Progressive Christianity: Loving People, Loving Theology

I’ve been reading Rachel Held Evans’ book Searching for Sunday. It’s been an enjoyable read (as long as you allow that time I was brought to tears as part of enjoying the book). In this book, as well as her other book that I read, it’s clear: Rachel cares about people. That is really important to her. She looks around her and sees so much hurt, and it bothers her. (I think that her doubts are from her inability to put together such pain with a God who loves.)

My tribe does not have the reputation of caring about people. If anything, Reformed pastors are known for caring about theology. Our claim to fame (or infamy!) is that we are very careful, very precise when it comes to understanding the Bible. I’m guessing that it’s my tribe that Rachel has the hardest time with.

Over the years, Jesus has been teaching me about caring about people and caring for people. I am sure that not all that long ago I would have thrown Rachel’s book against a nearby wall while thinking, ‘She just doesn’t understand the Bible!’ Now, her concerns bring me to tears as I think, ‘Yep, she’s right’.

But I haven’t come to the point of jettisoning theology. I am convinced that there is a way of combining a deep concern for theology and a deep concern for people. In fact, I am convinced that the way that we best care for people is by having a deep concern for theology, by being very careful when it comes to understanding the Bible. And I think this because it describes Jesus.

Does anyone doubt that Jesus cared about the people? That’s really hard to miss. But what can be missed is that Jesus also cared about theology. Consider some things that He said.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (This is part of the Sermon on the Mount.)

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

These are theological comments rooted in a careful understanding of the Bible. And Jesus said them because He cared about people.

So, people like Rachel and people like me need to work together to understand better how to care for people by caring about theology. That’s probably a tall order, but it just seems right.

Progressive Christianity: Doubt, Part 2

I suggested last time that Rachel would do well to use a different word than doubt, and I explained why. In this post I’d like to suggest a different way to express what I think she is getting at. I would like to suggest that she talk about raising questions.

So, someone tells you that the Bible teaches (fill in the blank). But it doesn’t sound quite right. So, what do you do? You raise questions. ‘Why do you think that’s true? I’ve heard that there are others who disagree with you. Have you considered what they have to say? Why do you think that are wrong?’

Raising questions is good. We are not to blindly accept what others tell us. If what they say is correct they should be able to show that to you. Here is an example of this sort of thing. Paul and Silas enter town and tell the people there about Jesus. Their audience is eager to hear what they have to say, but they don’t just accept it. Note how Luke describes what they did.

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Acts 17

In this they have a basic question for Paul and Silas. Is what you say true according to the Scriptures? It’s the right question. And Luke commends them for raising their questions. (They were ‘more noble’.)

So, if Rachel wants to encourage lots of questions about what to believe, I’m all for it. The more questions the better.

However, it needs to be said that someone raises questions in order to find some answers. It was good for those people to challenge Paul and Silas and raise their questions. And as Luke goes on to report, they found some answers. As a result, they were persuaded to place their faith in Jesus.

And this is where I have my concerns. There are some who are not looking for answers. They would rather glory in their doubts. I don’t know that Rachel is among them, but there are many who are like this. What if those people that Luke wrote about did that? What if they simply stubbornly clung to their doubts? They would have never put their faith in Jesus.

The point of this is not to be able to brag that you have all the answers, that all the questions are taken care of. Anyone who does that doesn’t know very much. There are plenty of questions that aren’t answered - and won’t be. Some answers will have to wait for an answer. No, the point of this is to be able to live wisely. It’s just a fact that there is much foolish in our world and the result of that foolishness is lives that aren’t working well. Asking and finding answers to our questions is how we can gain wisdom to live well, to live wisely. Didn’t those folk in Luke’s account take an important step in the right direction by asking their questions and then getting answers to those questions? Anyone unwilling to do that, both the asking and then getting answers, will not live well - not in the way that Jesus defines that.

This will be my last post on Rachel’s book. I have enjoyed getting to know her, even just a little. I’d like to think that we’d both enjoy sitting down at some coffee shop and talking about all sorts of things over a cup of coffee. While I doubt that such a thing will happen in this life, I look forward to doing it after the resurrection when we will both be able to rejoice in the wisdom and love of Jesus. 

Progressive Christianity: Doubt?

As I mentioned last time, I want to take a look at Rachel's comment about doubting. She wrote,

So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong. In short, we never learned to doubt.

I think I know what she is getting at here, but calling for doubt isn't the best way to get there.

For one thing, we are never commanded to doubt. This gets us to an important aspect of the relationship between a master and his disciples. The master instructs his disciples how to live. He will tell them to believe that, think in this way and to behave in a way that shows what they believe and think. To clarify what he expects, he will also identify what his disciples are not to believe, think or do. But the stress is on his positive teaching. That's what a disciple focuses on.

