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Originally posted by Eutychus:
I don't think it's quite the same. Puddleglum says he prefers to willingly embrace his viewpoint even if it's wrong. I'm not sure many people here would go along with that, at least not avowedly so.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I can't see that seeing Jesus is particularly important to me. I haven't thought much about this. It might be nice, I guess. But I'm not some kind of groupie.

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Never, literally never in recent years, have I met anyone who gave me the impression of believing in the next world as firmly as he believed in the existence of, for instance, Australia. Belief in the next world does not influence conduct as it would if it were genuine. With that endless existence beyond death to look forward to, how trivial our lives here would seem! Most Christians profess to believe in Hell. Yet have you ever met a Christian who seemed as afraid of Hell as he was of cancer? Even very devout Christians will make jokes about Hell. They wouldn't make jokes about leprosy, or RAF pilots with their faces burnt away: the subject is too painful.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
That the reward of heaven means nothing until you are dead.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
That the reward of heaven means nothing until you are dead.

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That's a bit like saying the gold medal doesn't mean anything until the race is over. Sure, it's technically true, but it misses the point of why everyone is running in the first place.

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"The Christian hope of Heaven raises our horizons and elevates our expectations inviting us to behave in the light of this greater reality. The true believer does not disengage this world in order to focus on Heaven but tries to make this world more like Heaven."

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Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

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If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Disagree with the premise. It is not a race. It is not a competition. I am not running a race toward a goal.

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Originally posted by seekingsister:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Disagree with the premise. It is not a race. It is not a competition. I am not running a race toward a goal.

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Are you sure about that?

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm with ChastMastr - and Paul - on this.

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Originally posted by Ariel:
I think I'd end up adopting Puddleglum's philosophy:

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

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Largely as a result of discussions on the Ship, I've thought long and hard about this, veered somewhat away from a belief in the resurrection (and thus in life after death) - and then almost in spite of myself, returned to this belief following Paul's reasoning in 1 Cor 15.

The above passage from The Silver Chair featured in my personal thought trajectory.

In the book, the happy reality is that there is a Narnia. That's the only reason Puddleglum's declaration is stirring. If there there was no Narnia, Puddleglum would be merely deluded and thus, as Paul says (more or less) to be pitied among all marshwiggles.

To lurch (as I often do) from CS Lewis to Douglas Adams in my cobbled-together practical theology, he is like Slartibartfast, preferring to be happy than right any day - which Slartibartfast admits unfortunately doesn't work (and appears not to work for Puddleglum either, given his disposition!).

I know not all christians feel this way, but if there's nothing after death, for me the whole thing is nothing but a delusion. I don't think I think it is though.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I'm well familiar with these ideas. There were a series of such verses posted in the entrance hall of my boarding school. And I recall reading Kipling's porem "If" while holding my knees and being hit on the backside at the front of the class when I had too many errors in my poetry memorization (which kept me from crying out). I've rejected everything "muscular Christianity" offers since. Not been big on Paul since either.

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I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4 v 7

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However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace.

Acts 20 v 24

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Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

1 Corinthians 9 v 24

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sometimes I wonder whether fellow shipmates have ever actually read the Bible.

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Seems to me many have read it, chosen to reject 99% of it, and go about telling the rest of us who interpret it in the traditional way that we've misunderstood it!

At the very least, a statement like "Christianity is not a race" has to be qualified to "I know it's described as such, but in my experience it's more like..."

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4 v 7

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However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace.

Acts 20 v 24

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Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

1 Corinthians 9 v 24

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Sometimes I wonder whether fellow shipmates have ever actually read the Bible.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't find the metaphor of life as a race that you have to run in order to win a prize particularly helpful.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
The race analogies seem more about perseverence in the face of adversity than anything else.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't find the metaphor of life as a race that you have to run in order to win a prize particularly helpful.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
But if you're only running for your own glory and your own good, you're missing the point of the gospel. It's not about you, it's about others and selflessness ( see Jesus' example).

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12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,[a] and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of[b] the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sometimes I wonder whether fellow shipmates have ever actually read the Bible.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
The race analogies seem more about perseverence in the face of adversity than anything else.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Yes, that's what they told us. That despite the world going to hell in a handcart, we had to hold out and do the 'hard things' because there is glory in doing so, and our rewards would be in the next life. And other such crap.

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Originally posted by Boogie:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sometimes I wonder whether fellow shipmates have ever actually read the Bible.

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Wrong.

We have read it, but we disagree with Paul's analogy that life is akin to a race.

It's a very poor analogy imo. A race implies rushing, not savouring. It implies passing others to get across the winning tape. It implies having a fixed goal and being unable to adapt and change according to people's needs at the time.

