Sometimes fear blows onto your doorstep.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a piece of paper had blown onto the path near my office’s back door. The only word I could read was REPENT!
Intrigued, I could not tell if it was for me or not. But I could not help but walk outside and pick it up. Wiping off an ant and some dirt, I noticed it was a two-sided handout from a church calling itself “The Gathering of Christ Church.”
The handout listed their beliefs. Honestly, I found some of them disturbing. They were adamant that “Heaven’s Door is Closing,” so repent now.
Interestingly, they listed several scriptures to support each point. But just as interestingly, there was no mention of grace or mercy anywhere in the pamphlet. There was nothing about loving neighbors, serving the vulnerable, or participating in God’s healing work in the world. It spoke far more about escaping punishment than participating in God’s redemption of the world.
There was a description of hell and an image of hands reaching up from the flames. Honestly, I felt a bit spiritually bruised just reading through it. I was reminded of the caricature of the Christian faith often presented in media.
And I was reminded that being theologically correct should not make us biblically lazy.
As faithful followers of Jesus, we need to know the scriptures and their meaning. We need more than random Bible verses. We need theological formation. We need communities of belonging that teach us not only what scripture says, but how to read it through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Almost anyone can assemble a frightening collection of verses. Fear, shame, and condemnation are easy. But scaring people is not the Bible’s intent.
The center of the Gospel is not, as the pamphlet asserted, that “Heaven’s door is closing.”
The center of the Gospel is that in Jesus Christ, God’s door has been opened.
Pamphlets with pretend answers only work when followers of Jesus do not study the scriptures that give them life. Christians are not called to be gullible. We are called to be discerning.
In the Wesleyan tradition, scripture is interpreted through the character of Jesus Christ, the witness of the church, reason, and lived experience. So any version of Christianity that forgets mercy, grace, compassion, and transformation may quote cherry-picked scripture, but it no longer sounds much like God’s letter of love to humanity.
I eventually threw the pamphlet away.
But I kept thinking about the people who might read it while already afraid, lonely, ashamed, or uncertain. And it made my heart heavy for them.
Fear can produce compliance for a moment.
But only grace can reliably produce transformation for a lifetime.
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