One alternative that some apply is to assume that anything not prohibited is allowed. But that’s backwards. For us, in whatever situation we find ourselves, the key question is always, 'What does Jesus call me to believe, think, do here?' He sets the agenda, and He decides how we are to live. We are to look for His positive teaching.

So, does Jesus ever call us to doubt? No, He doesn’t. There is nothing about that in His words, and nothing of what He did implies that we are to doubt. (Jesus did many things, and there are lots of implications to those actions that we need to understand and wisely apply to the situations that we encounter. But none of them lead us to doubt. If anything, they lead us to greater certainty.)

It is enough that Jesus didn't command doubt, but to make it clear I think that it's helpful to consider those times when He actually spoke against it.

First, there is the time Peter walked on the water (for a little while). When he faltered, Jesus chided him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'

And then there were Jesus' words about powerful prayer.'​Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.'

And then, I find noteworthy something that Jude wrote. 'And have mercy on those who doubt.'

The Scriptures seem clear. Disciples of Jesus are not commanded to doubt but are rather exhorted to avoid it completely. And that makes sense when you think about the definition of doubt. (This is from Dictionary.com.)

1. to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.

2. to distrust.

Now, Rachel, to her credit, does make a distinction. It's something that I want to comment on here. She wrote,

Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue.

I'm glad that she included this thought. She wants to be clear that she doesn't have a problem with God. Doubting Him will destroy faith. It's what we believe about Him where she thinks that doubt needs to show up. I appreciate the attempt, but I don't think it actually accomplishes what she would like. Not doubting God means not doubting what He has told us.

To pick one debated topic, what shall we believe about the fate of some after death? Jesus said,

I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

According to Jesus, something really bad is going to happen to this group of people. They will be excluded from the kingdom (outer darkness) where they will experience sorrow (weeping) and some sort of terrible pain (gnashing of teeth). Jesus is describing hell. But there are many who 'doubt' this belief. They aren’t sure that there is such a place. (I don’t know if Rachel is among them.) Can we doubt hell without doubting Jesus? I don't see how. Based on that bit of Scripture I just quoted, it seems clear that Jesus believed certain things about some people. He believed in hell. We can't doubt His beliefs (about hell or anything else) and still claim to be His disciples. Remember, He tells us what to believe, think and do.

Now, while 'doubt' is out, there is a way to get at what I think (and hope) Rachel wants to assert. That's for next time.

Progressive Christianity: Encouraging Curiosity

I will start, again, with a quote from Rachel Held Evans' Faith Unraveled. It comes from her chapter titled 'Living the Questions'.

With the best of intentions, the generation before mine worked diligently to prepare their children to make an intelligent case for Christianity. We were constantly reminded of the superiority of our own worldview and the shortcomings of all others. We learned that as Christians, we alone had access to absolute truth and could win any argument. The appropriate Bible verses were picked out for us, the opposing positions summarized for us, and the best responses articulated for us, so that we wouldn’t have to struggle through two thousand years of theological deliberations and debates but could get right to the bottom line on the important stuff: the deity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the role and interpretation of Scripture, and the fundamentals of Christianity.

As a result, many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong.

In short, we never learned to doubt.

I want to make a little fuss over the first five words. The world is filled with people who are angry and bitter when it comes to those in their past who goofed. But that is not Rachel. She shows her gracious character in those five words. Though she disagrees with what they did, she does not impugn their motives. They had 'the best of intentions'. Another reason why I enjoy reading her.

Based on what Rachel wrote here, it appears that she and her peers at church were being trained to be apologists. The goal was to go and do battle with the world in order to prove the truth of the Gospel. I wonder if this was chosen as the goal because it was assumed that she (and her friends) had the most important thing down pat, being saved by faith in Jesus.  I wonder if her church saw being a Christian as basically being sure you're going to heaven and then doing all you can to get others in also. I don't know anything about Rachel's childhood church, but I do know of too many churches where the contents of the Bible were seen simply as those things necessary to know in order to get to heaven. It makes sense then to train the young (who have already been saved) to do their part to get others saved.

But to limit the content of the Bible to this one notion is to miss incredible beauties contained in its pages. The Bible isn't about how to get to heaven. The Bible is about how to know and enjoy God and other people. To be sure, it is impossible to do those things unless a person embraces Jesus as Savior and Lord. But that's only the first step. There are so many other steps (an eternity's worth) that the Bible also talks about so that we can really enjoy God as well as each other.

