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Goodbye Jesus

It Is Well...


R. S. Martin

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Sometimes I play Christian music for its sentimental value or just because I like it. Just now I heard something that makes me think Christianity is a religion about hurt and disappointment, and it's no wonder that people who cling to it with all their being think those of us who let go of it must be "hurt" or "looking for something."

 

Here are the lines that jumped out at me. 

 

My sin, not in part, but in whole is nailed to the cross...Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!

 

What hit me out of the blue is: Who hurt you so badly, who deceived you, that you think a person who takes away part of the bad won't take away all of it? I mean, this person is singing her heart out "my sin not in part but in whole" as though that were an amazing thing, and then praises this lord for being so kind for doing what any capable person would have done in the first place. 

 

Then Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight...Even so, it is well with my soul!

 

I used to sing this song just as lustily and think it was a wonderful hymn but now it just sounds like one very disappointed person, like someone who is trying to hold onto their last shred of hope, hoping against hope that this one last thing won't be taken away. Yet despite the utterly hopeless situation holding that sliver of hope into the light to get a "silver lining" and claim "it is well with my soul."

 

It's so GOOD not having to *wait* for my faith to be sight but to be allowed to know today what can be known and to rest content with the knowledge of what cannot be known. *That* truly is well.

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i thought the most self worthless hymn would be

 

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Yeah, I can hear the pleading in it now. When struggling for acceptance from my own mother and sisters and the Christian community into which I was born, this song was a comfort because it was one source that said I'm good enough as I am. But that's another story. Back then I was so broken and bleeding--and pleading simply for the right to exist because of emotional and mental abuse on so many levels--that I was taking my comfort where I could get it. Maybe that's why I hear the pain in the song in the OP, now that I've found answers and acceptance.

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Wow, so I'm not the only one who does this!  I too listen to Christian music once in awhile.  As much as I hate Jesus, there's a certain appeal to listening to music with intellectual muscle, with lyrics that are based on passages from the Bible.

 

I've always thought of this hymn as being a backlash to Roman Catholic theology, which (according to the evangelical interpretation of it) suggests that Jesus' atonement is insufficient to save us from sins.  In saying that the whole of the believer's sin is nailed to the cross, the hymnist is proclaiming that "it is finished," and that absolutely no further work is required for his salvation.  If my interpretation is correct, then the author would agree with your lamentation that anyone could possibly believe that Jesus only partially atoned for his sin, and in fact he is writing this hymn specifically to combat that view.

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I find most Christian music to be lacking in any kind of logic or even correct Christian theology. I get it stuck in my head once in a while, though. The hymns are usually better than any other Christian music, so I don't mind them being stuck in my head. It's when Michael W. Smith or Steven Curtis Chapman get in there that I start reaching for the Q-tips.

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Wow, so I'm not the only one who does this!  I too listen to Christian music once in awhile.  As much as I hate Jesus, there's a certain appeal to listening to music with intellectual muscle, with lyrics that are based on passages from the Bible.

 

 

 

Definitely not! Christian hymns is the only music I knew for the first forty or fifty years of my life and I love singing so much, I'm not giving it up just because I no longer believe it. As someone pointed out to me years ago, professional musicians are always singing about things they never did, either, so why can't we if we like the music. Also, I don't hate Jesus; he's just not relevant and probably not existent. 

 

I've always thought of this hymn as being a backlash to Roman Catholic theology, which (according to the evangelical interpretation of it) suggests that Jesus' atonement is insufficient to save us from sins.  In saying that the whole of the believer's sin is nailed to the cross, the hymnist is proclaiming that "it is finished," and that absolutely no further work is required for his salvation.  If my interpretation is correct, then the author would agree with your lamentation that anyone could possibly believe that Jesus only partially atoned for his sin, and in fact he is writing this hymn specifically to combat that view.

 

 

Thank you for explaining this. Either they didn't teach it in my Lutheran seminary or I missed it. I'm inclined to think they didn't teach it because the Lutherans see themselves as distinct from the Roman Catholics and the generic evangelicals. When teaching church history, and history of theology, they used Catholic teaching as the foundation on which Luther built, or something like that. While they acknowledged other groups (evangelicals?) like the Waldensians and Anabaptists, the theology of those people didn't have too much impact on their own.

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Guest Furball

I find most Christian music to be lacking in any kind of logic or even correct Christian theology.

Yes today's xtian music is lacking. When i was a christian i found solace in listening to the old hymns. I used to love the song i have a friend in jesus. Now i know not only was jesus never my friend, he doesn't exist. 

 

R.S.Martin - i am glad you are doing better!

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I'm still listening to this music. (Gotta do something while I wait for the flu bug to finish its job.) I just came across another theme that has been a major stumbling block to me over my lifetime: the glorification of being and knowing nothing. These specific lines come from There is a balm in Gilead at http://www.lutheran-hymnal.com/lyrics/hs889.htm

 

If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul....

 

And if you lack for knowledge

 

Always they assume that the person needing encouragement is the average ungifted one but what about the gifted preacher or prayer or intellectual? They're labeled as proud show-offs, unless by some streak of luck they dazzled the powers that be and got exalted to a pedestal no human can live up to. No hymns, no scripture, no sermons tell these people how to find the courage to keep on keeping on in loneliness and fear and unrealistic expectations, how to strive for ever higher goals, how to cope with unearned praise. And for the cast-offs who are ostracized for being gifted and talented (through no fault of their own) there is zero nurturance. There is ridicule, scorn, and all kinds of put-downs for imagined slights so that the receiver becomes totally confused as to what he/she is doing right or wrong in life. There is no "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" for such a person because the masses won't give it to them. There is nothing in Christianity to nurture the gifted and talented that I have been able to find.

 

But there is severe condemnation for burying your talent. Might that be because the gospel writers could not agree whether Jesus loved or hated his mother? He makes some very ambiguous statements both as a child and as an adult. According to the stories. I don't think he ever existed as a historical person but the Christians do and that is what counts where it concerns their theology and hymns, etc.

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That was one of the songs I knew how to play on the piano -- it is well with my soul.  I still like sacred music, especially Handel's Messiah, and most particularly John Rutter's Requiem with the cello!  I miss singing in choirs.    Keryia Eleison, Requiem Eternum!

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Llewellyn, why do you have to wreck the curve by citing actual music? 

 

let's get back to the level of

 

This is my story, this is my song,

praising my savior all the day long...

 

or

 

He Lives, He lives! Christ Jesus lives today,

He walks with me and talks with me

Along life's narrow way,

He lives, He lives,

Salvation to impart...

You ask me how I know He lives ---

He lives within my heart!

 

I won't even go to Pass it On.

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I understand the feeling, Llewellyn. I miss the singing but when I'm singing Christian songs in a group it feels so empty. When I'm just listening to it or singing it on my own, it's different, maybe because I can give it my own meaning. But when in a group I want to feel connected to the others through the meaning of the words and music. When the very purpose of it is lacking, it becomes empty for me, shallow, just so much noise. 

 

Thanks, ficino, for not expecting us to "click like if you agree" or "Pass it on." smile.png

 

Somehow, for some of us, these song, hymns, and musical experiences have sentimental value because they were once an important part of our lives, very meaningful, perhaps lifelines or marks of major achievement. Music and poetry is art. The sad part of it is the way the meaning of Christianity drags us down, despite the beauty of the superficial aspects such as sound and sight.

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John Rutter's Requiem with the cello!  I miss singing in choirs.   

I like that Rutter requiem too. And I always liked singing in choirs.

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