It's Time I Was Straight With You...
Over the last threeish months, I’ve been on what I call a ‘slow burn.’ Little by little, I’ve been sharing pieces of myself… Slowly, I have pulled the curtain back to reveal my thinking and beliefs around spirituality, particularly Christianity.
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Since June, I’ve shared a spectrum of where most Christians fall on their views of the LGBTQIA+ community, Four Views On Christianity and the LGBTQIA+ Community. I have been open about the ways Buddhism is Helping me Rebuild my Christian Faith. Most recently, I’ve revealed how I understand two very different views of the gospel and Christianity and how I have moved from one perspective to another.
Taking months to unpack these ideas piece by piece is what I mean by a ‘slow burn.’ This has all been leading up to what I will share today. You see, I've had a stirring in my bones for about the last five years (probably closer to 7 years). Questions that I had but was too afraid to face about commonly held Christian beliefs.
Tied to those questions were inconsistencies, hypocritical behavior, toxic leadership, and unbelievable pain and grief that I experienced working within the heart of American Evangelicalism. I finally reached a point where I could no longer suppress my questions and look the other way. After approximately 18 months of reading, researching, digging, and running to my questions instead of away from them, I’ve come to three major conclusions.
- I am a Christian. I love Jesus and the God he shows us in a human form. But much of my beliefs about Jesus and God have changed.
- I am a nonliteralist Christian. By nonliteralist, I mean I do not think the Bible is literally the ‘words’ of God as if it were a divine product unlike any other piece of literature in human history.
- I am a nonexclusivist Christian. I’ll unpack this below, but briefly, I no longer believe Jesus or Christianity is the only way to be in a relationship with God.
There are far more implications regarding points two and three than I could unpack in a single article. However, I will give an overview of both.
What is a Nonliteralist?
Someone who is a literalist believes at least the following four statements about the Bible:
- The Bible is a divine product - The Bible is not a human product; it is inerrant, infallible, and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
- The Bible is, therefore, trustworthy and authoritative - Because it is seen as divine, it is entirely accurate in a literal sense and must be taken as the ultimate source of how to live and what to believe.
- The Bible is literally true - To clarify, whatever the Bible says happened is understood as really happening. There was literally a man named Adam who had a wife named Eve, and they were the first two human beings ever to walk the earth, and they used to live in a garden.
- The Bible is uniquely and exclusively true - Viewing the Bible in such a unique and exclusive position means only Christianity (specifically Christians who agree with all 4 of these statements) is true. Anyone of any faith who disagrees with these four statements is in need of the truth, lost, unrepentant, and choosing an eternity in hell.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with all four of these statements. 😬 As a result, several former friends, colleagues, and the always bright rays of sunshine that are internet trolls constantly remind me I am not truly a Christian. I respectfully disagree.
As a nonliteralist, what I believe about the Bible is:
- The Bible is a human product - The result of two ancient communities: Ancient Israel and the Early Christian Movement.
- The Bible is sacred - By sacred, I mean the Bible is the Holy Text of Christianity. As such, it enables those living in the Christian tradition today to experience and understand God because we can see how our ancestors experienced and responded to God.
- The Bible is true, but not literally true - I believe there are timeless and profound truths within the Bible. I also think those truths are there without unnecessarily adding the burden that the text is ‘historical fact.’ For example, Matthew and Luke tell two very different stories about the birth of Jesus. One has Jesus being born in Bethlehem after traveling there from Nazareth. The other gospel has Jesus’ parents already living in Bethlehem when he was born. One has wise men and no shepherds; the other has no wise men but shepherds. These are issues that Apologists have done mental gymnastics for decades trying to reconcile. I don’t have a problem with either author’s version because I believe the point they are trying to make is through Jesus, light has come into the world. They use language of awe and wonder to make the point that this man is unique.
- The Bible is neither uniquely nor exclusively true - This is the part where I’m going to lose, piss off, or disappoint some of you. The Bible is on the same level as other sacred texts such as the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas, Tripitaka, and the Mahayana Sutra.
There are virtually no nonliteralists in Evangelical or Fundamentalist churches. There are some nonliteralists within mainline denominations, but a significant number of mainliners still hold to a softer literalist view. I fully recognize I am in the minority of a minority in my thoughts of the Bible and other sacred texts, but this is where my convictions lie.
What Do I Mean By Nonexclusivist?
Stated plainly, by nonexclusivist, I mean that I believe God is known in religious traditions other than Christianity. For almost 30 years, I was taught that Jesus is the only way to salvation (I know John 14:6; don’t clobber me in the comments🙄 ). The Bible is God's unique and exclusive revelation; as a result, Christianity is the only way of salvation. I outright reject this now.
The only characteristic of God the Bible makes explicit is a part of the essence of God is that God is love. When I look at the life and ministry of Jesus, it is defined by his compassion, heart for justice (restorative and distributive, not retributive justice), and paradigm-shifting view of how God desires humanity to live.
Once you’ve seen and experienced God this way, you can’t unsee it. If God is a loving parent, God would never even fathom creating a place where God’s children will be punished and tortured forever. If God is truly compassionate, it makes perfect sense that God is more than willing and capable of meeting different people groups and cultures where they are and through ways these cultures can intimately know and understand.
At the heart of a nonexclusivist view is the belief that God’s compassion is more significant than we could imagine and that God is exceedingly more loving than our 8-pound brains and 12-ounce hearts can even begin to fathom.
To many, I’ve lost the plot or must be going through some midlife crisis. To others, I’m a threat, dangerous, and a heretic. This is who I am, and this is what I believe. So, in the words of my once hero Martin Luther';
“Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.”
I AM JAMES GÓMEZ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
