Salvation for All

A piece of wisdom from the Buddhist tradition has captured my imagination.  The saying goes, "No one will enter Nirvana until everyone can enter Nirvana."  What impresses me about this statement is that an enlightened and compassionate soul would choose to forgo bliss and re-enter the karmic cycle of suffering and rebirth for the sake of others.  Can you hear how that resonates with the story of  Jesus, who chose to enter the cycle of birth, suffering and death to free creation from alienation from God so we could all be restored to God's presence?

American Christian's have a history of presenting salvation as an individualistic concern.  I stand in tension with this tradition, because I am convinced that salvation is a collective and cosmic concern.  In other words, no one is saved until everyone is saved.  Or, I don't want to be saved if others are left behind. 

The "left behind" language is intentional.  In May, the media were sucked into the false drama of the alleged rapture.  The sick theology of the cult which pandered this prediction seemed entirely comfortable with the mass of humanity consigned to genocidal suffering and extermination.  To my horror, it seems that folks who were expecting to be raptured could live comfortably with the suffering of those left behind.  Salvation did not seem to include a heart expanded to the breadth of God's compassion but rather it did include a heart that seemed to relish God's punishment of others.

What I find painfully ironic is that while we were preoccupied  by this silliness a more healthy theology would have us asking, "What about the folks who are being left behind every day?"  By that I mean all who are left behind economically and educationally, all who are left behind in the prison system, all who are left behind nutritionally and with sub-standard housing and health care. The moment in the story of the Ascension of Jesus when the angels ask "Why are you standing around staring into the heavens?"  seems to be a healthy rejoinder to the rapture rubbernecking that distracts from the real draw of the Gospel toward the whole of society and creation.

It is interesting to me that many of the folks who hoped for the rapture seemed to be anticipating relief from being left behind economically.  In interviews, I heard many of the hopeful talk about debt of all kinds and what a relief it would be to be free of that debt.  Indeed it would be a relief.   We need to be responsive to this pain and suffering while we tell an alternative story of what salvation means.

Salvation for all would entail a wholly other set of motivations and concerns.  While 'individualistic salvation' accords easily with social fragmentation and the total war of self-interested rivalry between citizens seeking scarce resources (the "winner take all" mentality that fuels much behavior), a 'collective salvation' perspective would be concerned, indeed highly motivated, for the health and well-being of all. Collective Salvation seems to model a better representation of God's compassion as we know it in Jesus.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Evangelical "personal relationship,"  "personal salvation"  and "prosperity Gospel" language have dominated American Christianity over the last 30 years as both Republican and Democratic administrations have withdrawn support from the social safety net and assailed the common good for the sake of a massive transfer of wealth to the top .1% of the population.  Our challenge is to assert a countervailing vision of mutual concern and the common good and to intentionally invest in trust building relationships which build community from the grass-roots up.