e.mer.ging chris.tian [i'merjing krisCHun]

• noun

A follower of Jesus who drinks beer AND recycles the bottle

Doctrine 5: The Chicken or the Egg (or the Mystic)?

Check out this great little clip from the movie, The Waking Life:

I remembered it when I was sitting around wondering what takes precedence: right beliefs or right practice (orthodoxy or orthopraxy). I came to the rather sloppy conclusion that they must be mutually dependent (that doxis produces the best kind of praxis and that praxis legitimizes and gives life to doxis). You gotta start somewhere, right? But how do you do that without giving preference to one and winding up in the mess that both “conservative fundamentalist” and “mainline liberal” churches have found themselves in (one all theory no action, the other all action no theory–or at least not any particularly biblical theory)?

So what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Perhaps the best place to start is a bit obvious, and right under your nose. If at this particular moment you find yourself believing, then you should probably act on it. But if at this particular moment you find yourself acting, take the time to ensure that what you are doing actually makes sense. If you are a chicken, then lay an egg. If your are an egg, then hatch. 

Or maybe the answer lies in a new word I heard the other day. The word is ORTHOPATHY, having, not just right belief or right practice but, right affections. This is not necessarily the inclination of the liberal (praxis obsessed) church, or the conservative (doxis obsessed) church, or even the postmodern (“happy” tension between praxis and doxis obsessed) church. This is the inclination of the mystics who seem to do the right stuff and know the right stuff without ever even giving it any thought, who do and know simply because Jesus has transformed their hearts. Am I daydreaming or is it true that Jesus can transform our hearts?

I start to go down the path of the mystic. And then a fundamentalist asks me what my opinion is on homosexuality, and a liberal challenges me on the relevance of the scriptures. 

 

Doctrine 4: The False Dichotomy

A pastor from down in Texas that my own pastor listens to and really likes (and who I have really grown to appreciate) taught, last year, on the issue of women in church leadership, and I listened to that sermon this morning. He had a ton of great, biblical stuff to say, and some other stuff that I thought was less than accurate (or incomplete). I tend to oversimplify and dismiss the resent flood of young guys with a passion for masculinity in church as guys with daddy issues (it seems so many of them were either abandoned or disappointed by theirs). But really, this guy seems to have a rather soft heart, not a hard one formed by bitterness, so it was easier to not just want to pick apart everything he said, and instead to listen with humility and an open heart.

But, something he said towards the middle of his sermon struck me as strange and related to my resent obsession with doctrine and our notions about it, so I thought I’d mention it here.  

He was referring to what he perceived to be a tendency to favor our own subjective feelings about God’s calling on our lives instead of biblical truth (especially concerning women who believe they are called to, what he calls, male roles). His example included a woman who had been in leadership at the church he had just taken. At the beginning of his time at this church he addressed the fact that within two years he would like to see full male eldership restored to the church. The woman elder approached him worried that if she were no longer an elder she wouldn’t have a role in the church because that was her calling.

He then said that she would either have to acknowledge that she was wrong about her calling or that the Bible was wrong. And this, to me, seemed to be a sort of false dichotomy. Huh… I thought to myself, is he right? Are those the only two possibilities? Couldn’t it be that he is wrong in the way he understands the Bible, not that either she or the Bible are wrong? Anyway, I don’t think he really thinks the Bible could be wrong, I think it was just a way of getting this lady to accept his position on the issue. Either you agree with me or you don’t believe the Bible. 

Imagine if the Ten Commandments had been around when Abraham was going to obey God in taking Isaac up to be sacrificed. Wouldn’t the religious leaders around him have quoted to him the one about not murdering? He could then tell them that he was just obeying God, but they wouldn’t believe him. God could never contradict himself.

I agree. But I don’t think his request of Abraham contradicts his commands (though I could see how it looks that way). I would assume that any apparent contradiction would lie in my ignorance not in God’s relativism. I don’t think God is a relativist, so neither am I. I just think we shouldn’t be so hasty to assume that an experience of God that seems to contradict sound doctrine actually does when it could just be our own ignorance and lack of understanding that makes it appear that way. Like in the case of Jesus calling himself God, sometimes what seems heretical is actually us being wrong about what God really said.

We shouldn’t give up on truth, I believe that all truth is in God perfectly, and that as we approach God we get closer and closer at that truth (not a relative one, but a real one). We should be humble, though, as we journey on towards that truth and not place false confidence in ourselves (the very thing this young pastor was telling the lady in his church to do, but seemed unable to do himself). We should be humbled by our dependence on subjectivity (both those who deny theirs and those who carelessly abuse theirs; the Pharisees were wrong about God, but so was Eve) as we are in awe of his objectivity.  

Barack + Rocky = Baracky

You gotta check out this hilarious video that features a boxing rivalry between Hill-Rod and the Obamanator:

 

Motto

“Don’t believe everything, don’t doubt everything.” 

I’m not sure where I heard this, but it’s not original to me. 

Tony Campolo and The Sacrificial Life

Check out Tony Campolo’s session at the New Baptist Covenant website. 

Depression

Do you think more people are depressed because they think they are the only ones who see things the way they really are, or because they think they are the only ones who don’t?

