Stop for just a moment and think.  Clear your mind and take a breath.  Consider your worldview – your perspectives, points of view, political leanings, religious beliefs…the very lens through which you see your world.  Now, think carefully – who is the person that represents the most complete opposite end of the spectrum?  Generally, humans reserve trust and friendship with people they believe are most like them – and tend to demonize and stereotype those most different from them.

For many in America today, conservative Christians and the liberal secularists are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  One tends to hang out on Sunday mornings, the other on Saturday nights.  One votes for the Democrat, the other votes for the Republican.   The worst evil for one is social deviance, whereas the other shuns bigotry.  One is urban, one is suburban.  One wears suits, the other has dreadlocks.    One is PC one is Mac.  You get the picture.

Both live in worlds in which the other has no place.  Both exist in tight bubbles that exclude others.  In these secluded tribes, they can lob ideological grenades at other tribes and receive comfort from their peers.  All the while the chasm between people and Truth grows wider.

I had never heard of Matthew Raley when I picked up The Diversity Culture: Creating Conversations of Faith with Buddhist Baristas, Agnostic Students, Aging Hippies, Political Activists, and Everyone in Between. He speaks to this reality of ideological tribalism with humility and truth.  He draws on the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the well, [youversion]John 4:1-26[/youversion], as a prime example of how Jesus engaged the “other” not as a propped-up caricature, but as a unique individual.  Samaritans and Jews distrusted each other politically, religiously, and even the other tribe’s very right to exist. Sounds familiar even today, doesn’t it?

Jesus sat down next to the well, and began to cross barriers – claiming that mistakes had been made in both Jewish and Samaritan tribes in the identity of the other – both groups had inherited from their tribesmen lies about the other group.  When she showed signs that she was willing to take people (and life) case by case (rather than broad brushing stereotypes) he was able to work with her – and introduce her to the Living Water.

But herein lies the rub – do people make life-changing decisions about faith and worldview as a group, or as individuals?  Raley says its about “crowbar-ing people away from their groupthink” (whether Christian or secular or whatever) and asking them to think critically about what they personally believe to be true.  It is at this point that I think I differ from Raley.

I agree that to really help someone think critically about an issue, sometimes you have to remove their normal filters and lenses their culture gives them and let them try their best to think for themselves.  Other times there’s just not enough will-power in the person to do that, and if done properly, “salvation can come to the whole household,” as it does all over Acts.  Sometimes people come to Christ as individuals, extricated from their culture (Ethiopian eunuch, Samaritan woman at the well), and sometimes its through their community (Philippian jailer’s family, Cornelius’ household, etc.).

He admits that most people in the “Diversity Culture” as he coins it, grow up with a “street postmodernism” – and are not really sure why they hold such pluralistic views – they know perfectly well that right and wrong exist, but “what they don’t necessarily know is how to integrate unchanging principles into lives that are full of change.” (Raley, 50) Christians too believe things without knowing exactly why – and they still are distrustful of those with different views.  What ends up happening is a world full of people who hate each other for reasons they can’t explain.  Back to stereotypes.

Remember that archetypal person who you distrust the most, and put an actual face on them – someone you know at work, etc.  Find their uniqueness – something that shatters the stereotype you have of them.  Maybe its a hipster who listens to Kenny-G, or a liberal who secretly watches reruns of Glenn Beck.  You might just find yourself like the Samaritan woman at the well did, face to face with a the most important relationship of your life that you never saw coming.

I just came home from a meeting of about 6 Christians and 6 Pagans came together to discuss their spirituality.

Of course any such meeting is considered significant because it brings together two groups that have historically hated each other and even killed each other. Both groups have such baggage and distrust from the mainstream culture that much of group found themselves clarifying their individual uniqueness to the stereotypes presented by culture. I think that’s a healthy thing – our brains cannot handle total awareness of the particularity of each and every person we meet, so we make generalizations. Those generalizations become stereotypes which we many times use to manipulate people we’ve never met or know and turn them into stock characters of their true selves. This evening we were able to pull back some of the misconceptions of our faith and try to present it from a personal, on-the-ground perspective.

Several in the Pagan crew were quick to say that there is many styles and types of Paganism, much like there is denominations of Christianity. As I listened further, they said that the things that tie all the branches together are: eco-spiritualism, (a worship/reverence of the earth and the physical), a practice of magic (projection of self-will either inward or outward through practices), and reincarnation (though the finer points of this are debated among different groups).

Diving deeper, I continued to hear that the goal of Paganism was to get in touch with the divine self, and to allow that self to readdress the truth that, “all is one.” Several talked about worshiping a pantheon, and gave several examples. Others mentioned séances and “past life regression” (contacting the dead). One person in the group asked how reincarnation and past life regression could coincide in the same worldview, which is a question some Pagans wrestle with too.

I mentioned what I saw was the biggest difference between what I knew of Paganism and my experience with Christianity. It seemed that the goal of Paganism was to center on the self, where as the aim of Christianity was to become aware of your centeredness on God.

