Sure Of What We Hope For

Image text: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." Image source.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1

"And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." - 1 Corinthians 15:14

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." - Matthew 6:10

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

"Ex-evangelical Christian feminist. White American living in China. I believe in resurrection." - subtitle of this blog

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I want to write about resurrection.

I've been thinking about Hebrews 11:1, and this idea keeps floating around in my head, that perhaps the way to think about resurrection is to believe that it's true, but remember that it's a belief, it's something we hope is true, not something we can really know- but still, to live like it's true. I feel that that's the right way to view it, but I can't quite pin down why, exactly. So let's analyze it. Let's analyze all the possibilities.

And, by the way, when I use the word "resurrection" or talk about the concept of "believing in resurrection", what I mean is, basically, heaven. Like, after we die, there's a perfect world where all the wrongs are made right. I prefer to use the word "resurrection" instead of "heaven" because I grew up evangelical, and "heaven" has a certain feel to it that I'm intentionally trying to avoid. Like, this place which is just nice and there are clouds and you worship God. When I call it "resurrection" instead, it's because I'm trying to get at this idea of powerful, radical transformation, everything is made new, every valley raised up and mountain made low, a new heaven and a new earth, where there is real justice, where He will wipe every tear from their eyes. And I call it "resurrection" because I want to connect it with the Resurrection of Jesus. He was the first- and we will all be resurrected like Him.

Is it good or bad to believe in resurrection? Does the answer depend on whether or not resurrection is real? Yes, surely must depend on that. Perhaps we should list the matrix of possibilities- do we believe or not, and is it real or not- and figure out what the best-case scenario is. 

Perhaps the simplest place to start is here: Surely if resurrection is real, that's a better outcome than if resurrection is not real. (Ah, it occurs to me that I'm very much oversimplifying this... I seem to be only considering 2 options: resurrection vs a naturalistic/atheistic view where you're just gone after you die. There are definitely other possibilities, like reincarnation, or maybe some different variety of heaven which follows different rules than the one I believe in. So yes, I am oversimplifying this- and I would be interested to see if someone has done a similar analysis on other possibilities besides the 2 that are on my mind.) If resurrection is real, that's good news, right? Well, wait. It's not good news for everyone. My view of resurrection includes a judgment. Justice. 

So for people who spent their time on this earth exploiting their employees, making them work unpaid overtime... "the wages you have failed to pay your workers are crying out against you." Yikes. At the resurrection, you don't want to be the guy standing before God telling Them about the innovative new ways you found to make money by ignoring worker protection laws. (The term I use for this practice of "not fairly paying people who work for you" is "living in sin.") Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Jesus. At the resurrection, justice is not going to be a nice thing for everyone.

Okay, so perhaps we need to add another dimension to our matrix, for whether or not you are trying to make this world- the world we live in now, the world that we know is real- a better place. Or, alternatively, if you are just trying to make a good life for yourself, and you don't care how it affects everyone else/ you don't care about using up the earth's finite resources and how that will continue to affect the world even after you die. Because, I would say, if resurrection is real and justice is real, those are the things that people will be judged on. (If you need a bible reference for that, I give you Matthew 25:31-46, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where Jesus teaches us that the criteria to get into heaven are: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me." If you wanna come at me with accusations of "that's works-based!" better take it up with Jesus first.)

So, what are our options? Well the dimensions we have to consider are these:

1. Is resurrection/judgment real or not?
2. Do we believe in resurrection or not?
3. And how are we living our lives? Is our priority ourselves, or what's good for the world overall? Ah, at this point I realize my idea of writing out a chart with all the possibilities is not going to work, because this dimension can't be reduced to a binary. (ie, it's more complicated than just "some people are selfish, some people are compassionate.")

