Since my last post dealt with the teachings of Jesus, I thought I'd follow up by discussing what is, for me, the biggest problem with the standard interpretation of Christianity. (At least, this interpretation has historically been standard, though as readers have noted in the comments thread, there have been doctrinal changes in some churches in recent years.)
The problem is summed up by John 14:6, one of the most famous passages in the New Testament:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (New American Standard translation)
As interpreted by most conventional authorities, the meaning is quite simple. If you haven't accepted Jesus, salvation is not yours. The gates of heaven are shut to you. You are bound for hell or, maybe, purgatory. Case closed.
Now, it's pretty obvious that nothing could be more unfair than this dictate. To see why, let's take the case of White Feather, a Native American whom I just made up.
White Feather lived in what is now Colorado, sometime around 1000 A.D., long before the coming of European settlers to North America. He lived a good life. He was kind to his wife and children, brave in defending his home, hard-working and honest. He sought higher spiritual truths, discussing the mysteries of life with tribal elders and medicine men. He always did what he thought was right, even at the cost of his own comfort or convenience.
But of course he never accepted Jesus. How could he? He never heard of Jesus. The name was never so much as whispered to him. He worshiped the spirits of his tribe, the only deities he knew.
What happened to good old White Feather when he died? Well, if John 14:6 is taken literally, he certainly didn't go to heaven. He couldn't come to the Father through the Son, because the Son was entirely unknown to him.
The best White Feather could hope for was an eternity in purgatory – that is, limbo. Through absolutely no fault of his own, but something more in the nature of a cosmic bureaucratic oversight, this very good man is eternally denied the happiness granted to even rather ordinary Christians.
I think that even our normal human sense of fairness rebels at this outcome, and we ought to assume that God's sense of fairness is infinitely more refined than our own. How, then, can God stand for such a state of affairs?
Well, we're told, God works in mysterious ways and ours is not to question, only to believe. But this is hardly a satisfactory answer, and I doubt it would be any more satisfactory to White Feather, currently cooling his heels in purgatory (or being pitchforked eternally in the nether regions – and we all know how painful a pitchfork in the nether regions can be).
Generations of Christian missionaries have gone out into the world to save other White Feathers from this purported fate. In their zeal to see that the "heathens" and "pagans" escape perdition, they have trampled over native cultures and, in some cases (though not all), cooperated with those Europeans who were enslaving and exploiting the natives. And why? Because of John 14:6 – "No one comes to the Father but through Me."
A tenet so grossly unfair, which has had such historically tragic consequences, constitutes – to me – an insuperable objection to traditional Christianity. I can't see how anyone would feel that God's treatment of White Feather was morally acceptable.
Now, there are ways around this problem, but they involve departing from the historical orthodoxy. One way is simply to deny that Jesus ever said the words attributed to him in John 14:6. This is not too hard a position to maintain. The Gospel of John is generally thought to be have been written later than the three synoptic gospels, and to be less historically reliable. (This is not to say that the synoptic gospels are generally reliable either; that's a separate question.) Much of John consists of long monologues delivered by Jesus to his disciples, which appear to be John's own musings on the deeper meaning of Jesus' ministry – John's thoughts, not Jesus'. Also, I would personally prefer to believe that the real Jesus did not castigate his fellow Jews as sons of the devil, as John's Jesus does in a notorious passage (John 8:44) that has inspired much anti-Semitism.
It is quite possible, then – and I think very likely - that John 14:6 is the author's invention, meant to express his personal understanding of Jesus' mission and importance, rather than something Jesus said himself.
Even if one rejects this argument, there is a way of interpreting the passage in a more tolerant light. The interpretation is that here Jesus was speaking not as himself but as the voice of Cosmic Consciousness, in which case the meaning would be: "Cosmic Consciousness is the way, the truth, and the light; no one comes to the Godhead except through Cosmic Consciousness." This may in fact have been what John (or Jesus) was trying to get at with those words. John is the most mystical of the four canonical gospel authors, the one who starts his story, "In the beginning was the Word …" It would be quite like him to see Jesus as mainly an incarnation of, and spokesman for, Cosmic Consciousness.
If this interpretation is correct, then the problem disappears. There is nothing to prevent White Feather or anyone else from experiencing Cosmic Consciousness at some point in his (premortem or postmortem) existence. The road to God – and heaven – is then open to anyone whose mind has expanded sufficiently to "see the light" … not the light of Jesus specifically, but of Cosmic Consciousness, regardless of its cultural trappings.
But while this interpretation rescues John 14:6 from the charge of monstrous unfairness, it also takes us somewhat afield from traditional Christianity, which insisted and, in large part, continues to insist that Jesus really said it and meant it quite literally: Either you accept him personally or you'll be cast into the outer darkness.
As long as much of Christianity continues to endorse this reading, it will face resistance from those of us who think the White Feathers of the world deserve better.
(Post updated and retitled on December 20 to reflect some concerns raised in the thread.)