If you’re my age, you’ll remember the Flat Earth Society. It was a New Zealand off-shoot of a group in England that sincerely believed the earth was flat because the Bible said so. They had many scriptural references, including sayings of Jesus, and they considered the notion of a round planet to be the work of the devil.
After the first space flight, the Flat Earth Society quietly disappeared, and in new editions of the Bible, most flat earth statements became blurred or lost in translation.
But the ghost of the Flat Earth society still haunts Christian churches. We are still using language that suggests ‘layer cake’ theology, God and Heaven above, Satan and Hell below, and us somewhere in between.
This three-tiered structure is no longer credible. Beyond the gravitational pull of our planet, there is no ‘up’ or ‘down,’ yet our theology still speaks of God up there and us down here. We take literally, the Biblical metaphors of “descending into hell” and “ascending to heaven.” We have used teachings of reward in heaven and punishment in hell to ensure social order.
A survey in America showed that 60% of the population had left the religion they grew up with. For most, the reason was not external distraction but because people could no longer believe what they were being taught. The credibility gap was too wide.
We cannot live our faith backwards. If churches are trying to adhere to 2000 years old theology based on reward and punishment, they will die. This should be of concern to us all; but what can we do about it?
In Judaism there is a saying: Fix the old and do not block the new.
If we are to learn from that, how do we fix the old? We can read the Bible as parable rather than law, so that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through it. We can value the old theology as history, as we build the new on its foundations.
What will be the new that will replace the old vertical three-tiered structure? I believe it will be a lateral “heart” theology that sees God everywhere and in everything, a theology that recognises we all exist in God’s love. We will not try to limit God in man-made structures.
Our souls come from God and return to God. In our new theology, we will see that the old divisions caused by fear, belong to human thinking. In the expanse of God’s love, the only hell we might experience is on this earth, and we know God went through that before us, to show us the light of resurrection.
A faith that comes from God’s love is credible. It will live because it is the truth within us. Beliefs that come from human ideas about God are not credible. They will wither and die.
Isn’t it time we put the Flat Earth Society finally to rest?
- Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.
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