And furthermore, when we determine the result of each of these scenarios, it's not necessarily straightforward to sort them into what's a "good" outcome and what's a "bad" outcome. Good for who? For yourself? For the world overall? If someone's life on earth is terrible but then they go to heaven, do we count that as a "good" outcome? Like how do we weigh this life against the afterlife, in order to evaluate if an outcome is good or bad?

Let me give you an example.

Let's imagine a person, we'll call them Person A. They live a fairly privileged life- they have a good job and never have to worry about having enough money for their basic needs. They feel compassion towards people who are in need, and so they donate money to various charities. They don't really know how to do more than that. Person A feels sad about people in the world who are the victims of injustice, but they reassure themself that there is resurrection after death, and all those wrongs will be made right. 

If resurrection is real, does that mean all is good here, with Person A's choices? Are we letting Person A off the hook too easily by saying "oh at the resurrection all those wrongs will be made right, so it's okay that you didn't do more to help people during your time on earth"? 

Okay, how about this example: We have Person B and Person C, and they are activists working together in some movement with the goal of righting specific wrongs in the world. Person B believes in resurrection, and so they believe that the sacrifices they make in this life will be rewarded. And so they continue to work hard to make other people's lives better, even though the cost/risk for themself is high. Person C does not believe in resurrection, and so they believe that this life is our only chance to make the world better. And so they continue to work hard too, just like Person B.

(See, in every religion- and also atheism- there are people who want to do good, and so they find inspiration in their religious beliefs for doing good. And there are people who want to gain power for themselves and control other people's lives, and they also find justification for that in their religion.)

Let's also introduce Person D, who believes in resurrection and judgment, and therefore believes that they have to devote every resource they possibly can to fighting for a better world. Person D always thinks about Jesus at the judgment, asking how Person D kept money in a savings account when there is always someone in the world in need, who could have used that money. This is terrible for Person D's mental health, and eventually the stress of always putting others first causes them to burn out.

If we said "we're letting Person A off the hook too easily"- does that mean that Person A should become more like Person D? I don't think it's good to be Person D. Feeling guilty about having anything more than the bare minimum.

And then we have Person E, a white American Christian who makes the argument "slavery was actually a good thing because a lot of African slaves converted to Christianity, so they go to heaven, which is way more important than anything that happened during their time on earth." Person E's belief in resurrection does actual harm in this world. When I was evangelical, I never went as far as Person E here, but I did believe "people's spiritual needs are more important than physical needs" and "social justice is a distraction from the gospel" and other evangelical talking points along those lines. Although, these ideas don't apply to the type of resurrection I believe in now. Back then, I believed that going to heaven or hell was based on whether you were "saved" (ie, whether you believed specific facts about Jesus). But now I believe it's based on what you did. If you wanna fight about that, like I said, first you better go ask Jesus what he was talking about in Matthew 25.

So yeah... I mean, when I started this, I thought I was gonna get a nice 2x2 matrix like Pascal's wager, but actually it's much more complicated than that. Believing or not believing in resurrection can motivate people in many different directions.

(And also I'm not a fan of Pascal's wager. It doesn't account for the very big ways in which belief/unbelief affect people's lives in this world. Pascal's wager tries to make the argument "might as well believe in God, just in case" but the reality is that following a god will require you to do a bunch of things, and those are things you have to really consider. They're not just trivial things you do "just in case" it's true.)

But I come back to Hebrews 11:1 again- "Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see." I hope resurrection is real. I believe it. I can't be sure, but I feel like there's something good about living like I'm sure.

At the same time, though, it feels to me like there's something good in not being 100% sure. If we were really 100% sure that heaven was real, wouldn't we just kill ourselves? I want to hold on to this life, in case it's all there is. Make this world better, in case it's the only one we have. Do our best here, and still have that hope that all the problems we couldn't fix will be finally fixed someday.

So to know it's a hope, it's a belief- but to live like I'm sure. I feel that's the right way to see it, even though I wasn't able to make a giant chart that leads to this conclusion. (This is my opinion, but obviously other people come to different conclusions, and that's fine.)

