In Christ alone Part 2

  I think our whole understanding of salvation is flawed because of our emphasis on ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ over ‘love’ and ‘grace’. We have turned the whole gospel story into a rehash of Noah’s Ark with all of humanity dangling over a pit of fire and only a small number who can be saved by climbing aboard a boat, which in this case is the church. 
If that is our idea of “good news” then it’s a pretty hard sell. But I believe that is a fundamental misreading of the role of the church. It should not be viewed as a boat to collect up all the lost souls and save them from drowning or burning in hell. Rather, it is God’s outreach station to the rest of the world. Joining the church should not be seen as the end goal, but just the beginning. Rather than seeing it as crossing a finishing line, I got my ticket to heaven and now I can relax…. How about seeing it as God’s version of the Peace Corps and now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work spreading God’s love and grace to the rest of the world?
But back to our current reality…. It’s understandable that people would recoil from the hardline exclusionist doctrine with horrifying visions of infant damnation, but when you still insist on maintaining the idea that God’s default is to send everyone to hell unless they ace their correct dogma belief test then efforts to carve out exceptions inevitably creates more problems. For example, if we are going to say that the unborn and babies are exceptions, then we have to determine where the cutoff is. Where do you draw the line? What age is the point where your protection from God’s wrath is withdrawn and you become susceptible to the ‘believe in me or else’ rule? And if we set an age limit… 12? 14? 16? 18? 21? …. what is to prevent tragic situations where a mother decides to kill all of her children before they reach that age so that she can guarantee they will go to heaven? I mean why risk having them get older and tempted to do something bad and then end up in eternal hell? Even if it means she sacrifices herself to a hellish fate, who could blame her?
Or what about people who never heard the gospel? Do they get an exception? And if so, then does presenting them with the gospel just risk their damnation if they don’t immediately accept it? How is any of this supposed to be good news?
It’s not. That’s why I think there is more to the story than this. 

Augustine’s emphasis on the sins of the first Adam over the saving act of the second Adam is a key problem. I think we can see the results of that in the church today where we treat Original Sin as something that is much more powerful than the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. How so? Consider that original sin infects everyone regardless. No one gets a choice in the matter. You are just born with it and it is very difficult to get rid of. It envelops and blankets the entire world and sends 69% of the world population straight to Hell - according to Augustine. By comparison, Jesus’ saving act of grace on the cross is very weak and ineffectual. It does not apply to everyone automatically. You first have to jump through a series of hoops and “believe” in the correct dogma. In some cases you have to get baptized and confess your sins and belong to the correct church. And unlike original sin which is nearly impossible to get rid of it is easy to lose your salvation by doing something wrong later in life and failing to seek forgiveness or sanctification.
Original Sin is the iceberg that sank the Titanic while Jesus’ sacrifice is the lifeboat that only held a handful of people. At least, that is how we look at it today if we are being honest.