Lorna Rumsby, Victoria

The Editor:

This is in reference to the column by Gerald Archibald (Summer 2023 Vo. 38). He asked for some feedback so I thought I would respond as I have thought about this for a very long time myself. He asks the question: “How Can We Believe God Loves Us Unconditionally?”

In my opinion, I feel that part of the problem that Christians, especially Catholics, may have regarding this question is due to the theology/doctrine we are taught about why Jesus Christ came to Earth. When I was young, I was taught that Jesus Christ was sent by God to save all human beings from our sins; that the “Gates of Heaven” had been ‘closed’ against all of us for eons due to our sinfulness and that Christ came to open up Heaven again by enduring His crucifixion.

Now, I ask you, what kind of God is that who would close heaven and send “His only begotten Son” to be crucified to save us from our sins? If God is the “everloving being” that would never turn His back on us, Whom He created in His Image and supposedly unreservedly loves, why would He do either of those two things: (1) Close Heaven and (2) send a Son to be killed? What loving father does that?

In my mind, this is a Jekyll and Hyde kind of god and who needs him? How can we love and trust a Father/Mother God who can’t be trusted to have mercy, even to His own son? So let us face what probably really happened: Firstly, the Gates of Heaven would NEVER have been closed in the first place. We have to trust God on this fact if we believe He is loving.

Secondly: I believe Jesus came to try and turn around the ideas of God that the Jewish people had; to try and show to the people that God was not the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament but was really a loving, merciful God.

Thirdly, Jesus did not come to die on the cross to save us from our sins and to open the Gates of Heaven again. He was: (1) a political and financial threat to the power of the priests in the Synagogues of Jerusalem; and (2) a threat to the occupying Romans who were afraid of a citizen’s revolt and subsequent threat to their power and control of Jerusalem and perhaps to their entire Roman Empire. (Revolutions can be catching.) So …Jesus was crucified, not for religious reasons but for political reasons: (1) to appease the Jewish priests so they would still support the Roman authorities; and (2) to keep the Romans in control of both Jerusalem and their “Empire”. It is my belief that God did not send Jesus Christ to be crucified for our sins but allowed (meaning HE did not interfere) the Romans to crucify Jesus for their own purposes. Christians have been taught that God has given all human beings ‘Free Will’ and this is, I think, a clear example of that concept in action, on both God’s part and human beings’ part.

Since this doctrine about Jesus Christ has been entrenched in the theology of the Roman Catholic Church for perhaps 1,700 years, I do not see the Church changing the doctrine anytime soon just because I do not like it. Which, most likely, means this question will continue to be asked for many, many years to come. Too bad.

Yours sincerely,

Lorna Rumsby
Victoria, B.C.