In the 1960’s there was a movement or cultural conversation or idea that “God is Dead.”  The idea was that God was no longer necessary, that humanity was no longer mesmerized and hypnotized by the magic the Church had been using as an incantation to keep people in line and giving money.  That’s perhaps hyperbole, but it’s fairly accurate of what was going on.  It was the modernist movement sharpened to a fine point.  Superstitious belief was just not convincing when we could split atoms and pretty much destroy all life on earth ourselves.  Oddly, you’d think that having that capacity might make you want to make God even more real, but that’s not what happened. 

Though the theist/deist/God/Yahweh/Jesus/Allah vs. atheism debate continues, but to a degree, for many people, the notion that God is Dead seems to have passed on into some sort of cultural dumpster.  The idea of God still has a place in many people’s thinking, but for a lot of folk, that’s as far as it goes.  The idea that God is real is more of a hedge-the-bet sort of belief, just in order to not offend The Big Guy in the Sky.  For others the idea of God being there is a comfort, though how God is there and just how everything fits together is a mystery and not something they feel is necessary to try to understand. 

And then you have the Church-folk, who are probably a continuum from hot-on-fire-have-it-all-laid-out types to those who are the just-barely-sticking-their-toes-in-the-front-door-of-organized-religion types.  For so many of the Church, as well as outside of the Church, I wonder if the idea that God was dead was really more of a certain-theological-emphases-are-no-longer-relevant issue.  In particular, I’m wondering if the notion of salvation as it has been understood and popularized is something that has lost its appeal for the vast numbers of people—the idea that Jesus has made a way into a heavenly afterlife for those who will accept him as Lord, as the Son of God, as Savior?  I wonder if the notion of a heavenly afterlife is all that important to people who see so much that needs attention on this side of the six-foot hole in the ground? 

For whatever reason, it seems the sales line isn’t working anymore and the advertising team needs to work on a better marketing model.  I say that tongue-in-cheek, but my point is, perhaps the idea of salvation has been too narrowly defined as only an after-life concept and benefit. 

The idea of after-life as the primary focus of the message of scripture is relatively minor.  That’s not to say it has no place, but that there’s much more to salvation than what most people—in the Church or not—know about or consider.  If the Church is solely focused on salvation as an afterlife benefit, then we’re missing a huge part of the party.

Throughout scripture the idea of salvation is a holistic concept that is about our daily, corporeal life—the flesh and blood, the caught-in-time-and-space-and-all-that-implies life, the socially-and-politically-and-vocationally-and-relationally-and-everything-else-relevant life. 

Embracing salvation as entirely an afterlife concept is like buying a car because it has great resale value and then never driving it.  Salvation isn’t a life insurance policy that is only needed when the event of death takes place, it’s more of a citizenship and identity that is always a part of who you are and how you live. 

The wholeness and peace concept are the best way to understand the relevance of salvation in daily life.  To experience and lean into life with gratitude and a sense of adventure rather than feeling like you’ve been forced to ride a rollercoaster you didn’t want to ride. 

I think that Jesus is much more interested in making the life God created and established for us to live to be real.  Imagine going snowboarding and Jesus is excited to get on the slopes and at the bottom of a run grinning from ear to ear and saying “Whoa! That was incredible!” or going with you to work and as you’re approaching the guy who’s always so cynical and critical of others you say “oh no” and then Jesus puts his arm around you and quietly says “he was mistreated by his father when he was a kid and he has a huge hole in his heart; he really needs a friend” and you realize that you’ve processed some of your own family-of-origin stuff and your heart really goes out to the guy—even if he is a jerk; or Jesus going with you to the inner city to work in a community garden and getting pumped when a kid from the neighborhood gets a glimmer of something beyond the harsh, dead-end life that he’s experienced—all because you’re there, armed with your wholeness/peace/salvation and able to be friendly and generous and genuinely interested in the kid instead of dismissing him or adding his scalp to your come-to-Jesus speech; or Jesus watching a romantic sit-com with you and at the end you look over and he has watery eyes.   

It seems that if that’s the reality of salvation, then death is nothing more than a change of address—as has been popularized as a way of describing someone of faith who has died.  Death is just moving to the stands and cheering on the team on the field, as the author of Hebrews put it with the words “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses...”

Frankly, if the wholeness, peace, life-makes-more-sense definition of salvation is more appealing to me, I figure it’s going to connect with others who have the idea that Christians are a lot of judgmental off-worlders.  And if it does, great!  If it doesn’t, then it certainly is making my days better than they were when I was the center of attention and instead of wholeness, my life was fragmented. 

I’m not canceling my subscription to the afterlife, in truth, when I have moments of incredible bliss here and now—giddy-to-the-tips-of-my-toes-scalp-tingling bliss—then I can’t even begin to imagine what’s in store for us.  And that makes me all the more thankful and ambitious about leaning into my salvation however I can in the here and now. 

There’s more to say about the nature of salvation, but I’ll save that for another post.

© Stephen Carl