Bible Study at the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke is seldom boring. We veer from Scripture into such topics as politics, the challenges of ageing, and God’s call in our daily lives. Yet whatever the direction of our conversation, I inevitably end up in some form of this dialogue with one of the other participants:
“You can’t believe that and be a Christian,” he’ll say.
“But I do believe that, and I am a Christian.” I’ll reply and brace for his answer.
“No. You are a heretic,” I hear, followed by a rapid thumbing of pages. “THIS is what it says in the Bible.”
“I know what it says in the Bible, but I also know that there are many ways to interpret the Bible and Scripture is only one of the ways we come to know God,” I’ll counter.
“There may be other ways to know God, but there has to be an ultimate Authority,” is always his clinching argument. “You can’t rely on your own sinful heart to discern the truth. You can’t just pick and choose what to believe.”
I sigh.
This conversation has played out within the Church for centuries, albeit in somewhat more sophisticated ways. Between A.D. 325 and 787 the Church held seven Ecumenical Councils delineating both orthodox beliefs and those that it declared anathema to Christian teaching. At the Second Council at Constantinople in A.D. 553, the Church rejected earlier teachings of Origen and officially declared the belief in reincarnation to be a heresy.
Prior to the Council there had been intense disagreement within the Church over reincarnation. The belief flourished in much of the Mediterranean world, including Gnostics within the Christian community. The Eastern Church under Emperor Justinian in Constantinople took such a strong stand against it that Pope Vigilius in Rome boycotted the Council in protest. In his absence, the Council ruled “If anyone asserts the fabulous preexistence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.” Pope Vigilius was then imprisoned and teaching the doctrine of reincarnation became a heretical act punishable by excommunication.
It sometimes seems to me that the Church has directed entirely too much time and energy towards figuring out which truths are acceptable for Christians to believe and attempting to eradicate those it deems to be heresy. However, I’m also aware that if we don’t honor a common set of beliefs and traditions, the Christian faith will ultimately dilute and dissipate. So I’ve tried hard to understand why the Church came down so strongly against the idea of reincarnation.
Some of the reasons were clearly political. Justinian was looking to the Church to create a unifying glue among the diverse populations of the Roman Empire, and the growing diversity among Christian believers mitigated against that. To this end he also wanted to consolidate a central power. The belief in an eternal salvation and damnation dependent upon the sacraments cemented such power in the hands of the Church. Orthodox theology supported a hierarchical political system uniting both the Church and the State.
But there were other less political and more thought-provoking reasons why the early Church opposed a belief in reincarnation, reasons that Christians must still wrestle with today. To begin with, the idea that the soul enters successive bodies is a problem for the Christian belief in resurrection. It suggests that the soul is an independent entity from the body. While this idea provides no difficulty for Asian and Gnostic spiritualities, it directly contradicts the traditional belief that body and soul are inseparable. While Christians may differ in how they understand the resurrection, most agree that it is both physical and spiritual in nature- body and soul together.
Another difficulty Christians often have with reincarnation is that it does away with the notion of eternal damnation. Many within the Church have asked, ” would make people choose to live moral lives if they did not have such a specter hanging over them? “
Reincarnation also seems to overturn the doctrine of atonement. If Jesus did not die to save humanity from hell, what was the point of his torture and death? Why would we even need a Savior if we can return to earth and right all of our mistakes by ourselves?
Indeed, the idea of reincarnation provides a challenge to a basic sense of God’s agency and judgment. If people are reincarnated through some process of karma or other natural law, there is no room for judge or deliverer at all. The destiny of our souls seems to be taken out of the hands of God altogether.
These are only some of the reasons that Christians have opposed a belief in reincarnation and held fast to the principle that “we die once and we are judged once.” It’s understandable why the Church would deem it anathema. Still, many Christians today find it difficult to accept the lengths that the Church has taken to eradicate this heresy.
