THE LAST JUDGEMENT, Part 2

Who is in Heaven? Who is in Hell?

The Ascent to Heaven - not always easy!

Thinking further on the Last Judgement, I remember a moment of doubt prior to my baptism. The Orthodox Church, like all human institutions, is not free of zealots and fundamentalists and I read in one booklet a very worrying statement. In essence it consigned to Hell all who did not accept the Orthodox Church in its totality. The Roman Catholic Church (and, by implication, the Anglicans and all Protestants) are heretical and thus cannot expect to be saved. Now, although on strictly self-preservation grounds, this might be seen as an overriding reason for joining the Orthodox Church, it had the opposite effect on me. The great Marx (Groucho not Karl) once said that he wouldn’t want to join any club that was prepared to accept him as a member and I, in a sort of mirror image, would find it very hard to become a member of a Church that condemned me to Hell if I wasn’t a member! I could not accept that the sincere Christian beliefs I had held for fifty odd years would deprive me automatically of salvation, not to mention all the truly good Christians I have met in all denominations. Can I really believe that my mum is in hell?

THE LAST JUDGEMENT, Part 1

Justice and Love

On the west wall of many Orthodox churches, a fresco of the Last Judgement can often be found – a graphic reminder as we leave church to continue to be good. While not as terrifying as the images in Hieronymous Bosch's paintings, the icon certainly points to a clear division between the saved and the damned. Now, this is a tricky one for me. I regularly recite the Creed, saying that I believe “He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.” But what exactly does that mean? Throughout my Christian life to date, I’ve never had a problem with the limitless love and compassion of God. Like many other modern Christians, however, I am much less comfortable with the idea of a wrathful, vengeful God, casting unrepentant sinners into everlasting torment.

The Last Judgement

I have, of course, always accepted that, if the ultimate glorification of the world is to be accomplished, there must be a reckoning of some sort at some time. However, there has always seemed to me something a touch hysterical and unhealthy in the relish with which some clerics describe in all their gory detail the tortures awaiting the damned and an all too human delight in the unjust getting their come-uppance. For a terrifying and dramatic example of this kind of sermon and its effect on young minds I recommend you read James Joyce’s ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.’ Strangely, the person preaching such sermons always seems to assume that he is not among the unjust! This is in sharp contrast to our own lovely parish priest who, passing us when we were looking at an icon of 'The Last Judgement', pointed at one of the sinners at the bottom and said, “That's me.” Moreover, the thought, implicit in ‘damnation theology’, that people only refrain from sin through fear of the fires of Hell is reminiscent of the theory that men don’t murder their wives only because they might go to prison!

APOLOGIES

Due to an unpleasant but not serious illness combined with a sudden influx of work, not only was I unable to pass on Nativity greetings to followers of the old calendar as promised but I won't be able to post a blog this week. It never rains but it pours!

God willing, normal service will be resumed next week when the long-promised article on the Last Judgement will finally see the light of day. The way I feel at the moment, it could be quite appropriate!!

MORE ON INNOCENCE

“Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150)

Actors are advised that they should never work with children or animals so perhaps I'm asking for trouble by turning from last week's look at the place of children in the Orthodox Church to those other innocents – the animals? Do dogs have souls? Will there be cats in Heaven? The theological, philosophical and even psychological arguments about this could fill a library and whatever I have to say on the subject is bound to upset someone or other!However, it could be argued that such questions are largely irrelevant to the true place of animals in Orthodox thought.

The question of whether or not animals have souls is largely a matter of how one defines a 'soul'. Certainly, there is no doubt in my own mind that at least the 'higher' mammals have some extra spark of life which, if it is not a soul, is something very like it. However, what is far more important is that the animals are, like us, the creatures and creation of God. It is for this reason that St. John Chrysostom, in the very early days of the Church reminded us that “Surely we ought to show kindness and gentleness to animals for many reasons and chiefly because they are of the same origins as ourselves” Another great Father of the Church, St. Basil the Great, put it unequivocally in a lovely prayer: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee and that they love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve Thee better in their place than we in ours.”