Into the Wardrobe

Quite frivolously: if the choice were between tyranyy and Unitarianism, I'd definitely choose the latter, if only because of the reason why Unitarian hymn-singing is so poor i.e. the congregation is always reading the next line to see whether they agree with it (told me by a Unitarian form Ohio).

I want to take a new tack on the idea of goodness. Salinor has suggested that to Yahwists good equals mighty. Now I want to suggest that the real problem is almost the opposite and that is that to most people Yahwist or not good equals conformity. a few years ago someone asked me what I thought life was all about and I suggested 'being good' and he was horrified. I think the reason for this reaction, and it is not an uncommon one, is this relationship between being good and doing as your told. If we tell a child to be good that is what we usually mean. As a teenager I remember making the same conection and rejecting goodness for that reason.

Now whatever else the reformation was about it was not about conformity. There is a lovely line in Luther's table talk where he says that the Bible says very little about obvious sins like harlotry which even the world recognises as sin but says far more about those spiritual sins which cry themselves up as righteousness and go by the name of decency, honesty and respectability. 'Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen' Woodie Guthrie and Martin Luther would have understood each other.

Now what you get in the Bible is very often people in the name of Yahweh rebelling against the status quo against 'goodness'. I think it's probably no coincidence that the greatest sustained treatise on the question 'What is good?' The Republic ends up advocating totalitarianism. That is where goodness leads us.

Is the God of the Bible good? Not in every sense of the word. In scripture declarations of God's goodness always have a covenental context. To say God is good means God will keep his end of the bargain he's made. There is no suggestion of some vague universal goodness where God is nice to everyone. God's goodness consists in conforming to the deal he has made.

I don't believe Jesus became man to make Christianity more appealing, but became man because it was necessary for atonement. Neither did he come to teach messages that would bring the warm fuzzies of goodness to our hearts. A radical and a reformer he was. His ideas were that of eternal salvation through him, which is much more powerful than a finite happiness in this life.

That is not to say that we don't hold to goodness. We believe we are given objective morality in which to follow to. However, this is not the center of Christianity. [edit] I should also add that it is a commandment from Jesus. [/edit]

In any case, correct me if I'm wrong. I am no student in theology or philosophy. These ideas of reformation for "goodness" seem a bit sketchy to me.