I simply don't find it helpful. Just like I don't find 'battle' analogies helpful either - far too little caring and co-operation in races and battles for my liking.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

If you haven't had to make an effort in your Chrstian faith and life, then I wonder whether it's worth having.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
This sort of Christian, Mudfrog, is the one who asks me if I know Jesus, and I must end the conversation immediately by saying that I expect our beliefs do not coincide. It's why I cannot attend a parish where the priest prays "Jesus our redeemer and friend" before the amen (it's indicative of a broader orientation). it told me I was the problem.

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Hi

I was think of a response to your very first sentence when I read your second!

I was going to say that the Christians I was referring to were not all evangelicals (the kind you would expect to say, 'Do you know Jesus') - it would include Coptic, Catholic, Orthodox, etc, etc - people who have lived (and died) under extreme regimes in greater numbers than most Protestant evangelicals would imagine. These ancient traditions of Christianity are also running the race, etc.

But then I read your comment about not being able to attend a parish where the priest referred to Jesus as Redeemer and friend. I guess therefore than there are some deep hurts that are your burden and that some maybe 'convinced' Christians have been a little less than sympathetic or compassionate?

I am sorry about that; people with a strong faith, even when that comes out of their own struggles, can sometimes be a little on the insensitve side. There are, of course, those people whose strong faith is expressed a little more gently and they can indeed be an encouragement and a help.

I don't know why you would feel that 'Redeemer and friend' are difficult to take as descriptions of God in Christ, but I pray sincerely that He will come to you in another of the images and likenesses that the Gospel gives us, and bring what you need.

I heard once of a dying girl who could not bring herself to believe that God was a loving Father simply because her own father and even her brothers had abused her so much. She came to faith simply by hearing about and then clinging onto the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

I guess it doesn't matter which of the many images and words you take to your heart as long as it leads you to Jesus and the peace he offers.

God bless you.

[ 28. October 2014, 15:38: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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ChastMastr: As I understand Christianity, we're more than groupies for Jesus--we worship Him. Seeing Him face to face is one of the things we long for.

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Peace comes from God - and is much needed by me and others. Not a feeling that we are not trying hard enough as life is too 'comfortable'!

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sometimes I wonder whether fellow shipmates have ever actually read the Bible.

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To me it's perfectly possible to worship someone (or Someone) without a need to see him face to face. [/QB]

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"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

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ChastMastr: As I understand Christianity, we're more than groupies for Jesus--we worship Him. Seeing Him face to face is one of the things we long for.

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I don't know. To me it's perfectly possible to worship someone (or Someone) without a need to see him face to face.

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ChastMastr: Of course it is, and of course we do now without seeing Him face to face, but I'm talking about longing to see Him more clearly, in the fullness of time, etc.

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Originally posted by Jemima the 9th:
I'm another to whom the existence of anything after death makes no difference to my faith and practice of it (wobbly though that currently is).

My mother died last year. I think the idea of an afterlife was a comfort to her, though it's not something we talked about. It's no comfort to me, though - I really don't buy the idea that it is somehow a good thing for those left behind.

My sister, who would probably identify as spiritual but not religious, firmly believes in heaven, and believes that mum is there. She talks to her all the time. For me, the idea that she's still somehow out there somewhere (and yes I understand this is Platonic rather than Christian) and yet I can't be close to, or communicate with her, is much worse than the idea of her just being gone.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
[...] When churchgoers sit in the comfortable middle-class lifestyle of respectable 'churchianity', choosing which beliefs they allow themselves to hold, crossing their fingers when reciting creeds they don't feel happy with because it disturbs their little compartmentalised world where God has his hour but no more, they lose all sense of what being a Christian meant to Paul's hearers or to the vast majority of Christians on this planet in the developing world who would rather die than give up Jesus. [...]

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Originally posted by Byron:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
[...] When churchgoers sit in the comfortable middle-class lifestyle of respectable 'churchianity', choosing which beliefs they allow themselves to hold, crossing their fingers when reciting creeds they don't feel happy with because it disturbs their little compartmentalised world where God has his hour but no more, they lose all sense of what being a Christian meant to Paul's hearers or to the vast majority of Christians on this planet in the developing world who would rather die than give up Jesus. [...]

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Paul was surely the definition of middle class, if not upper class: leisured, literate, plenty time to study, chair of the board, member of the Roman elite. Pity the poor slave tortured for their faith (whose bondage Paul casually accepted), for whom an appeal to Caesar would be as fantastical as a trip to the moon.

As for early Christianity, Paul and his contemporaries thought the world was about to end. Not even the most devoted Left Behind fan can recapture that apocalyptic fervor. Without that expectation of an imminent end, I doubt they'd have been so willing to die.

Christianity has lasted millennia past it's expected endpoint. Of course it's gonna change and adapt.

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as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

2 Corinthians 6

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Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labours, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. 24 Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. 28 And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be he forever!) knows that I do not lie. 32 In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

2 Corinthians 11

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