Table of Contents | Mystery is the earliest religious experience as well as the fountainhead of the development of religion. Mystery activates wonder and wonder seeks answers. Another impetus of religion is the need and desire for social order. Communities from the smallest to the largest develop rules for the safety and preservation of the community. Mortality is the next powerful impetus in the founding and growth of religion. Judaism is solidly anchored in history. It is not an other-worldly religion. There are Jews who believe in life after death but this isn't a central emphasis. It's emphasis is on what I call historical continuity or family and traditions. Historical immortality may properly describe it. Great significance was attached to ancestors and posterity. Places, names, memorials and celebrations characterize Jewish life. It lacks a thorough-going, fully developed notion of personal existence after death. Christianity has a very elaborate system of life beyond history. To be sure, it has no choice except to be speculative. However valid the hope may be, it is a no man's land. It lies outside of observation, research, verification and experience, unless hope qualifies as the experience. Christianity appeals to two basic features of human existence. One is the instinct to live and survive. The other is the desire to live and not die. No religion promises more than Christianity. Yet, all religions promise deliverance in one way or another from the fear of death and/or death itself. The Christian answer is by way of resurrection. Since resurrection lies outside our observation and experience, most Christians opt for immortality of the soul in preference to resurrection. Note the theory of the beginning of the soul when an egg and sperm are joined. This theory cancels out the need for resurrection. Funerals reinforce the notion of immortality. Is immortality an option? Is it a condition we can initiate? We know we cannot effect our own resurrection. It is easier to believe in immortality than resurrection. Resurrection is always in the future. Immortality is a condition one can claim for the present. The New Testament makes much of the Resurrection event and gives it as the model of our resurrection. The church learned very early that it is easier to believe in immortality of the human life than in resurrrection. Few, if any, believe in resurrection now. With all the emphasis on memorials, no one expects an immediate resurrection, especially not of the specific deceased. Christianity was soon to shift from resurrection to immortality. Very early, the Lord's Supper was billed as the medicine of immortality. Popular Christianity bypasses resurrection in preference for natural immortality. This is understandable even if it is erroneous. We all know we are powerless to raise ourselves from the dead. Mortality is written in our bones and viscera. So we take the more believable route, namely, that we are immortal. It has been a half a hundred years since I suggested the deceased had simply changed residences. I have attended many funerals, only to learn the deceased was happily situated, even pleading with the survivors not to be sad or grieved over their beloved. He or she was observing us from the lofty heights in a celebrative mood while the survivors grieved. Their condition is offered to assuage our pain and provide us with acceptance of our relative's death. How effective it is, is very difficult to determine. All of us know we do not want to surrender our hold on our existence. Even if there are exceptions to this rule, the rule holds firm. We do not go gently into that good night. Immortality as the option of choice is offered by popular Christianity. We know we do not want to die. We cannot know we want to live forever. Forever is an unknown and unknowable. But it has a strong appeal. After all is said and done, Christianity is another world religion. This world is not my home; I'm just a passing through. This is the promise and offer. This is a rather crude way to put it but it lies at the heart of being a Christian. This world and life are the hosting ground. It is where and when we decide our own destiny for good or ill. We are on a journey; the destiny is either/or. I don't know how attractive being a Christian would be without the promise and offer of living forever. Lewis E. Rhodes wrote this article some years ago in a series of personal reflections about the origins of religion. His family sent me a copy and I treasure his insight.
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