Are You Saved?

Has another Christian — probably an Evangelical — ever asked you, “are you saved?”

Sometimes conversing with other Christians makes me more uncomfortable than any other kind of human interaction. Invariably the small differences in our theology seem large in the context of our mutual love of Jesus. At some point in talking with an Evangelical brother or sister, I know I will inevitably get the question, “are you saved?” That simple question points to two larger divisions around the universality of our faith: the meaning of salvation and Christian exclusivity.

The meaning of salvation is a topic far beyond the scope of a blog post, an entire blog, an entire book and thus has been debated for over 2,000 years. I don’t intend to explain it all here, just to share what I might share colloquially with an Evangelical friend.

Pretend for a moment that you are my daughter or son. When I became your father, I fell in love with you long before you were born. It’s not something I can explain to someone who hasn’t become a father — you just have to experience that sense of love, commitment and loyalty first hand. Reading about parental love without experiencing it is a little like reading about Jazz; it doesn’t make any sense until you hear it played out. As your father, there is nothing you could do that would stop me from loving you or wanting the best for you in all possible occasions. I will always want you by my side and will work to have you near me with or without your cooperation, so deep is my love for you.

My real-life son happens to be a terrific tennis player and devotes five or six days a week to becoming a better tennis athlete. I know he enjoys it and it is a major part of his identity. I’m proud of him because of the commitment he’s shown to his passion. But if one day he came to me and told me it was all a lie, that he’d only devoted himself to tennis because he thought that was what I wanted and he desperately needed to prove that he deserved my love, it would break my heart. I’d immediately tell him that I love him quite permanently no matter what he chose to do. There is nothing he could or couldn’t do that would change my love for him. My love is free. I would hope my confession of love would erase his doubts so that he could truly pursue whatever made him the best him he could be without worrying about my love and support. In a sense, it would be salvific to be freed to live his own life in authenticity. What saves my son in this story is not that he earned my love through some action he took. What saved him was hearing that he already has and will always have my love.

I think that is a really close analogy to how Jesus saves us. God loved us before we ever were and will always love us. Salvation is learning that we’re already saved. The point is not that we are doomed to eternal Hell if we don’t follow the right secret handshakes. The point is that we risk falling into a living Hell if we forget that God loves us no matter what. The biggest point of the resurrection is to remind us that God loves us and has our back. We don’t have to sacrifice our humanity because of fear or greed or even threat of death. Rome can kill us; God will raise us. So go live your life and free others to do the same. Shalom.

Turn that analogy around into what sounds to me to be a common Evangelical salvation story. Imagine a father who would doom his child before ever being born. That child would immediately live a kind of emotional slavery and damnation. If only that father could just lure that wretched little baby away from their total depravity, then there could be a happy ending to this tragic story. Fortunately, the father provided an exact rubber-stamped formula that earns the father’s love and gets that baby back into his good graces. If the child cannot conform to that formula, well tough luck. I mean, I know it wasn’t their choice to be born in the first place, but if they don’t pass the father’s arcane test then it’s onto the fiery trash heap for them. No one would confuse this story with good parenting. So why would we think that’s what God’s salvation is about?

Do I personally believe in Heaven and Hell? I don’t know, mainly because I don’t believe that Jesus spent a lot of time worrying about it, either. If it didn’t worry Jesus, it doesn’t worry me. I’m not here to argue either side about the many mansions in my Father’s house or the bosom of Abraham. I just know that I can trust God in my life today, so I can trust God in my death. Does that make me a universalist? An agnostic? A heretic? I’ll spend my time worrying about what Jesus asked me to do, because those things are hard enough: feeding, clothing, visiting, giving — there’s work to be done right here, Christians.

Long ago, the world stole the words around salvation and turned them into tools for subjugation and control. Salvation had to include Hell and Heaven or the world powers couldn’t tell us how to be good Roman citizens. They couldn’t tell us what to wear or eat. They couldn’t oppress women or other races without Heaven or Hell. They couldn’t compel us to enforce their imperial and colonial vision without heaven and hell to keep us in line. And so God’s salvation was turned on its head and became Roman (or British or American) oppression. You know why? Because deep down we all know better. They had to come up with something so scary and awesome that it would shake us out of our own spiritual common sense. You can’t have a bunch of colonial subjects running around believing that Jesus truly made them free, because that would be chaos.

That’s why it’s still so important to some people to believe that Christianity is the only real religion. It comforts those who still subscribe to the dominant colonial franchise view of the world. It helps assert white, European privilege over other cultures. If other cultures and religions are equally salvific and relevant, then what is the point of American exceptionalism? Oh yeah, I guess it’s just greed then? Perhaps the question for American Evangelicals shouldn’t be, “are you saved,” but, “how do you sleep at night?”

To extend the father metaphor out, let’s talk about your mother for a second and why I married her. I married her because I was then and forever after madly in love with her and cannot imagine myself without her. My very definition of myself includes her. So it is with Jesus. I am nothing without my inescapable love of Jesus. Someone else may not want to marry my wife or anyone similar and they can continue to be my friend and I wish them the best in their own marriage. I don’t need to tell them what to do to know who I am. Who I am in my life with Jesus and your mother is already pretty great and it requires no further explanation or justification. Your life and spouse are the same.

So when your Evangelical friend asks you, “are you saved,” you should feel free to say, “yes.” I was saved as part of God’s plan for me. I was saved in the resurrection of Christ by being liberated from slavery to the world of sin. I am still being saved because I often forget that God loves me when I start to focus on some of the crappier things I do with my life. And I will be saved in God’s grace and glory because whatever God has in store for me after death is more than I deserve. Then move onto to more important topics like environmental stewardship, nonviolence and economic justice.