Barbara Walters special on heaven
December 22, 2005
I don’t know how many saw the Barbara Walters special on heaven the other night. Judging from what I can find on the blogosphere, it would be about zero. I can’t find anyone in the evangelical blogs who wrote about it. That’s ok, no one missed much. I’m not a fan of Barbara; her politics and her beliefs are night and day different than mine, so watching was a bit of a struggle.
Nevertheless, Traci and I sat down and watched part of the show. We wanted to see what other religions had to say about heaven, how to get there, and how Barbara handled the subject. No matter what she tried to do, Barbara’s belief system came out loud and clear. Her interview with Ted Haggard, pastor of a church in Colorado Springs, and the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, was the very revealing. She prefaced one of her questions by saying, “you’re an intelligent man”, then went on to ask how he could believe that Jesus was the only way to heaven. Her meaning? How could an intelligent person believe such a thing, your belief system is only for morons?
One reviewer wrote (Brian Lowry in Variety) “Evangelical Ted Haggard, for example, states flatly that accepting Jesus is "a guarantee for eternal life" and that everyone who doesn't is going to hell. This isn't a new aspect of the evangelical movement, but it's always a trifle jarring to see someone with such a pleasant demeanor cheerfully sentence every nonbeliever, regardless of their good works, to everlasting damnation.”
Two points need to be made. First, if anyone knew anything about Ted Haggard, they would know that he would never “cheerfully sentence” anyone to hell. He is blatantly evangelistic; his church works hard to minister to those who do not yet know Christ. I have no doubt that his heart bleeds for those who are unbelievers. He, like most Christians, would not “cheerfully” wish or condemn anyone to hell. We do all we can to give them the free gift of eternal life, found through Jesus Christ.
The second point has to do with the phrase, “their good works”. In other words, I can go to heaven because I’m a good guy, I do good things, and I deserve it. Do you notice anything about the last sentence? The word “I”. Good works are all about me, and my deserving heaven. Lowry declared who his god was: himself.
Ted did an excellent job in a difficult position. Many Americans, like Barbara Walters and Brian Lowry, do not want to believe there are absolutes, or that we’ll be held accountable for our actions, or that our actions will be woefully short of heaven. Their belief seems to be that God is this wonderful grandfather type in heaven who really doesn’t care what we do, as long as we’re nice and good. Of course, no one can ever define nice or good, or how nice or how good we need to be to get into heaven.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6).” There isn’t any way around that Scripture, unless you choose to not believe the Scriptures at all. God doesn’t indiscriminately throw people in hell. Everyone has a choice as to what god they want to serve. The Bible says "men are without excuse" (Romans 1:20.
Barbara’s beginning statistic that 90% of Americans believe in heaven was quite interesting. That decision on how to get to heaven rests with you and me, though. Will we try to get to heaven on our own, through our good deeds, or will we realize our good deeds are never going to be enough, and we are in need of a Savior? All the other religions Barbara dealt with had a common theme: doing good works will get them into heaven. Christianity says, you’ll never get there on your own, Christ has made a way. The choice is yours and mine. Barbara chose to ignore that.
I’ll deal more with Unity and how our church is attaining to that later.
I don’t know how many saw the Barbara Walters special on heaven the other night. Judging from what I can find on the blogosphere, it would be about zero. I can’t find anyone in the evangelical blogs who wrote about it. That’s ok, no one missed much. I’m not a fan of Barbara; her politics and her beliefs are night and day different than mine, so watching was a bit of a struggle.
Nevertheless, Traci and I sat down and watched part of the show. We wanted to see what other religions had to say about heaven, how to get there, and how Barbara handled the subject. No matter what she tried to do, Barbara’s belief system came out loud and clear. Her interview with Ted Haggard, pastor of a church in Colorado Springs, and the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, was the very revealing. She prefaced one of her questions by saying, “you’re an intelligent man”, then went on to ask how he could believe that Jesus was the only way to heaven. Her meaning? How could an intelligent person believe such a thing, your belief system is only for morons?
One reviewer wrote (Brian Lowry in Variety) “Evangelical Ted Haggard, for example, states flatly that accepting Jesus is "a guarantee for eternal life" and that everyone who doesn't is going to hell. This isn't a new aspect of the evangelical movement, but it's always a trifle jarring to see someone with such a pleasant demeanor cheerfully sentence every nonbeliever, regardless of their good works, to everlasting damnation.”
Two points need to be made. First, if anyone knew anything about Ted Haggard, they would know that he would never “cheerfully sentence” anyone to hell. He is blatantly evangelistic; his church works hard to minister to those who do not yet know Christ. I have no doubt that his heart bleeds for those who are unbelievers. He, like most Christians, would not “cheerfully” wish or condemn anyone to hell. We do all we can to give them the free gift of eternal life, found through Jesus Christ.
The second point has to do with the phrase, “their good works”. In other words, I can go to heaven because I’m a good guy, I do good things, and I deserve it. Do you notice anything about the last sentence? The word “I”. Good works are all about me, and my deserving heaven. Lowry declared who his god was: himself.
Ted did an excellent job in a difficult position. Many Americans, like Barbara Walters and Brian Lowry, do not want to believe there are absolutes, or that we’ll be held accountable for our actions, or that our actions will be woefully short of heaven. Their belief seems to be that God is this wonderful grandfather type in heaven who really doesn’t care what we do, as long as we’re nice and good. Of course, no one can ever define nice or good, or how nice or how good we need to be to get into heaven.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6).” There isn’t any way around that Scripture, unless you choose to not believe the Scriptures at all. God doesn’t indiscriminately throw people in hell. Everyone has a choice as to what god they want to serve. The Bible says "men are without excuse" (Romans 1:20.
Barbara’s beginning statistic that 90% of Americans believe in heaven was quite interesting. That decision on how to get to heaven rests with you and me, though. Will we try to get to heaven on our own, through our good deeds, or will we realize our good deeds are never going to be enough, and we are in need of a Savior? All the other religions Barbara dealt with had a common theme: doing good works will get them into heaven. Christianity says, you’ll never get there on your own, Christ has made a way. The choice is yours and mine. Barbara chose to ignore that.
I’ll deal more with Unity and how our church is attaining to that later.
posted by kansasscott @ 3:52 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:04 PM,
Anonymous said…
I saw the special, Pastor Scott and I agree with your comments on Ted Haggard. He did, indeed, do a terrific job of stating his position. Brian Lowry has misquoted Ted Haggard in his comment. Ted Haggard did not in ANY WAY say that anyone who did not accept Jesus would go to hell. He specifically did not answer that comment and instead said that Jesus was the only "guarantee". I thought that answer was filled with wisdom and gentleness. He did an amazing job. I know I would not have been as well spoken. Interesting about good works.... if we each define good I'm sure that our definitions would be drastically different. We recently had a student that we worked with in our last school who was a former drug dealer. He told me that he had been a drug dealer, but he was a "good person." I don't know ANYONE who would define themselves as bad. Why can't people see that there HAS to be absolutes and that there are loving but logical limits to what we do because God loves us enough to apply them. OOh I am writing a novel now... Blessings to you this holiday season.
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