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?

Ephesians



1:1 Simply put, "saints" are those who are faithful in Christ.


1:4 [paraphrase] God chose mankind , before creating us, to be innocent, which we were, until Adam and Eve disobeyed.


1:5 [paraphrase] Out of love, he planned for us to be adopted through Christ.


1:4-5 Verses 4 and 5, taken together, show the chronological plan of God, how he created us perfect, but we disobeyed. He then provided a second way throgh Christ. The use of the word blameless in verse4 is significant, for before manking gained knowledge of good and evil, we were not accountable, but blameless and innocent. Verse 13 would contradict 4 and 5 if it meant that we were handpicked, because that verse puts the burden on belief.

1:13, 14 At rebirth, the Holy Spirit becomes a seal upon our soul. As long as we do not quench or blaspheme the Spirit, He remains our guarantee of salvation. The Greek word used here is that which refers to a wax seal. It takes little imagination to invent a way to tear off a bit of wax. As such, this word can hardly mean that the Holy Spirit, our seal, protects against forfeiting one's salvation. Rather, a wax seal is an indicator that the package is unopened and uncompromised. A seal allows us to know that we're saved, but it certainly does not keep us that way.

2:3 The term "sinful nature" is also rendered simply as "our flesh" indicating that in some translations, the words sin and flesh/carnality are used interchangably, though this is somewhar inaccurate.

2:8 It is by grace that we are saved, but grace comes by faith, and as Galatians 3:2, 5, and 6 show, it is not a work as some theologies suggest.

3:3 Again, Paul speaks of a personal revelation.

3:7 The grace that Paul speaks of is the revelation he recieved.