (c.1033 - 1109). He stated that the work of Jesus was "salvation" - saving those who believed in him from the impossible abyss that separated God from humanity, bridging it with his own body. Thus many people today accept the idea that Jesus offered up his body to satisfy a vengeful God.

James Carroll, 'Constantine's Sword', (2000) writes "The first result of Anselm's theology of salvation was, as we saw, to solder the faith to the cross, and to make the death of Jesus more important than anything he had said, despite his clear statement that "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life". His death counted for more than his having been born, having lived as a Jew, having preached a gospel of love in the context of Israel's covenant with a loving God, having opposed the imperium of Rome, even having been brought to the new life of Resurrection. The death obsession of the flagellants was deemed holy, and the blood lust of the crusaders was sanctified . God, too, had blood lust. Christ's agony on the cross would now become the black flower of the Western imagination - on armour, in Passion Plays, in paintings, in altar carvings, in rituals like the Stations of the Cross, and ultimately in the cross at Auschwitz."

St. Anselm's influence or theology were to have severe consequences in the following centuries. Furthermore it fully supports the claims made by Brock and Parker in their story SAVING PARADISE.

In 1231, Pope Gregory IX made the torments awaiting the bad thief vividly real. He launched the Inquisition and licensed the church to use torture to discipline heretics and protect the faith.

Frightful images of martyrs being boiled or burned alive, disemboweled, speared, beheaded, stoned, devoured by beast, tortured on a rack and taunted by demons began the appear in religious art and literature.

In the thirteenth century, postmortem paradise began to morph into purgatory. The Second Council of Lyons in 1274 established that “purgatorial and purifying penalties” would take place after death for sinners who had failed to render full satisfaction for their sins before they died. Once Christians died, they still had to be purged of every trace of sin before they could enter the heavenly paradise.

The living could pray for the dead, perform masses for them, or buy indulgences to lighten their purgatorial load. As purgatory heated up, the distance between heaven and earth stretched ever wider. In the Divine Comedy, Dante (1265-1321) detailed his visionary pilgrimage through hell and up the steep mountain of purgatory. By the fourteenth century, to die in an agony of torture had become a spiritual ideal. Public spectacles of torture and execution became popular, which the faithful could find repeated in Passion images and again today with Mel Gibson’s The Passion’.

More recently, fundamentalist factions such as The Society of St Pius X., previously excommunicated by Pope John Paul II, are now being invited back into the fold despite denials of the Jewish Holocaust and stating that the Inquisition, which resulted in the deaths and torture of thousands, merely reflected an “attitude toward heretics comparable to that of our Lord.”

At this point I can only think of what Jesus might say, forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do or say!

Resources:

Rita Brock & Rebecca Parker, Saving Paradise – How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, Beacon Press, Boston, MA., 2008.

A review by Fr. Diarmuid O'Murchu
Brock, Rita Nakashima & Rebecca Ann Parker (2008), SAVING PARADISE. Probably the single most inspiring book I have read in the past ten years! After an extensive study on how Christian art depicts the death and resurrection of Jesus throughout the first millennium, the authors highlight that the image of the suffering Jesus on the Cross is an invention of the 900s and only became widespread with the Crusades in the 1100s. The dominant imagery of the first 1,000 years envisaged "paradise" as happening within the living creation itself, and salvation required the Christian to engage seriously and justly with creation in the here and now (paradise), rather than seeking to escape into the salvation hereafter made possible by the the suffering of the cross. A revolutionary and inspiring read!