And also, here's something interesting: Reading through the examples of faith in Hebrews 11, I see they all had faith in something bigger than themselves. That this life isn't all there is. But, actually, you don't even need religion, to believe "this life isn't all there is." An atheist who lives their life in a way that makes a better world for people who come after them- they won't be there to see the good that comes of it, and yet they still believe that that good is worth doing. The belief that other things matter beyond your own life. 

Maybe the easiest example is a parent who knows that they would give their life for their child if necessary. You know that your child's life is more important than your own life. You believe the sacrifices you make for your child are worth it, even though you're not receiving rewards for it. In other words, you believe "this life isn't all there is." Or, I could phrase it as "things that happen outside of my lifetime, which I will never personally see or experience, are important to me." It doesn't have to be a religious belief at all. 

An interesting thing about the parent/child example, though: You're willing to give your life for your child because you love them. It's not because you thought your way through a philosophical argument about "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" or anything like that. And my questions about the extent to which I'm morally obligated to give up my own resources/money/etc to right the wrongs of the world are very much in that "logical", emotion-free philosophical space. Isn't it interesting, though, that the causes people get really really involved in are the things that have affected them personally, or affected their family members personally. Love will motivate you to make sacrifices much more than logic can.

So when I'm talking about "believing in resurrection", I mean believing that we literally go to heaven after we die. But that is only a subset of the "this life isn't all there is" ideology. It's possible to believe "this life isn't all there is" (by which I mean, "I care about things that take place beyond my lifetime and never affect me") without believing in any gods or religions at all.

In fact, there are probably some atheists that argue that people who work to make the world better while not believing in resurrection are morally better than people who work to make the world better who do believe in resurrection. Because, the argument goes, you should do good because it's inherently a good thing to do, not because you want the reward and/or you want to avoid hell. I have to say I don't really agree with this argument, because I believe in counting the cost, and I don't believe it's always good to put others first and yourself last. I don't think there's something inherently good about being unaffected by the prospect of getting a reward.

Like, I don't mean you should be like "I don't care about people at all, but I have to do a minimum required number of good deeds or else I won't be rewarded in heaven." Obviously that's a bad perspective to have. I mean it more like, "I am taking a HUGE risk fighting against the powers-that-be, which terrifies me, but at least I know that God sees this and it will matter somehow, someday."

Martin Luther King Jr said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe it's true on this earth, somehow, eventually, if we work for it. And then ultimately this is fulfilled at the resurrection.

And also I want to talk about the resurrection of Jesus.

Yeah, so, I believe Jesus literally was raised from the dead. I've been thinking about this as I think about the concept of resurrection- and also thinking about some tweets from a few years ago... There was a kerfluffle on Twitter related to progressive Christians/ ex-evangelical Christians who don't believe Jesus' resurrection literally happened.

I saw a tweet from an ex-evangelical Christian, that said something like "I guess I missed the memo that when we leave evangelicalism we're not supposed to believe in a literal resurrection any more? I still believe in it." Yeah, that's basically where I stand.

Like, I actually believe if you rewind time 2000 years, you'll see Him get up and walk out of that tomb. The other evangelical beliefs I abandoned because of ethical reasons- for example, I don't believe "prayer works" because the logical conclusion of that is that you need to work yourself into a constant state of anxiety praying for every single thing you can think of, or else it's YOUR FAULT if something bad happens. I can't ethically follow a God who operates that way. But the resurrection of Jesus doesn't lead to ethical issues like that (in my view, at least). It's more like... science issues. Which I'm not concerned about because was just a one-time event, and ... like, miracles by definition have "science issues" because God is intervening to do things that are so rare that science hasn't had a chance to study them and determine what laws are at work.

And speaking of "science issues": If you're expecting an apologetics argument here, intended to convince you to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, I'm sorry to disappoint. If someone were to ask me, "Why do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus?" I would say "... because I'm a Christian?"

