The December 2 entry for Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest
stood out to me when I read it, particularly one line: Chambers'
statement that "The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to be that God
is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum."
Why
should we strive to be holy, or, if you prefer, moral people? Is it so
that God can put us into a museum to showcase to others what God can do,
or to enable us to be inspiring examples to others? That may be a
reason, but I doubt that it's the only reason. It only pushes
the question back. So we're supposed to advertise to others what God
can do and live lives that inspire people to strive to be righteous and
holy. Why? So that they can be righteous and holy. But that only
brings us back to our original question: Why should people strive to be
righteous and holy?
I think that an obvious answer is that righteousness makes for an orderly world.
The world is a better place if people respect one another and live in
peace with each other, maybe even love one another-----for the world
would be a pretty cold place if people merely respected each other but
did not care how others were doing. Moreover, theistic
religions hold that it's important that we believe in a power greater
than ourselves, God, rather than seeing ourselves as the sum of all
things. A theme within Christianity is that the world got to be out of
whack on account of sin, and Christ came to earth to heal the world.
When we are holy and righteous, we are participating in the orderly
world that God is creating.
That should be good enough----that we
should do what's right because it's right and thus has positive
consequences. But there are people who believe that there's more to the
issue than that, that there are other reasons that we should cultivate
holiness and righteousness. I once heard a religious author interact with a question: What exactly is the Christian life preparing us for? When we practice for basketball (or, more accurately, when others
practice for basketball, since I'm not particularly athletic!), we're
preparing for a game in which we can use the skills that we are
practicing. Is the same true with the Christian life?
I suppose
that one can say that we're practicing morality so that we can meet the
greater moral challenges, the times when it's especially difficult to be
moral. There's wisdom to that. The answer of the religious author to
his own question, however, was that we're practicing love now so that
we'll be able to love people from different backgrounds in the new
heavens and the new earth, which Christ will set up after his return. I
once heard an Armstrongite preacher argue along similar lines, only he
used another apocalyptic example: he said that many Christians, during
the time of their eschatological persecution at the hands of the Beast,
will be in close quarters when God is protecting them. During that
time, they will have to love one another, otherwise how will they live with each other? It's kind of like what Jack said on LOST:
"Live together, die alone." That may explain why people who live in
the time of the end will need to be moral (depending on if you accept
that eschatological scenario), but not exactly why people who lived
before that time needed to be so.
But, overall, Armstrongites have
another explanation for why we need to build character: that we will
become god-like beings, part of the God Family, perhaps even ruling our
own planets. We're building character in order to be moral rulers, in
short. I wouldn't exactly phrase things in the extreme fashion
that Armstrongites do, but I agree with them that there is a New
Testament expectation that the saints will rule (II Timothy 2:12;
Revelation 20:6). Not just anybody can rule, for a person needs moral character to do so, lest he or she become a tyrant. Rulers need to be like Mufafsa in the Lion King,
sensitive to balance and the circle of life and what is good for the
community, rather than like Scar, who was out for power and did not care
for the community.
There are Armstrongites who tend to
look down on Christians who lack the expectation that the saints will
rule in the millennium and the new heavens and the new earth. These
Armstrongites characterize such Christians as people who think that God
regards people as pets rather than future rulers, who look forward to
sitting on a cloud with a harp, and who do not posit any real purpose for the Christian life. I can somewhat understand where these Armstrongites are coming from. I
am seriously doubtful that many Christians expect to be sitting on a
cloud playing a harp, but it does seem to me that a number of them lack a
belief that they will rule. Rather, my impression has been that they
present heaven and life after the resurrection as a time when they will
worship God and spend time with their families, friends, and loved
ones. I'm not against that, for I expect that, too, but, like
Armstrongites, I'd like for there to be more than that for us
in the time of eschatological hope----projects that we can work on,
unlimited possibilities, opportunities for us to put into practice our
knowledge and creativity, etc.
That doesn't mean that I
look down on Christians who lack this sort of hope, or feel that I can
learn nothing from them. For one, if they teach and practice
righteousness, then I can learn from them, for righteousness has
practical value in this life, in that it makes for an orderly society
and hopefully makes us into orderly individuals, rather than people who
are continually hitting our heads into brick walls and suffering bad
consequences from our action. Second, while the Bible does talk about
the saints ruling, my impression is that it does not seem to offer a
whole lot of specifics, or even to harp on the issue as much as
Armstrongites do. Consequently, I think that people who believe
that the saints will rule should be humble, not looking down on those
who lack this eschatological expectation. God has worked with and
through people who lack this hope, and my opinion is that God still does
so.