My good friends of the evangelical persuasion in Colorado once showed me a diagram relating a person and God. The person is on one side of the cliff, and God is on the other. I suppose a broad river would be an acceptable in a land of non-swimmers. The zealous evangelicals either drew a bridge from God to the person, or indicated the transport of the person to the side on which God is standing. In cases where they drew the bridge, they asked me where I thought I was: my answer, which was deemed inapplicable, was to locate myself upon the bridge. The right location, according to my friends, is with God on the far side of the cliff. Dwelling near the presence of God is certainly the ideal place to be, but it seems misleading to draw a bridge and exclude it as a possible answer.
My attitude is more akin to the sojourn in Pilgrim's Progress, which I read at young and impressionable age. Certainly, we shall see God face-to-face in the end, but until then we can merely approach, but never reach, the Godliness which God desires of us. Unlike Pilgrim's Progress, however, I believe that the moral hazards, although serious, are not irrevocably fatal.
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