All Things New

I think a big part of the problem is how we talk about the Spirit. We always talk about being worthy of the Spirit, and how the Spirit will leave you if you sin, have impure thoughts, etc. Some people also talk as if the Spirit will leave you alone even if others around you are sinning, like the stories where people walk into a party and the Spirit leaves. Or even if a swear word is uttered by someone in the same room as you.

I hear all these things in church about how easy it is to lose the Spirit, and then compare it to the New Testament where we see Jesus being criticized because he eats with sinners. Jesus clearly didn’t run the other way at the first sign that someone had sinned, so why would the Holy Ghost? What’s the use of a spiritual guide who leaves during the times when you’re making stupid decisions, or a comforter who leaves you alone when you get yourself into trouble? Jesus said he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance but somehow we think the Spirit works in just the opposite way.

So instead of accepting the grace of a loving God we have constant anxiety about offending a petty God who abandons us as soon as we slip up.

Carrot or Stick?

In early Christianity, the carrot was what was presented. Jesus does seem to have been someone who offered, rather than warned. My reading of Paul, and by that I mean the real, original Paul of Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, I Thessalonians, Philemon, and Philippians, not the later post-mortem caricature of Paul in I/II Timothy, Ephesians, Titus and sexist portions of Corinthians, had a view that, if I could paraphrase, would be something like this:

Paul’s view, as far as I can tell, was that we human beings are not naturally like God, but because of Christ’s Atonement, we can become like him through a New (spiritual) Life. Paul, again, according to my reading, didn’t think of ‘sin’ as something we do against God, but rather, just mundane human foibles that we could set aside without regard when we move into a spiritual Life in Christ.

As Christianity grew, it naturally needed to also put the “Fear of God” into its followers to keep them on track. It’s one thing to become Christian. It’s another to stay with it for the long haul, in the face of adversity. So, be sure you’re nice, not naughty, because Santa Claus sees you even when you’re sleeping and he KNOWS about you. Think back to people you taught on your missions (for those of you who have been missionaries, of course). You didn’t FEAR them into joining. You offered them something that they were lacking. The carrot brings people in, the stick keeps them from leaving.

I think that using fear breeds fearfulness. And I do think it pushes people toward a self-view that things are not in our control. There is a larger power and compared to it, we are powerless. In fact, LDS theology tends to hold that the Devil is much stronger and smarter than we are, unless we keep holding tight onto God/HG. Yeah, sinning or not sinning is sort of in our control, but not really. We need God/HG to help us not sin, but when we do sin, they leave us alone against Satan. Yikes. No wonder so many can view life as:

So much of our (humans) theology feels like projecting all our fears and anxiety onto god, then coming up with ways to appease that god in order to avoid bad outcomes. If we can appease our god we can avoid the undesired outcome. [Stick]

But, for us who are not bound to LDS cosmology, I prefer this different view:

So much of our (humans) theology feels like projecting all our hopes for ourselves onto god, then coming up with ways to become more like that god in order to achieve better outcomes. If we can become like our god we can attain the desired outcome. [Carrot]

Thanks for your thoughts so far, I appreciate it. I am reserving my own thoughts still, but they’re generally in tune with what you folks are saying.

Having read some of Terryl Givens “more scholarly” stuff as well as books like The God Who Weeps, The Christ Who Heals, and Crucible of Doubt some of what you all have said lines up with a Givens main theme. In a nutshell, Givens asserts in this and other books that Christianity (Christian theology) changed from what the first Christians believed about the nature of God. Many of those changes occurred in the first few hundred years (Augustine seems to have been a principal agent of this change) and could be considered “Catholic” doctrine in that regard (and they are included in the creeds that Joseph was warned about in the First Vision). However, reformers like Luther and Calvin made this theology a focus as well, so it is also very much Protestant theology. The difference in the earliest Christians and the later ones is the difference in the nature of God. Is God the vengeful sovereign who demands our obedience and service in tribute to Them, or is God the loving, merciful Heavenly Parent(s) whose purpose is actually to serve us and bring about our own eternal life? I think Givens might argue that Joseph Smith believed more in the latter, and that the restoration is really a restoration of what the earliest Christians believed (before the creeds).

Just a comment about the Holy Spirit. My own experiences with the Holy Spirit seem to be much different than what seems to be generally taught among church members. I think part of that may be because many members let their own emotions/fear/guilt get in the way of the Holy Spirit and/or don’t really know what the Holy Spirit “feels” like. I’m not going to profess a perfect understanding of the Holy Spirit and Its interactions with humans, but I think it’s different than most members understand and has very little to do with emotion (or “burning” or “stupor”). Going back to the previous paragraph, would the loving Heavenly Parent God who want nothing more than for you to return to Them really abandon you in your time of most need? I don’t do this very often (I have done it a couple times in testimony from the pulpit though) but I wholeheartedly believe that Holy Spirit is only limited by us, and am I certain the Holy Spirit is not limited by razor wire and bars.

Is God the vengeful sovereign who demands our obedience and service in tribute to Him, or is God the loving, merciful Heavenly Parent(s) whose purpose is actually to serve us and bring about our own eternal life?

I think the answer to that one is another question, what kind of parent do we want to be?

That somewhat goes back to the OP and the questions.

If we are counseled, “Never shut the door of your hearts to your children,” why don’t we fear our Father will shut His?

I think you’re right, it does kind of fit in with what kind of parent we want to be but we also do generally have the power (and definitely not legally in this country) to be the vengeful sort of sovereign God. (For total clarity and giving appropriate credit, sovereign God is a term used by Givens.)