reply to is Christianity to fixated with salvation?
foundationist said:
This topic indirectly arose in another thread - so it would be interesting to see the responses from current and future members.
Is Christianity really too fixated Salvation? If so, why? Is it down to denominationalism, Church power and control, or simply a personal need on an individual level to feel vindicated in their beliefs and actions?
The entire salvation issue responds to a profound error in early shaman's minds. The earliest mythology had viewed the forces of nature as expressions of the gods. As these forces were often destructive, it was believed that the gods were angry. Some innovative mind along the way suggested that the angry gods could be appeased with blood sacrifice. And so we have the beginning of the history of propitiation, appeasement and all the other strains of salvation mythology. Add in here the idea of taboo breakers offending the gods which would develop into the religious idea of sin and you have the basis for salvation ideology which has been a huge money making venture for religions- see Jacquetta Hawkes, "The First Great Civilizations" for some interesting comment on how religion was the driving force behind early state formation and was also the economic engine of those early Mesapotamian(sp?) states.
Pfeiffer (I mentioned him in another post) and Campbell have suggested several fruitful lines of research to properly understand this entire salvation thing. One is that early mythmakers (shaman) underwent schizophrenic-like experiences of separation, descent into irrationality, and eventual return and healing. These men apparently projected the themes of their own experience outward into early mythology.
Now somewhere back in the dark mists of prehistory several notable mythical themes emerged. One was the idea of anger in the gods. Another was that of the separation of humanity from the gods (a Fall or people offending the gods by breaking taboos). Further strains of thought along this line included the removal of the gods up into the heavens to live at a distance and control people from their. All of this fed into later ideas of needing to placate the angry gods with sacrifice and restore ruptured relationships- salvation. More recently in history this has led to the Christian obsession with getting saved. Establishing a relationship with God.
But let me suggest that all this concern with salvation responds to the wrong question. It responds to a horrific error in early shamanistic minds. If ideas of separation from God arose out of those early schizophrenic experiences then the entire history of religious salvation is based on a misperception by men undergoing episodes of insanity. That error was passed along into zoroastrian theology which formed the foundational template for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christianity ina more intense manner than the other two Western religion developed and refined its ideology of salvation, based on ideas of sin, separation and the need to restore a broken relationship.
Most basic to this issue of salvation is the idea of a Fall or separation. The core fall myth in many cultures posits a separation of divinity as the result of early people breaking some taboo. In the Christian version of this common myth, death entered as a result of the taboo breaking. Consequently, God in a snit abandoned the curious people.
Now, Michael Morwood (author of Tommorrow's Catholic), among others, has noted that the sedimentary record clearly shows that death occured long before some innocents in an early Eden 'sinned'. This is evidence that there never was a time when death did not exist. Now think of the implications of this. There never was a separation of humanity from God, except in the insanity of early mythmakers. Hence, there is no need to appease God or restore some severed relationship. There is no need to invite God or Jesus into any life or heart. God never left. And he has never been angry with the human struggle to overcome its animal origins in order to live more humanely. In fact, this struggle of emerging humanity to progress toward a more humane future is the core manifestation of transcendence/God in the universe.
The true story of the universe is not about anger, separation, regression from early paradise, coming apocalyptic and restoration through destruction (nihilism in its truest sense). The universe story is about generally slow advance and progress, but is ever rising toward a better future. However people choose to express divinity in all this, it is necessary to recognize the error of early shamanistic thinking and take into account the true story of life which such disciplines as paleontology and evolutionary biology have given us the outlines of.
And if Campbell and Pfeiffer are right about early shaman then we need to re-evaluate all the history of Christian theologizing (note Paul's letters most prominently here) as a misquided detour that has devoted its energy and time to building a system based on an error that arose out of the nuttiness of early mythmakers. Let me be frank. It has all been a huge mistake. There never was a Fall. There is no need for salvation. This is the true good news that the tortured consciousness of humanity needs to hear.