SATIRE: A Reason For Election (archived from newsletter, August 2007)

Let me give you a little background on the guy creating this newsletter: He was raised in a middle class family, attended a Wesleyan church, was enrolled and edukated in a Wesleyan school. I moved to the Bible Belt a year ago, and am now attending a non-Wesleyan, though very Arminian, church. I cannot bear Calvinist doctrines, though I do not call myself anti-Calvinist any more than I would call myself, as a Christian, anti-athiest. "Anti-" implies a response to something. I'm just naive enough to think that I could have come to my particular theological bent without ever having to refute Calvinism.

Lately, however, I've been thinking more and more about Unconditional Election. For those of you who are also theologically naive, or for those of you who have never read my essay on H.O.O.E.Y., Unconditional Election is the idea that God has handpicked a spiritual aristocracy to rule on who gets to Heaven and who doesn't. Some people are born for Heaven; some are born for Hell. I've come across dozens of reasons why God would work in such a fashion. Let me list a few reasons, with some commentary:

A. Election...So that those who get to go to Heaven feel extra special.
The reasoning behind this goes like this: If a teacher gave a piece of candy to every child in the class room, some would take it for granted. If she only gave it to a few, those would feel priviledged to recieve it. This ignores the fact that rewards are generally given to those who do well. Imagine your child coming home to tell you that the nasty old teacher gave out candy to some kids, but not yours. Would you tell them that that's okay because now some of those other kids feel better about getting candy? No. It's called favoritism and most people in civilized society know that it's wrong. More importantly, however, we're not just talking about a teacher that denies some kids candy. If we're honestl, we'll admit that we would also be talking about a Teacher that denies some kids candy, then lights them on fire. Forever.

B. Election...for God's pleasure.
In this country of ours, we have laws against parents who torture their children. In short, if we're supposed to be a Christian nation, and our Heavenly Father sends some of his children to burn forever, what right do we have to yell "foul" at those who do similar things to earthly children? I swear I'm getting to the satire part.

C. Election...because the alternative is "faith by works."
I won't take the time to explain this all here because I think I did it in a previous essay already, this month. But needless to say, "works" doesn't mean doing something, it indicates a pharisaical method of earning Heaven by holy rituals and good deeds.

All of these fall short, but while I was eating at Applebee's one Sunday afternoon, it dawned on me. The reason why we need election is so that we have heathens who will serve us our dinner on the Lord's Day, after the rest of us leave church. If, by some miracle of evangelism, all of the world was brought to the altar, where would we fellowship? Where else would we have the opportunity to leave Gospel tracts as tips?

Tonight, in an attempt to catch up to my current place in the Bible, I'm listing three more chapters from Romans (6-9). I hope you can gain something from them. Since my main point was to post this transcription of my notes, I won't say anymore. Here goes:

6:11-12 Being dead to sin is a command, not an automatic effect of being born-again.

7:10 Commandments which were meant to bring life, brough Paul death-by-resctriction, much like Adam.

8:1 No condemnation for those who are in Christ. The word "in" is indicative of a present condition, not a former one.

8:24 We hope for what we do not have, and for what is to come. We hope to be saved. The terms "salvation" and "saved" actually refer to our presence in Heaven, and is
different from being born-again, which is what we are here, on earth.

8:29 "Predestined," throughout the earliest years of Christianity, extending up until the 1600's, was never defined as being inalterable. It meant only that by being in Christ, our place was reserved in Heaven.

8:35 Nothing can separate us from Christ's love. In contradiction to those that believe in universal salvation, love is not equal to salvation.

9:10-12 culminate with Paul's quotation of Obediah 6, "Esau I hated."Throughout the Old Testament, various prophetic speakers used the terms Jacob and Esau to reference the kingdom/ethnic group that came from them.Obediah, specifically, is one of these. It had nothing to do with thebrother's themselves.

9:17 is referring to Pharaoh, is not considering the emperor's eternal destiny, but his lot in life. God raised him up, never spiritually, but in earthly matters. His destruction was an example of God's manipulation of governments, in order to bring about a specific future. Pharaoh, had he granted the Jews their freedom, could have watched them leave his gates and said to himself (and worse, to his kingdom) "Look at those Israelites. Their God didn't deliver them. If I weren't so merciful, they would still be our slaves." For this condition of his heart, God punished him by tying Pharaoh's irrespective attitude to his actions.

9:20 is an interesting passage in that it defies the axiom that no apocryphal books are quoted in the New Testament. This verse quotes directly from Wisdom 15:7 which, while sounding very much like Jeremiah 18:4, and maybe originating from it, has a different perspective. In context, the book is talking about those who, rather than make vessels, are creating idols. The following verse, 15:8, makes an additional comment that puts the blame for such a lewd creation on the maker of the idol. Unintentionally, the author has made a telling comment about the concept of election: if God has made a man evil, then God, the creator is to blame for it, not the creation.

9:19-21 end with another Old Testament quotation: Jeremiah 18:4. Prophetically, Jeremiah was expounding on God's plan to eventually include the Gentiles in his plan for reconciliation with God. Paul, a former Pharisee, would have known this and not taken the verse out of context.

9:30 and onward is Paul's anticipated answer to those who say that, because the Jews (as a whole) are not, in the end, the sole recipients of grace, then God's prophecies are void. Paul explains that the Jews who try to relate to God by the Law, rather than faith, are in unbelief and therefore, not righteous.

As a side note, I began reading Greathouse's book, From The Apostles to Wesley: Christian Perfection in Historical Perspective. Thus far, it's been extremely enlightening. Greathouse, former general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene, breaks down the definitions into explanations everyone can understand. He proves the pedigree of the doctrine of sanctification, throughout church history.

To continue with Romans 10-16, click HERE.