All throughout the night, I was humbled by the openness of the group – and their willingness to listen. I know that the first time an interfaith group meets, its usually “hugs and hummus,” with no one stepping on the other person’s toes. This had some of that – and the ever-present “all religions are the same” that I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with lately (it disrespects the uniqueness and contributions of each religion in favor of a melting pot of mush.) But it also had some soul-bearing, meaning people were willing to admit the weaknesses of their faith perspective, which I found very productive to getting at raw conversation and the deeper meaning beneath just throwing theological grenades at each other.

For instance, I admitted that most of my life I had lived as if this world didn’t matter, because God was going to destroy it and take me to heaven. I could trash it and abuse God’s Creation anyway I pleased. Recently I’ve been made aware of the Kingdom of God being near me – and the “new heavens and new earth” Jesus speaking about being “already” but at the same time “not yet” here. When I see that God created the earth and called it very good, and when I see God confuse those at Babel for turning the earth into something they can claim for themselves, I am reminded – not to worship the earth but – to treat the earth as if it were holy. It is a sacred trust – a gift – and more than that. God is all throughout the earth, and to destroy the earth is to defame God himself. While I certainly do not find my Creator AS the Creation, I definitely see the Creator IN Creation.

This reverence for the tangible world was something I respected greatly in the Pagan participants. I have much to learn from them in this.

We chatted about the origins of terms – “Pagan” for instance, means “country folk” and “practitioner of the old ways,” whereas we suggested that the disciples of Jesus were practicing the teachings of Christ well before they considered themselves anything but Jews.

I noticed a need for some to ask what “sort” of Christian we were – those that came all had a very hands-off approach to adding much more after their faith besides “a follower of Jesus Christ.” It certainly makes the conversation aim the right direction.

Also surprising was that both groups referenced the Emperor Constantine as a major turning point in the world’s history. Up until 346AD, Rome had been pagan, with the Emperor as a god that was to be worshiped. There were different theories from the Pagans on why Constantine converted than I had ever heard before (his desire to “get right with God” was one of them), but I had always thought that Constantine saw a growing movement of Christianity in his armies, and in his cities, and needed to “convert” in order to co-opt the wave of potentially ex-patriots of Lord Cesar to the Lord Christ. It other words – his conversion was political – big surprise.

I’ll end on this – one guy who wasn’t necessarily Pagan or Christian brought up the idea of the mystical being the core of our longing for spirituality, and ritual/religion becoming what we set up as a result of that original mystical experience. I see this certainly in the Christian faith – you have a burning bush moment, and you expect to watch it repeat itself week after week – but it just won’t happen. I believe that many religions of this world focus on the “tingly feeling” of a mystical experience. But Christianity is more than just “feel good” experiences. It is about adoption – into a new family. That feels good for sure – and the communion you share with God is ecstatic and overwhelming. Many Western Christians could learn from their Eastern brothers in this.

I look forward to more meetings with our Pagan friends – it is encouraging that so many from the Underground were present for the meeting too; I’m so thankful and excited for the open hearts and the capacity for rigorous dialogue in our group. I hope we can display what Christ looks like in a way that loves those so different from us.

Who Goes There? by Rebecca Price Janney is a tumbling book on how cultures throughout history have viewed heaven and hell.  Here’s an excerpt.  The book was sent to me by Michael Morrell as part of the Viral Bloggers portion of the OOZE e-zine. This is a report on the book.

Much of the book is the America’s relationship with a Christian theology of heaven and hell.  Janney walks us through the earliest days of America, as it was finding its footing, and through grissling wars that forced people to question the fate of loved ones lost in combat.  The later chapters are full of quotes and analysis of some of the most culturally famous (or infamous) who passed away in the public spotlight.  Janney considers the public reaction in newspapers, or radio and TV broadcasts to be indicative of the broader culture’s position on heaven and hell.

While it was great to walk through America’s history again, I found the book fairly predictable with nothing interesting to really catch or keep my attention.  Janney appropriately stays out of the realm of theology and instead reports on the historical events.  This makes for a great history lesson, but does little for a practical theologian.  Where are we today in our conversation about heaven and hell?  How does culture use or misuse the Bible to assume life after death?  Surprisingly little is unpacked on contemporary times, and it was disappointing.

While there is little to take away from this book for those wanting to integrate it into their ministry or life, there was one point she made in the last chapter.  Quoting C.S. Lewis, she writes, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”  If the whole book had been a history on the lives of such people and their understanding of heaven and hell  (Martin Luther King Jr., St. Francis of Assisi, etc) I would have devoured this book.  I chose this book because I believe that what we believe about our final destination helps our trajectory through this life.  I regret to say this book doesn’t do much for me.

There was a pretty neat video Moody Publishers put out to promote the book.

We do have wildly diverse beliefs about heaven and hell.  Mostly, we just believe whatever we want to, or let our theology slide when good things are said about ‘bad people.’  “He’s up there looking down on me.”

But why not stop assuming people are one place or another?  What good does that do?  Why not begin to join Jesus in bringing heaven to earth, and send hell off in a hand basket?  Maybe I’ve been in too many conversations of guesswork, trying to figure out who the heretic was – my life will not be defined by judging “who goes where” but rather “where am I helping this world go?”