Christianity is a difficult subject for me on many levels.  I find it hard, for many reasons, to utterly abandon any notion of Christianity in my life–I am not a Christian, true, but Christianity’s roots are still very much a part of me.  I was raised Christian, and not in a fierce or fanatical way, but in a very deep way.  I think my recent study of Judaism has brought up many things in me regarding Christianity and Jesus.

For one, reading the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, the Torah, and so forth–I realize what the New Testament brought to the concept of God, at least for me.  The Old Testament is rather hard and cold–the Torah, though it is celebrated by the Jewish people in ways I have yet to understand, can be a very Commanding book, and very authoritative in a truly impersonal way.  Jesus and the Gospels brought a “closeness” and a warmth that the Old Testament doesn’t have, at least to me.  Of course, this warmth I speak of has also been used to create war and hate, but the uses of a Holy Text and the intentions of one are often very much at odds.

I find myself still trapped, perhaps, in the notion that the Old Testament just leads naturally to the New Testament–this is very ingrained in me, and while I have considered converting to Judaism because I admire so much the Jewish people, the intellectualism inherent in their culture and faith, I believe that this deeply rooted sense of the truth of Gospels will be hard for to shake–perhaps too hard.  The other problem I’ve felt lately with Judaism, is while they do not believe in Hell, there is still the notion of the “chosen” people.  And I think as a convert, I’d never really be considered “one of the group” as it were, and least not in the way I would want.  So there’s another form of exclusivity that turns me off–not Hell, but rather Life in general.  As much as I admire the Jewish people, I think I would always feel like an outsider–even if I was a well-liked, well-treated outsider.

So back to Christianity–I guess as I explore my spirituality I don’t want to limit the outcome.  I could never experience Christianity the way my parents do, or the way I once did as a child.  But there are good examples of Christians whose practices and belief appeal to me.  My mother-in-law is a good example.  Hers is a very personal, inward sort of faith.  I like that.  That’s one of the things I admire and respect most about her.  I also have read a little about Quakerism–and that also is something that is quasi-Christian but very different from the way I learned the religion.  There is something very appealing about Quakerism in its abandonment of clergy and mediators, in its mystical approach toward connecting with God.

Also, there is the notion of allegorical faith.  Many modernists believe in the allegorical qualities of the bible, unlike Evangelicals who believe it word for word.  Nevertheless, many modernists still accept that Jesus is the “son” of God; they believe in a place called Hell–and in the necessary “salvation” from this Hell.

The only way I think I could ever accept Christianity–perhaps the way that I do accept it–is with an interpretation that moves beyond the modernist/liberal views.  I think Jesus is a fine role-model, with a great deal of wisdom to offer, and a strong moral code to follow–and viewing him as the allegorical son of God is one way I think I can be at ease with the whole Jesus concept.  Nothing really proves that he wasn’t using metaphor when he spoke of himself as the son of God.  After all, most of what Jesus taught was in parable format–the use of extended metaphors was basically his very own Socratic method.

Regarding Hell, too, I think it’s important to think of this concept from within an allegorical framework.  First of all, most modern publications of the Bible no longer include references to Hell.  The Old Testament does not–so it is only sensible that the New Testament, birthed out of the Old, would not either.  Rather, the King James and earlier interpretations latched on to the very Greco-Roman concept of Hades, and translated that into Hell.  The notion of salvation, then, was also transformed.  Initially it simply meant closeness to God.  Jews believed in a very personal relationship with God.  There were many old, outdated ways (sacrifices) that they could make to apologize for doing bad things.  Here it is important to recall that Jesus was Jewish, though a very unorthodox Jew to be sure!  I think Jesus was simply trying to “modernize” or perhaps simplify the process, saying that all you need to do is believe to be “saved.”  This of course was later twisted into salvation from a Hell that had prior never been a part of either the Jewish religion or the message of Jesus.  Salvation was simply getting back in God’s graces.  There was no threat of Hell.  I believe there is no threat of Hell–only a life without God, or distant from God.  Salvation is, to me at least, simply a path to God and spiritual contentment.

So, to me, the only way I could accept Christianity is to view Jesus as a messenger who personalized the relationship with humankind and God–and used allegory and extended metaphor to describe our relationship to God as a very personal, even familial one.  Hell was a later invention, used to strike fear into the hearts of the unbeliever and “transgressor” and to make the concept of salvation more desperate, more essential, than it was ever intended to be.  Jesus was a reformer, trying to cast out old outdated methods of reaching closeness to God–his biggest enemies were the High Priests and the Tax Collectors, after all….

In this sense, I can see myself calling myself a Christian–one who believes in a close, personal, and individual relationship with God; one who doesn’t believe in the exclusivity of one man or one faith over the other (recall the Good Samaritan); and one who  disbelieves utterly in the concept or notion of a Hell that we need to be saved from–salvation, to me, is a deeply personal  thing, an awakening of our own inner spirituality  and our own  inner connection to God.