Doctrine Part 3: John MacArthur, Phil Johnson & Contextualization

After writing my first couple of posts on doctrine I discovered a funny little argument going back and forth in the blogosphere. I first found it here, on Andrew Jones’ blog, and then later saw spin-offs from it show up in the satire section of JesusManifesto. Basically, Phil J on his blog and  John MacArthur at a conference have began to take stabs at the biblical legitimacy of contexualization in regards to the gospel and in defense of traditional orthodoxy and Reformed doctrine. Their critics mostly seem to think that the two have misunderstood the word itself (confusing it with syncretism and a view that diminishes Christ and exalts culture) in an over zealous attempt to smite the Emergent team. What I find bizarre, is that some of the more radical on the Emergent team (who are so radical, in fact, that they probably wouldn’t even go under such an imperialistic label as Emergent:) are also arguing that culture has corrupted and de-radicalized the message about the Kingdom of God. The graph on Jones’ blog says it all. So, are PJ and JM just confusing contextualization with syncretism? Are they misunderstanding the real goal of the Emergent team (whatever that may be)?  Or, if they are understanding contextualization correctly, then are they ignorant of the ways they have contextualicized the gospel to their own culture (or are the churches they pastor identical to the Acts 2 church?)? It looks to be the same sort of attitude I addressed in my earlier blogs on doctrine: I’m right, you’re wrong, and if you attempt to say otherwise then you must be a Satan Worshipper who doesn’t believe the Bible. Perhaps this is too harsh, and easily so, since I have never met either of these men.  But, I’ve been sick in bed, so I’m a bit moody. I also have plenty of time to blog and drool. So, if you have any thoughts to share, I would love to hear from you. 

Doctrine Part 2

It wouldn’t worry me so much if this Fundamentalists pastor “dude” (“Cool” Calvinist?, Conservative Evangelical?, Reformed Theologian?) would admit to at least noticing that when the Bible addresses doctrine with human error and folly (Matt. 15:9, Mark 7:7, Eph. 4:14, 1 Timothy 1:3, 1 Timothy 4:1) that this could happen to him too. That when it shows the Pharisees rejecting Christ because of what they perceived to be sound doctrine, that could be him (it could be me, it could be you). But as far as I can tell he doesn’t. He seems to think that an infallible interpretation of scripture can be had by Christians. It makes me wonder at what he must be thinking when he looks around and realizes that Christians differ on interpretations of scripture. Does he just think that he is right and everybody else is wrong (and complains that these other people won’t just take the Bible for what it is, because if they did they would see it the way he does–even when the others are using scripture to back of their arguments)? That is convenient. The Bible can be interpreted infallibly, and I am the only one who can do that. Reminds me of why Martin Luther wrote the 95 resolutions against the established church of his time. 

I DO NOT think this means we, as followers of Christ, should cave to any strange wind of doctrine or teachings about God that come our way, the Bible warns us of such teachings. But, I do think we need to be humble about what we can know about God. And if being a Fundamentalist, “Cool” Calvinist, Reformed Theologian means being proud, arrogant, and ungenerous with other people (shutting differing opinions up with demeaning comments, hyperbole, hasty either/ors, and mean characterizations) then I want no part of it. And, I think we need to correct and rebuke pastors and Christians who would act in this way (even if what they say about God is good, because the example we have from Jesus is that what you say is as important as how you say it; imagine Jesus’ interaction the Samaritan woman had his attitude been less gracious). Ugh! How could Christians ever think it was more holy to get it right on paper than to reflect Jesus Christ (Jesus, not Paul’s arrogance, who, though writing words inspired by God, still had a personality that shown through ever so clearly in his letters; I love Paul, but many seem content to imitate his character rather than Christ’s character and Paul’s words–always measured and interpreted through the red letters of the Bible, not our own prideful, human personalities that we relate to in Paul, Moses, Abraham, etc.).  

There were doctrinal bullies in Jesus’ time too, I’ve mentioned them before, but I don’t mean to pick on them (they were not the first or last of these sorts of bullies, and I am not as far removed from them as I’d like to be). But they could phrase things in such a way that no one would stand up to them, not even Peter.  Peter didn’t want to be associated with Jesus after all the accusations the Pharisees had leveled against him. If you disagreed with them, they could just do what “Cool” Calvinists do today, and not even listen, just pull the Biblically Flimsy card or the Satan Worshipper card. “If you don’t agree with us, you are practically worshipping Satan.” That’s a quick and easy way to whip your congregation into shape and shun the evil ones. But is it based on truth or pride? People are going to be wrong about God, and we are going to have to stand up for the truth, but lets at least not be so rude or dangerously evasive (or we will be in peril of only believing about God what is in our own little heads about him, and become, like the Pharisees, unwilling to yield to him when he returns!).

