From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Reconciling OT with NT
Date: 16 Nov 92 08:12:14 GMT
Followup-To: talk.abortion
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:

>From the Jewish perspective, the "OT" God judged
>us for our actions, not our beliefs, and had
>mercy on the righteous of all nations.

>The NT God judges us for our beliefs only, and
>casts the unbelievers into an eternal fiery hell ---
>the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

>I agree that these are quite different,
>but it doesn't look like mellowing to me.

Actually, Jesus and Paul both seem to me to talk a lot about God
judging people based on actions.  Jesus tried to shift people's
attention from a strict legal approach, to looking at intent.  To pick
one example from the Sermon on the Mount, seeing a woman as a sex
object is in the long run destructive, even if you don't commit
adultery with her.  But ultimately he is clear that judgement is based
on whether you follow his commandments, and not whether you say "Lord,
Lord".  Similarily with Paul: he is fighting against legalism, but his
references to judgement still talk about what people have done.

I think it's important to understand faith as trust in God, and not as
mere belief.  Jesus emphasized faith as a precondition for being
healed -- it's difficult to depend upon God when you don't trust him.
For Jesus, faith is a trust in God, modelled after a child's trust.
For Paul, faith is a trust that results in obedience.  His model is
Abraham, whose faith led him to accept God's commands and obey them.

In later Christianity, faith came to become defined in terms of
holding correct dogma.  While Paul was clearly concerned about some
heresies (some of which seem precursors to the Gnostics), I think in
the NT, faith is still used in ways that make sense within Judaism
(though other aspects of the NT message do not -- particularly Jesus'
specific role in salvation).

I would like to see Christianity recover some equivalent of the OT (or
at least 1st Cent.  Jewish) concept of the righteous Gentile.  The
Catholics seem to be doing this.  Protestants' emphasis on
justification by faith makes it more difficult, but I think few
Protestants these days can say with any conviction that righteous
non-Christians (Gandhi is the classical example) are going to hell.
Justification by faith was an important corrective, which was directed
against a concept of religion where righteousness had turned into
something external which in the worst case you could even buy (though
even at the time this was recognized as an abuse).  I think the
Reformers' faith is at its best when seen as similar to Jesus'
emphasis on the intent against the letter.  It is not enough to go
through the motions of religion -- God must be allowed to remake the
person.

But to me faith is a response to God's grace, not doctrinal
conformity.  I think the OT concept was a good one -- there were
righteous among all nations, but Israel was the light to the nations,
and every righteous person's true home was in Jerusalem.  Similarly I
believe every person who is remade by God belongs to Christ, and will
eventually be united to him.  The Christian church should serve as a
light to the nations, but God's action isn't limited to it.  I believe
the response of faith is possible to non-Christians, and in some cases
even atheists.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion