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Sunday, April 24, 2005

A face that haunts me... 
I pulled a couple of biographies of Anne Frank off the shelves today, which always gets me in a bit of a black mood. What a phenomenal literary light she was on her way to being! - only to be snuffed out by tyranny at the age of 16. I first read her diaries when I was 10. I don't know if I told you this, but I carried her picture with me when I was overseas, and kept a copy of Tales from the Secret Annex in an aviator's kit bag next to my rack.

Every once in a while, she slips into my dreams like a haunting shadow - a reminder of how fortunate we all are, and how fleeting and precious life is. And when she's on my mind as she has been, for some reason, for the last few days, I'm filled with a sort of restlessness of spirit - as if I must slay some sort of dragon which is beyond my reach. In 2003, I had an outlet. I could slay the dragon of tyrrany, sadism, and oppression in Iraq.

Now I write financial newsletters. Not quite the same manful adrenaline fix.

I remember speaking with the battalion chaplain, in Jordan, one day in the spring of 2003. I was teaching him how to play the pennywhistle, using a hymnal as a guide. The talk turned to theology and our struggle to know God. Basically, I told him what my central problem with Christianity as we know it was, and why I did not consider myself a Christian in the same sense that most people understand the term in the modern era:

I can understand how God can allow evil to happen in this world, because in order for goodness to mean anything, man must retain free will, and with it the capacity to do wrong -- even monstrous wrongs. And I can accept the idea that Christ died for our sins. But if God's mercy is infinite, then Christ could not have died for the Christians alone, but for all of us.

There are two postulates to the ontological proof of the existence of God.

1.) God is that entity nothing beyond which can be concieved, by definition.
2.) A God which exists is greater than a God which doesn't exist.

As a corollary to that idea, I had to believe that if God's mercy only extended to those who had specifically embraced Christ, and others left out, well, I could concieve of a God who's mercy is greater than that. So if (1.) is true, then a God whose mercy embraces only Christians cannot be God, because God must be great beyond conception.

And the example I used, familiar to us both, of someone who possessed a deep-seated grace of spirit dwarfing that of anyone I've ever known, and who was surely deserving of God's infinite grace herself, was Anne Frank. If there was a Hell, she got her quota at Auschwitz and at Bergen Belsen, along with so many others.

I cannot imagine and cannot accept a theology which posits a God who does not embrace all of His children in their suffering. God is greater than that. God is greater than any conception of Him any of us can ever have.

Comments:
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
 
Well said, Tim. Grace is proferred to all, but must be accepted for it to be of use. So Jesus in fact did die for everyone, including Hitler and the very people who put Anne Frank to death. The same offer of grace was available to all of them, if only they would accept it.

Since God's grace is His to give, we cannot know where He has bestowed it. I can only vouch for myself that I have accepted that grace. Others may profess to accepting it as well, but only they and God know for sure. In the same way, only God knows who He will give mercy to in the end. God loves all of His children, even the disobedient ones, and He wants them all to come back to Him. I would hate to speak for God, but I suspect that he dispenses mercy more freely than we know.
 
Yeah, I'm aware of the idea that all of us fall short of the glory of God, and are therefore not worthy of His mercy.

I don't quite buy it. Indeed, I don't think you can square the idea with another idea that says we have natural, God-given, inalienable rights.

We are all created in His image. We all have the right to fundamental human dignity. I think God makes His own decisions regarding mercy and punishment. Yes, we are held accountable based on what we know.

Anne Frank was a reasonably well-read child. I would have to assume she was at least passingly familiar with basic Christian doctrines, and someone, somewhere along the line, probably told her "Anne, Christians believe that Jesus was crucified as an atonement for all the sins of the world, and all anyone has to do is open their hearts to Jesus and accept that sacrifice and all is hunky-dory."

Ok, maybe. But that was obviously not enough to convince Anne Frank, who did not run out and start up the local Jews for Jesus franchise. So Anne is condemned for some schlub's poor salesmanship?

No.

Really, isn't it fundamentally arrogant and prideful for Christians to presume to know that that is the only way the Lord shall cut His children any slack?

You won't find such presumption in Jewish theology. Really, I think any theology that condemns Anne Frank and so many others like her all over again, say, for embracing Judaism in love in the face of adversity, has a hole in its heart.

I must believe that God's table is bigger than that.

Or at least God has a card table set up in the basement for the kids.
 
I think you misunderstood me. God will let anyone into Heaven He wants to. Nobody knows who gets in, or under what circumstances. I'm with you, I think God has a kid's table, and I believe that there will be a lot more people at it than I can imagine. Not only children, who may not have reached the age of accountability, but soldiers who are cut down in their prime, perhaps before they can accept grace, or others taken in service of their fellow men. Remember, Jesus said that there is no greater love than laying down your life for your friends. Anyone who says they know for sure whether someone else is saved is a fool, a liar, or both. I only know for sure about me. Jesus said that everyone had to come through Him to get to the Father. The only way to be 100% sure is to accept Him beforehand. After that, it's up to Him.
 
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