The following letter was written in response to a recent article by Rev Iain D Campbell in his weekly Stornoway Gazette viewpoint. However, a much higher earthly authority than the godly Lewis churchman decreed my submitted letter to be unworthy of occupying space in the hallowed interior of that illustrious Stornoway publication.
My letter may have been a casualty of the efficiency drive underway at the soon to be smaller packaged Stornoway Gazette. But the paper’s proprietors now realise they went too far in their cost-cutting exercise in handing over the editor’s chair to their Francis Street premise’s over-ambitious but under-performing scullery maid..
The letter’s eventual appearance is thanks to Iain X Maciver who, unlike others we could mention, treats in an impartial manner those to whom he offers a public forum. This letter will be treated in a like manner to those featured in the Stornoway Gazette: replies are welcome, if accompanied by the sender’s full name – IMM, Miavaig

A Heavenly Election Or Earthly Deception?

Speaking as one raised by a kind and caring Christian mother, I’m not in any way ill-disposed towards genuine believers. But there is a darker side to religious faith hinted at by Rev Iain D Campbell in his March 7 Gazette Viewpoint in which he gave an articulate, clinically-observed defence of the biblical doctrine of ‘election’. It was a wholly unconvincing defence that left far more questions than answers,

Expressed in a nutshell: the ‘elect’ are those people who, according to the Rev Campbell, God chose prior to his creating the universe as the fortunate recipients of his gift of everlasting life spent with him in heaven- a gift which Rev Campbell readily acknowledges the elect do not merit or deserve any more than the unelected.

If we presume the biblical ‘election’ doctrine to be factually correct, it must logically follow that the many unelected unfortunates have already been condemned to a journey in the opposite direction to heaven, in their inevitable descent into the depths of hell.

Let us now translate the dry theological concept of election into an example of its practical consequences in real life and … death.

Imagine a child born through no choice of her own to devout Muslim parents in an African village. Her early childhood spent in a poor but loving family environment is happy and contented. But then civil war breaks out, her home village is destroyed, her father and brothers brutally murdered. Innocent victims of circumstance, the surviving family members become refugees in a war-torn country. Denied shelter, food or water, the mother’s health deteriorates, while her once happy child succumbs to a lingering death, hungry and in pain, crying for a mother who herself is beyond all help. And this poor Muslim girl’s suffering has barely begun!

Now imagine a child born into a well-to-do Scottish Christian family. He lacks for nothing,enjoying all the advantages his home situation brings. Despite his fortunate start in life,he turns into an spoilt brat who matures into a cruel, exploitative adult, and source of heartache and suffering for others. Perhaps chastened by conscience, at some point in his later life he reappears in church where it transpires that at birth he was already a rightful heir to the kingdom of heaven,as a result of which all his past and future misdeeds are wiped clean. While his (unelected?) victims lick their wounds, he emerges smelling of roses assured of an everlasting life spent in paradise

Stripped of the Rev Campbell’s high-flown rhetoric, the practical consequences of the biblical ‘election’ doctrine are laid bare in the above examples. The words “retribution” and “injustice” readily come to mind – words which one wouldn’t associate with a God of love and mercy.

There are other more subtle and debilitating effects of the ‘election’ doctrine (from which even people of faith are not immune). Some people who perceive themselves as undeserving sinners,when confronted with misfortune or personal problems view their troubles as a deserved punishment inflicted by an all-powerful, all-seeing God. An example of this reasoning is the view once commonly held amongst believers that the birth of a handicapped child is a divine punishment inflicted on the parents for their sins. (A view I’ve heard expressed on a number of occasions.)

What could be more debilitating than viewing life’s challenges as preordained divine punishments from which there is no respite or escape? Self-denigration and guilt for having sinned against God by falling short of some unattainable human ideal of piety and saintliness is a sure prescription for mental ill health. Is it purely coincidental that in a religious community like the Western Isles there is also a high incidence of depression?

The ‘election’ doctrine doesn’t resemble the handiwork of a just and merciful God, but it does have all the hallmarks of an attempt by past religious leaders to establish a hard to disprove reason for elevating themselves and their followers above the common flock without the need to earn that distinction.

As regards the election doctrine itself; aside from those convinced of their exalted status amongst the elect, for the rest of us doubt-ridden lesser mortals it would be hard to imagine a more fatalistic unjust, dysfunctional and demoralising piece of dogma,likely to induce a sense of guilt.inferiority, unworthiness and dread..

The Rev Campbell’s eloquent and articulate sermonising hasn’t convinced this sceptic that the biblical doctrine of ‘election’ has been anything other than a blight on the lives of many of the people who were exposed to it at an impressionable age.

Yours faithfully
Iain M Macdonald

Miavaig