I will say, though, I'm very curious about Christians who don't believe Jesus literally resurrected. Like, what do you do about Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15? I'm not asking this in an evangelical proof-text kind of way, like "HA! I have a bible verse therefore I am automatically right." I am asking because I agree with Paul's logic about why we need to believe in the resurrection, and I want to know how, specifically, the logic would shake out differently for Christians who don't believe Jesus literally resurrected.

Though actually, Paul's argument goes in a slightly different order than mine. His logic is like:

1. Some people are saying there is no resurrection (heaven)
2. If there is no resurrection (heaven), then not even Christ has been raised (empty tomb)
3. If Christ has not been raised, then our whole religion is pointless

Whereas the question I'm asking is more like this:

1. Apparently some Christians don't believe Jesus was literally raised from the dead (empty tomb)
2. If Christ has not been raised (empty tomb), then we won't be raised either (heaven)
3. So... what is this religion about then...? Like what's the difference between that and a world where there is no god?

(Important note: This is not an argument that the resurrection is true. It's an argument that it doesn't make sense to be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection. If someone was trying to argue "well the resurrection must be real because if it's not then Christians are all just wasting their time, and that would be bad" then no, that doesn't follow logically; that is not a sound argument.)

So yeah, I'm genuinely curious about Christians who don't believe there was a literal empty tomb. Feel free to leave a comment if you have some thoughts or links about this.

And I'm not saying this to get approval from evangelicals. Omg, LOL, yeah no chance of that. The idea that Perfect Number is gonna write "I believe Jesus was literally resurrected" and then evangelical Christians are going to be like "ah then yes she is a real Christian," LOLOLOL of course that's not going to happen. I know that's not going to happen, because, how shall I put this... because I'm queer?

Anyway, this post is my attempt to write down my thoughts on resurrection. I feel I've touched on everything but don't have a strong conclusion besides "I believe in resurrection." 

Oh, also...

There are some questions that I think should be further explored: If we don't believe in resurrection, and we believe this life is the only chance we have to make the world better, does that add urgency to our efforts to right the wrongs of the world, and is that urgency a good/important thing? Is believing in resurrection more likely to be a problem because it tells us it's okay to be complacent and accept injustice in this world? Or is it more likely to be a good thing because someone who worked so hard and sacrificed so much but still sees injustice happening can reassure themself that it's okay to rest a little and care about their own mental health, and God will finish the work at the resurrection? 

If heaven is eternal and infinitely good, then how do we avoid the conclusion that what happens on this earth doesn't matter? I 100% oppose any ideology that tries to tell you not to care about bad things happening on earth because it's nothing compared to the goodness of heaven- but am I being illogical about that, if I actually do believe in heaven? 

And I've kind of given myself a logical loophole for the "if heaven is real, then what we do on earth doesn't matter" by saying that what we do on earth is the criteria used to judge us and determine what kind of experience we will have in heaven. But, isn't that just kind of arbitrary? If God decided on some other criteria (for example, "getting saved", ie, having specific religious beliefs) then is the logical conclusion "what we do on earth doesn't matter" inescapable? I'm not really comfortable with how arbitrary it feels that we just solve the problem by saying doing good/bad on earth is the criteria for judgment in heaven.

If resurrection is not real, does it still somehow benefit the world if people believe in it (for example, by making people more willing to make sacrifices for the good of others, because they believe God will appreciate it at the resurrection)?

Also, in this post I've mostly addressed the question of whether belief in resurrection motivates people to do good in this world or not. But another important function of belief in resurrection is giving people comfort when someone dies. This should be analyzed too. Is this good or bad? 

And, is resurrection just a nice story that humans have made up over and over again throughout history because death is too scary?

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Related:

Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter)

Someday Dave Ramsey will have to stand before God and explain why he fired a pregnant woman

I Deserve God's Love

"The Author of Leviticus Would Have Been Cool With It" 

Honest Advent: Incarnation