dispelling the door-bitch myth

I've just finished reading a great book by Brian McLaren called A New Kind of Christian: a tale of two friends on a Spiritual Journey. I highly recommend reading it, particularly if you've ever questioned some of the stuff you've been taught on Christianity. It clarified some things for me very well.

Anyway, one point McLaren makes is that we have rammed home that Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me (Jesus)." The way I've interpreted this from how people have talked about it is that unless you get the ok by Jesus, you don't go to heaven. I don't know who goes to heaven and who doesn't (anyone who says they do is deluded), but this didn't seem consistent with the God I knew. It seemed almost like a tick-the-box exercise where if you get Jesus, you get saved and you get heaven.

McLaren says that we have misinterpreted this important passage and that when Jesus said "by me", what he meant was not in a door-bitch (a person who stands guard at a nightclub door and randomly refuses entry to people. Generally considered nasty people) sense, not in the sense that you walk up to him, he checks you out, and either lets you in or refuses you entry. "By" can mean "Up to and beyond; past" or it can mean "With the use or help of; through". Same word, big difference in meaning.

This latter meaning makes a lot more sense and I find it far more consistent with Jesus' character. Jesus isn't standing at a doorway letting some in and refusing entry to others. Jesus is the path. You have communion with the Father by walking with Jesus (if you'll excuse the top 10 "most commonly used phrase"). This also links up with something our church pastor says all the time and that is that God's plan for our lives isn't good deeds or living a life worthy of getting into heaven. Jesus came "that we might have life, and have it to its fullest". God's desire is to make us fully human, enjoying human life in its purest expression. This involves an intimate link with our God, our creator. It involves modelling ourselves on the one guy who has had this "full human expression of life" as we can in order that we and others may experience the same. So in modelling ourselves on him and communicating with him, Jesus is our path, our model of how to live a pure human life and that life involves communion with God the Father. So Jesus is our path to the Father, not the door-bitch letting some in and refusing entry to others.

That sounds a lot more like the God I know. You could almost call it good news...