Seeing this will help to explain Rachel's comments in the second paragraph I quoted above. There are four things she points to. Let me briefly touch on two.

So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore.

The hot questions of one generation are rarely the hot questions of the next generation. And before you can offer any good answers to the people around you, you need to know their questions. And that means that you have to listen. Listen patiently. Listen without interrupting them to make your 'sure-to-win-the debate' point. It needs to be a conversation between people instead of a dispute between adversaries.

So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong.

I think this can be summed up with one word: humility. We all have much to learn - and unlearn. And maybe this person I'm listening to - the one that I'm sure is so wrong - maybe he can help me make some progress.

Then, there are these two points that I want to spend a little more time on.

As a result, many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. … So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. 

I remember talking with a mom about education. In that context she asked me what I thought would be important goals in the training of children. I mentioned a few things like the love of reading and the ability to think. I also included this. Help the child to develop a curiosity about life. So much of education these days boils down to an information dump from the teacher to the students. And the result? Automatons who can regurgitate facts. When churches adopt this way of thinking about their kids, they grow up knowing all sorts of facts about the Bible but have no sense of wonder at God. Instead of seeing Him as the amazing person that He is, He is made into a theological specimen pinned, labelled and displayed under the glass. As a result, there's no need to be curious about God. He's been all figured out. After all, they know all the verses. How incredibly sad! There is so much that a person can discover about God, about life, if he or she is even just a little curious.

And that leads to what Rachel called 'the thrill of discovering' the faith. There is no thrill if all you need are Bible formulas that explain our religion. It is as you become curious - curious about the things that you don't know - that you begin to discover what those Bible verses are actually about. You begin to discover who Jesus really is and what it means that you have a Father and that the Spirit lives within you. At the heart of this is a God who doesn't fit in a box. He does things that surprise us, sometimes resulting in great happiness and sometimes great sorrow, but always with the goal of getting us to know and enjoy Him more. This is how we get to know Him as a person instead of as a theological specimen.

We do need apologists who will explain and defend the faith. (If you think about it, Jesus was an apologist.) But more than that though, we need Christians who are getting to know their God. So, once again I give a hearty 'Amen!' to what Rachel has written.

Now, at the end of the quote above, Rachel offers an alternative. She thinks it would have been better if she had been taught to doubt. I really don't think that that's the best word for what she wants to say. I intend to discuss that next.

Progressive Christianity: God's Potent Love

Rachel begins her last chapter, 'Living the Questions' with a very touching story.

Once, when I was small, my eczema flared up so badly that I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned in my bed for hours, frantically scratching my arms and legs until they bled onto the sheets. Every hour or so, I called for my mother or father, who rotated the task of lathering my body with lotion and putting fresh, cool socks over my hands. Sometimes they prayed with me. Sometimes they held me or stroked my hair as I cried into my pillow.

        At some point in the night, just as my father was about to leave me after another rotation, I asked him why God let this happen to me, why God didn’t make my eczema go away. I remember that he stood by my bedroom door, where the soft glow of my nightlight illuminated his face and the lines on his forehead. I remember that he had tears in his eyes.

        “I don’t know,” he said, after clearing his throat. “But I know that he loves you.”

        He turned away, gently closed the door, and I listened to his slow, heavy footsteps trigger creaks in the floorboards all the way to the living room. My father, who had committed his life to Christian education, who could read the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, who had a shelf full of commentaries and a wall full of diplomas, who delivered beautiful sermons and wrote eloquent papers, didn’t know.

        At first I was angry; then I was fearful. But as I lay in the dark, scratching and crying and praying, I realized that no other answer would have been right. No other answer could do justice to the question. Twenty years later, I’m convinced it is the most important thing my father ever told me.

There is so much good reflected in what happened here. First, there is the example of good parents who cared about their daughter. I know that this should be a given, but to an increasing measure it is no longer. Then, there is Rachel's question about why God was letting her suffer with the eczema. That's the right question to ask. It reflects training (by her parents) to think in terms of what God is doing. Again, for Christians, that should be a given. However … Then, there is her father's response. It's not just the words, though they are important. He is concerned for his daughter and her suffering, and he lets her see that in his tears. Without this the words that follow could have been interpreted as just words. But the tears make clear that that is not the case. And then, there are the words. First, the admission of ignorance. How freeing it is to be able to say, 'I don't know'. Or at least, coming to the point of being able to say that was freeing for me. And then, those final words: 'But I know that he loves you.' This is her father's expression of faith which he wants his daughter to imitate. 'Hold on to the love of God.' I can understand why this stands out as a precious memory for Rachel. There is something of beauty here.

