In or Out….or?

It was 36 actual degrees with a north breeze this morning…April 21st!  I still met Dale, my workout buddy for a walk at Tower Park. As I was leaving I headed to drop some stuff off at Goodwill.  I passed by a church with the sign out front welcoming a couple by name to membership.  It was a church (maybe not THAT specific church) that used to believe if you were not one of them, you were hell bent, at least some of the most conservative ‘fellowships’ did. They also didn’t take to the term ‘denomination’.  The honest truth is, many of us ‘churched’ folks were raised to believe the same thing.  If you weren’t one of us…you were headed down (where someone had figured out long ago that hell was).  So even within the same faith group—Christian—there is a hierarchy…those that were IN—us, and those that were not—them.  Then also, ever since Martin Luther we’ve had the Catholics vs the Protestants.  Someone has said, we protestants never stopped protesting to the point of almost 30,000 denominations.  

Beyond that, we’ve got the other faith groups of which I will just stick to the big three who ironically worship the same God—Christian, Jewish and Muslim.  So many if not most wars throughout the history of mankind have started over religious differences.  Even Saint Francis—my favorite of Saints—felt to be complete he had to go on a crusade to fight the Muslims in the holy land. (Factoid: other than Jesus, there is more written about St. Francis than anybody else). Every country who has gone to war had God on their side…or so they thought.  

So it seems, there has always been an ‘IN’ and an ‘OUT’ (not the great hamburger).  It’s been about making sure you are on the up side…not the down.  But as I’ve aged—and I hope matured some, my thinking regarding all this has shifted.  You’ve likely heard the joke about meeting St. Peter (another favorite) in heaven who cautions to speak quietly because that group over there thinks they are the only ones here.  Of course that is presuming all are Christians ‘up’ there.  There’s going to be even bigger surprises where St. Peter just may say, “you might better sit down for this one Mike.”

At lunch with Millard Reed a few years ago he said something that he thought might shock me.  Millard, who pastored First Nazarene in Nashville and was President of Trevecca University, was my pastor/friend/early mentor.  I always reminded him at times I would bless him, other times curse him for bringing us to Nashville in 1975 (it’s 95% blessing him).  At that lunch he put is hand on my forearm, leaned in and quietly said, “Mike, I believe in the end everyone will be ‘saved’. Does that frighten you that I think that?”  I assured him not since I was right there with him. 

I can’t begin tell you how all may/will work out.  No one really can from the other side.  You may think that in thinking that Millard and I are headed down. As Mark Lowery jokingly said, “I need hell for Hitler and mother!”  I think the same with some of the sociopaths and psychopaths I see murdering, raping and destroying…could we keep a little dark room for these really evil ones? Maybe the Catholics were closer with the idea of purgatory.  I read a book a few years ago where two nuns had agreed that whoever went first would try and communicate back from wherever—‘heaven’.  The one that passed on first supposedly did. She said she was working in a ‘half-way’ house or remedial school for those who didn’t ‘get it’ while here on earth…the Love=God.  Maybe that’s how it works in the end that all are ‘IN’.  

What I do know is that the loving God I’ve spent these last few decades with has never strayed from pursuing, loving, forgiving and gracing my life with Presence.  His consistency is amazing…not that I haven’t wandered at times. 

I don’t begin to say I’ve got it figured out…but that sign today prompted me to think again about those who are ‘IN’ and those not.  We’ve had several years of division and polarization.  Seems there would be much less of that if in the end, everyone gets there…wherever ‘there’ is.  I know some theologians will never eliminate hell…but others do present another view…which I now adhere to.  

Millard is gone on.  Maybe I need to pray to him to send me a message because he now very likely knows whether he was right or wrong. 

In the mean time, I’m heading soon to an In-N-Out down in Fort Worth for a burger.