The Reformers had their flaws, like all of us sinners, but you gotta love um. They didn’t let anyone talk to them like that. They had to see it for themselves, and they did stand up to the bullies. They weren’t puffed up with the sort of pride that would have them figuring God out and being done with him. Their motto was semper reformanda, which means “always reforming.” Their followers took the stuff they figured out while seeking this continual reformation and stopped it dead in its tracks, sort of like Walt Disney frozen in time. And now, they are bullying people into not reformanda at all, telling them that if they question the church fathers or differ from traditional orthodoxy they are not real Christians. Calvin and Luther would have just flipped these bullies the bird and gone on dangerously living out the reformation, or regeneration, that liberty in Christ had provided them by the very expensive blood of God.   

At the age of 13, in an attempt at explaining to my Southern Baptist preacher father why I didn’t believe him that he was a fundamentalist, I simply argued that fundamentalist weren’t people who thought God was always right but that they were always right in how they interpreted him, they weren’t people who believed that the scriptures were inerrant but that their interpretation of the scriptures was inerrant. I just couldn’t believe that my dad could ever be that arrogant in his view of God. He agreed with me that in that sense, he definitely wasn’t a fundamentalist. 

 

Doctrine

 

In Christianity, doctrine has been the measure by which a “true Christian” is identified, and by which many others have been bullied into corners and called heretics (an accusation that would be on the same level as Jesus calling Peter Satan, which was pretty harsh if you think about it). Christians take doctrine very seriously. In fact, in my experience of Christianity, having good doctrine has always been pretty near the top (if not the very top) of priorities for our church—or at least the western branch of it. And I have no desire to belittle the importance of doctrine here, or anywhere else for that matter. But I do have some questions about its ranking, or preeminence, in the concerns of the western church.

 

I heard a sermon this morning by one of the big dogs in the western church today (he’s a “dude” who is really concerned with the present and future of sound doctrine with there being, what appears to him, so many heretical teachings questioning “real Christianity” on the rise). He was focusing, in this segment of his “Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe” series, on the trinity (a concept that I agree with him, was present throughout the bible, though it’s labeling no one could argue is definitely post-biblical, coined by an early church father—so much for sola scriptura!).

 

In attempting to explain the three in one/one in three essence of the trinity, this pastor reiterated with no lack of clarity that there really only is one God. Addressing any concerns or questions about other gods in other religions, he promptly, and perhaps too hastily, concludes that these other gods have real powers but they are actually demons. He said there is a demon called Mother Earth. He said there is a demon called Allah. Etc.

 

I thought to myself, hey, maybe he’s right…

 

But later in his sermon, when he was trying to show how the Bible says that Jesus is God he uses the interaction between Thomas and Jesus to illustrate this point. Thomas sees the miracle of a risen Jesus and he calls him Lord and God. This point to me is clear, but the question did arise in my mind whether there was anything “doctrinal” about this interaction.

 

A miracle proved to Thomas that Jesus is God, not sound doctrine. And then I thought about Peter and his affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus said that this must have been revealed to Peter by God himself. Again, doctrine didn’t prove the truths about Jesus, but, in this case, divine revelation (and neither Peter nor Thomas were doing word studies in the Torah or comparing their experience to a creed). Peter and Thomas weren’t worried about doctrine. But the Pharisees were.

 

It was adherence to correct doctrine that led to their denial of Jesus as God, because according to good doctrine that would be blasphemy. The Pharisees even accused Jesus of collaborating with the prince of demons, Beelzebub, in order to do his miracles. They of course were wrong.

 

In fact, most of the times when the word we translate as doctrine is utilized in the Bible it is used in a negative sense, in terms of getting stuff wrong and human devices disrupting what God actually wants (in the NASB: Matt. 15:9, Mark 7:7, Eph. 4:14, 1 Timothy 1:3, 1 Timothy 4:1). It is used positively, in relation to good teaching, in a few instances in the epistles to Timothy and Titus (three or four times). This makes me wonder how there could be such limited positive biblical concern with this topic and yet, the most outspoken adherents to sola scriptura (only following the Bible) are so obsessed with it.

 

I think the Bible tells me the truth, and I think that the creeds passed down to us help us to better and more simply understand these truths, and I think that churches and Christians that have come before me have a lot of good and useful tools for assisting me in understanding these truths. That’s what doctrine is, right? Good and right teaching? Who wouldn’t want that?

 

I certainly want that. But it shouldn’t be used as an effortless crutch getting us to God in a more neat and organized fashion (just sign the dotted line under trinity, virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection of Christ, and poof, you are a “real Christian”). And it shouldn’t be used as a bullying tool either for defending the truth. We learn in the Book of Acts from one of the Jewish leaders during the rise of Christianity, that if some movement isn’t from God it will fail, but if it is from God, to try to stop it will be in vain.

 

What I see in the Bible is God doing a lot of stuff that hadn’t been done before. Doctrine should never be used as an instrument to impede this today. Obviously, wrong and harmful interpretations of the message of the Bible can and will arise. I am not denying this, and I am not denying that we should object to this. We should. But the new and different things that God did in the Bible never contradicted themselves, and yet, the religious leaders in the Bible often thought they did. We are in danger then, of erring by letting stuff God hates infiltrate the church, or by keeping stuff God loves from changing the church. We just need to be careful to remember the entire Character of God throughout history when we want to claim that something is or isn’t from him, and not just the parts we are comfortable with because they are established (or we will be in danger of trying to make God in our image instead of us in his).