"In one of my after-service discussions a woman told me that the very idea of a judging God was offensive. I said, "Why aren't you offended by the idea of a forgiving God?" She looked puzzled. I continued, "I respectfully urge you to consider your cultural location when you find the Christian teaching about hell offensive." I went on to point out that secular Westerners get upset by the Christian doctrines of hell, but they find Biblical teaching about turning the other cheek and forgiving enemies appealing. I then asked her to consider how someone from a very different culture sees Christianity. In traditional societies the teaching about 'turning the other cheek' makes absolutely no sense. It offends people's deepest instincts about what is right. For them the doctrine of a God of judgment, however, is no problem at all. That society is repulsed by aspects of Christianity that Western people enjoy, and are attracted to the aspects that secular Westerners can't stand.
Why, I concluded, should Western cultural sensibilities be the final court in which to judge whether Christianity is valid? I asked the woman gently whether she thought her culture superior to non-Western ones. She immediately answered 'no.' 'Well then,' I asked, 'why should your culture's objections to Christianity trump theirs?'
For the sake of argument, let's imagine that Christianity is not the product of any one culture but is actually the transcultural truth of God. If that were the case we would expect that it would contradict and offend every human culture at some point, because human cultures are ever-changing and imperfect. If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place. Maybe this is the place, the Christian doctrine of divine jugdment."
- Timothy Keller, "The Reason for God"
Or maybe that is not the place that offends you. This I think is a large part of why I believe Christianity is the BEST shot of truth. It offends everyone on some level, believer or not. It is so far removed from the normal patterns of human illogic and emotion that there is some innate, irrational quality within ourselves that screams and runs away by the very IDEA of it.
I do not want something that is comfortable to the base, untrustworthy, animal part of myself. I want TRUE GROWTH. In society today we all like the idea of "growing as a person" or "bettering ourselves." How can we truly better ourselves if we cling to the very instincts that preserve us for who we are? Thus, a need to reach for those very things that repulse us the most. Sacrifice of our deep seated self-focused desires is completely necessary for this - in a way thats what Buddhism tries to teach us - the only problem is - it calls for us to sacrifice ourselves without any direction after that. What truth (or "path") lies beyond that sacrifice? There must be something. Something so foreign to ANYTHING we can even conceive as human beings, so OPPOSING to our natural senses that it is in a sense INVISIBLE to us, mentally and physically.
Hmmmmmm.
God?
Maybe?
It all makes sense. How in the world would someone so INEXPLICABLE and INCONCEIVABLE be able to realistically impose itself onto our consciousness? Well it would not be so easy. Not if you want to respect our own sense of free will. And there is the need for the Bible, in all of its lacking trying to capture the UNCAPTURABLE, it is the thing that causes so many to believe in something that appears so UNLIKELY, so OUTSIDE OF OUR UNDERSTANDING. It causes us to be repulsed by its very un-humanness...
To be continued...
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