I hesitate to comment further on this. It really is beautiful. But I think that taking just one more step would have added so much for Rachel's benefit at that moment and for the rest of her life.

The notion that God loves us is simply astounding. And the amazement only increases as we discover again and again how we by no means deserve His love. Clinging to that love makes life work. But the way that that Rachel's father expressed it could lead someone to think that God's love is powerless. 'Oh yes, He loves me, but He can't help me right now. He can't actually do anything about my situation.' And that makes love mere sentiment. So, God really likes us, but He has no ability to bring about any change. That means that we are at the mercy of whatever it is that brings evil into our lives, whether eczema or worse.

As I read the Bible I have to conclude that God's love is more than mere sentiment. God's love is strong. It is powerful. It does bring about change. So, I think that it would have been that much better if Rachel's dad had also said, 'And because of His love, He is doing something in this that will bring about much good.'

Now how could he have said that? There is evil in this situation - and in so many other situations. How can good be associated with evil? I don't know how God does it, but He uses evil to bring about good. There are many examples of that in the Bible, but the best example is the cross.

Does anyone doubt that what Jesus suffered on that Friday was evil? And why was He there, suffering that evil? Because the Father wanted Him to. Time and again, Jesus talks about the Father as 'the one who sent Me', a sending that climaxed at the cross. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, what was Jesus wrestling with? 'Are you sure that You want Me to go to the cross?' The Father wants Him to go because it is through the cross that we will be rescued. He is going to use the awful evil of that day to bring about amazing good.

And that is what we need to tell ourselves and each other as we have to deal with evil. 'God will use this for good.'

And we know that for those who love God all things [including evil] work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

The good that comes from the evil we suffer is for the sake of other around us as well as for ourselves. Enduring evil in this way is an act of love. And again, Jesus' suffering is the example.

Now, why is this important? It gives hope. Be careful here. Hope is not just wishful thinking. To hope is simply to wait for God to keep a promise that He has given us. It is His promise to use our experiences of evil to bring about much good. Hoping is simply waiting for that to happen. And that means that our suffering the evils of this world has a purpose. It is part of God's plan to bring about good in this world. And knowing that helps us to endure it.

So, when some evil has just hit we might wonder what God is doing. We might have to admit that we don't exactly know what He's up to. But we can cling to the certainty of His powerful love that is using that evil to bring about good - for others and ourselves - in some wise way.

Progressive Christianity: Respect the Process

Rachel has a short chapter titled 'Dan the Fixer' where she uses an event in her past to illustrate an important point. Let me say here that reading what Rachel had to say about her husband, Dan, was so good. It's clear that they are enjoying a good marriage. May there be many more marriages like theirs.

Dan, being a fixer extraordinaire, bought a fixer upper house with the goal of completely redoing it and then selling it. And, as these things go, the transformation was taking longer than what Rachel was expecting. But her husband knew better.

Dan had it all planned out: demo, repairs, finishing. I had to “respect the process” and hold off on the aesthetics until later. Essentials first. The whole thing reminded me of something my mother used to say during spring cleaning, when we reorganized our closets and pulled all the stuff out from under our beds. “Sometimes it has to get messy before it can be cleaned.”

It's from this that Rachel makes her application.

One of the greatest gifts Dan has ever given me was to respond to my struggle with doubt with the same “respect for the process” that he brought to the flip. It was natural for people to want to fix me on the outside, to quiet or scold me or to warn me to stop asking so many questions. But Dan seemed to understand better than anyone that this was a necessary path on my journey of faith. Through my petulance and insecurity, my tears and my rage, through my longest nights and darkest days, he listened, asked questions, offered his shoulder, and patiently saw me through. I guess he just knew that sometimes it has to get messy before it can be cleaned.

I have never gone through a crisis of faith like Rachel has. I've had my share of times when things got a bit much, but the foundation has always remained sure. To go through a time when you have to re-think everything that you believe is a traumatic experience that I hope that I never have to experience. But there have been those who have had to go through it – like Rachel.

I have to agree with her that to try for the quick fix or to just stuff it is not wise. In fact, really dealing with the questions is a matter of integrity. How can someone develop a real relationship with the Father if there isn't the simple matter of honesty? 'Lord, I'm having a problem understanding things. It’s not making sense.' Rachel was blessed to have someone like Dan who listened and hugged and helped. The church needs to have lots of people like Dan who are not only gentle and caring but also zealous for honest dealings with God instead of settling for a mask that hides what's really going on. There are enough phonies.

Progressive Christianity: Careful Study of the Scriptures

In my last post I wrote that I would like to discuss what 'a careful study of the Scriptures' looks like. Here are some quick thoughts. I think that these came to mind because they are often neglected.

