There is No This-Worldly Christianity in Heaven

2/27/2024

Christians need to be much more wary than many are, of the danger of pride that results from a - primarily - this-worldly attitude - an attitude that places our-selves and human institutions as the priority; when the reality is that Christ's Kingdom is Not of this-world.

-- Bruce Charlton, This Worldly Pride of Some Christians

The excerpt above — taken from this post (read the whole thing) — sparked the following thought:

The choice to enter Heaven after death also depends greatly on a Christian’s ability or willingness to “let go of” this-worldly Christianity.

Heaven renders this-worldly Christianity unnecessary. Heaven is not liberation and salvation in the world but from the world, implying that this-worldly Christianity is one of the things we would need to be liberated and saved from after death.

What is this-worldly Christianity?

Berdyaev offers an interesting insight:

Full acceptance of the truth of the Gospel, consent to its actual realization, would lead to the destruction of the states, civilizations, societies organized according to the laws of this world - to the end of this world which in every way is opposite to the Gospel Truth:

therefore men and nations have corrected the Gospel, filled it with 'truths' of this world which were really pragmatic, because they were false and adapted to falsehood.

The inability of this-worldly Christianity to realize Gospel Truth is not a denigration of this-worldly Christianity. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder that there are clear and definite limits to this-worldly Christianity, limits we must be able to recognize and acknowledge when the time comes.

Whatever benefits (if any) we may have derived from this-worldly Christianity will have served their purposes and will no longer be needed.

This world was not created for the actual realization of Gospel Truth. The realization of Gospel Truth required Heaven, the Second Creation of Jesus.

Heaven is not and cannot be organized according to the laws of this world. As such, it cannot support anything that insists on being organized or committed to the laws and truths of this world.

The laws and truths of this world, pragmatic though they may be, have no place in Heaven. The same applies to the laws and truths of this-worldly Christianity.

12 Comments

Anti-Gnostic

3/3/2024 23:56:23

The problem is we live and breed in this world, not some other world, so we--ourselves and our descendants--have to learn and transmit the laws of living. Telling people that God's Creation is wholly corrupted and irredeemable (so why did God create it?) is against every healthy human instinct. Just become a Shaker and go extinct. And come to think of it, most Christians aren't reproducing themselves at all, and will not show up for the future.

Francis Berger

3/4/2024 12:23:07

@ Anti-Gnostic - You're locked in a mode of thinking that only you can get yourself out of, but that requires revisiting what "healthy human instinct", "future", and "this world" mean. Same goes for assumptions concerning why God created the world and, more significantly, the creation of Heaven.

3/4/2024 14:44:50

"Healthy human instincts" have a ready and merciless crucible: the natural world, and the instincts that result in grandchildren win. As far as the "future" and the metaphysics of "this world," much less "Heaven," my speculation is as valid as yours. And on the latter points again, Apocalyptic and eremitic revelations have come and gone before, and Christians still find themselves in a world they have to survive and attempt to thrive in (because nobody, even the most devout monastic, is content with mere survival, at which point there are simply not enough calories or leisure to devote to metaphysics).

Ingemar

3/4/2024 17:10:31

The problem is that formerly Christian man quickly and gladly gave up next-worldly and are no better for it--I mean, here you are, a member of the professional caste and top .5% income earners (on a global scale) and you are consumed with nihilism.

What good is it to produce grandchildren if you can't provide those grandchildren a reason to be alive?

3/5/2024 04:45:37

"top .5% income earners (on a global scale) "

Hilarious. Who do you think I am?

"you are consumed with nihilism."

What is the nihilistic part?

You presume a lot, friend-o.

3/5/2024 14:09:13

The income earning part is by virtue of being American. Over a decade ago, I as underpaid Lab rat--comparing my income to the rest of the world--made enough to be part of the top 7%. You, a lawyer, would certainty rank higher but OK--maybe .5% is an exaggeration.

The nihilism part is your whole schtick. You constantly post about how Christianity is useless without a strongman regime propping it up, and now that the strongest geopolitical actors* no longer do so, Christianity is in freefall. Therefore, Christianity is worthless and anyone who purports belief is either naive or a cynical manipulator.

So if Christianity is false, why not construct a man-centered, man-affirming ethos? You already know why--White Western Man, the pinnacle of human achievement, attempted this starting the two centuries ago and now has entered a state of irreversible decline. There is no higher way to return to, as it was measured by this selfsame White Western Man and found wanting.

*Putin is the favorite counterexample here, but I believe his use of the ROC is cynical like Stalin during WW2

3/4/2024 16:50:50

@ Anti-Gnostic - Speculations are one thing; metaphysical assumptions are another thing entirely.

You've previously referred to the afterlife as "hypothetical." I think most modern Christians hold the same view. I posit that there is where the crux of all the problems you cite resides.

3/4/2024 17:19:46

@ Ingemar - Are you replying to me or AG?

3/4/2024 17:22:36

AG.

3/4/2024 17:56:49

Thanks for the clarification, Ingemar.

NLR

3/4/2024 18:54:36

Human beings are both spiritual and material. It has often been theorized that it is possible to live purely by one or the other, but no one can actually do it in practice.

Some of the most spiritual people who have lived, still constructed their material circumstances in such a way that was conducive to their lives. Likewise, we've had around a century of various attempts in various ways to live purely by expediency and these have all failed according to their own criteria - by not, in fact, being expedient in the long term.

3/4/2024 19:51:34

@ NLR - Yes, human beings are both material and spiritual, but I'm sure you will agree that the material is merely a subset of the spiritual. The latter must drive the former; not the other way around. Otherwise, "being in" supersedes "not being of."

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There is No This-Worldly Christianity in Heaven

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