1. Bear in the mind that none of the Bible was written to you. The Spirit had it written for your benefit, but the original authors had specific audiences in mind. You were not included in their audiences. As a result, you will need to first understand what the passage in question meant to the original audience. That will mean that you will need to take into consideration the cultural differences in expression and application. It's after you do that that you can discern the principle that God intends for every culture and every time.

So, when Paul talks about wisdom in the beginning of 1 Corinthians you need to remember that he was writing to Greeks whose heritage was all about wisdom, or better, about a certain kind of wisdom. It's that heritage that Paul is arguing against. Once you see that you can do a better job of applying the principles here that God intends for you.

2. You can prove anything if all you need is a verse or two. Consider this:

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3.19-20

Thus, according to this passage, there is no life after death.

A careful study of the Scriptures will be a comprehensive study of the Scriptures. Search out what all the Scriptures have to say about your topic. Compare your conclusions from one Scripture with what other Scriptures teach to make sure that your conclusions are consistent with all of Scripture.

3. Just because something is not expressly forbidden does not mean that it is allowed. The point is to find what God approves and do that. So, the Bible never explicit forbids having multiple spouses. But it does state that marriage is designed for two people. And that is how we are to live when it comes to marriage.

4. The study of the Scriptures is something we are to do in community - and that includes the saints of other places and other eras. This is simply an application of the biblical idea of the communion of the saints. If we disagree with a conclusion from another time or place we need to work to understand the reasoning behind their conclusions. It just may be that they have seen something that we have missed. This is where we need to be humble. There are plenty of things that we don't know.

5. It really helps to have someone who knows the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek. Large mistakes have been made because someone understood an English translation in a way that the original language did not intend. Here's an example from a contemporary author.

When God first spoke the Ten Commandments to Moses, the first commandment he read reveals that he understands our predicament of dividing our loyalty between his way, and the ways of our own culture. The commandment reads: “You shall have no other gods before me.” The nuance of the language in this verse hints that God understands all of the competing cultural forces around us and realizes that, try as we might, it’s impossible to completely rid ourselves from all of the many things that seduce our affection and loyalty. What he does ask us to do, however, is give to him our primary loyalty — not to put any other gods before him.

Sounds good, no? However, the Hebrew of 'before me' does not refer to priority. It means 'in my presence'. And so, God is saying that for His people there are to be no other gods at all. None. That's a big difference from what this author wrote. A little knowledge of Hebrew would have prevented this error. 

6. Look at the details. And sometimes the details are really small. But they can make a huge difference. So, consider the time when Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees. They believed that there is no life after death so they wanted to catch Jesus on His teaching about resurrection. You can read it at Matthew 22.23ff. This is Jesus' response.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:  ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Jesus' proof of the resurrection hangs on the fact that the verb in that Old Testament quote is in the present tense. 'I am the God of…'  God is still their God. That must mean that Abraham and the others are still alive. A verb tense!!! Look at the details.

There is much more to say. (There are large books written on this topic.) But this will do for now.

Here's one point that I would like to make from even this very brief list. Interpreting the Bible requires skill. It's just a fact that there are those who are more skilled at this than others because of things like spiritual gifts, careful training, long experience and detailed knowledge of the Bible. So, for those of you who are less skilled, find those who are more skilled. Learn from them how to carefully study the Scriptures.

Progressive Christianity: Fundamentals True and False

I'm back looking at that Rachel Held Evans' chapter 'Adaptation'. Like last time, I'll start with a longish quote.

It seems that a whole lot of people, both Christians and non-Christians, are under the impression that you can’t be a Christian and vote for a Democrat, you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution, you can’t be a Christian and be gay, you can’t be a Christian and have questions about the Bible, you can’t be a Christian and be tolerant of other religions, you can’t be a Christian and be a feminist, you can’t be a Christian and drink or smoke, you can’t be a Christian and read the New York Times, you can’t be a Christian and support gay rights, you can’t be a Christian and get depressed, you can’t be a Christian and doubt. In fact, I am convinced that what drives most people away from Christianity is not the cost of discipleship but rather the cost of false fundamentals. False fundamentals make it impossible for faith to adapt to change. The longer the list of requirements and contingencies and prerequisites, the more vulnerable faith becomes to shifting environments and the more likely it is to fade slowly into extinction. When the gospel gets all entangled with extras, dangerous ultimatums threaten to take it down with them. The yoke gets too heavy and we stumble beneath it.

It's important to add that a couple of paragraphs later Rachel also writes,

Of course, we all carry around false fundamentals.

This is one reason why I like Rachel. She understands, if I may say it this way, that she sins too. Here is humility. Very refreshing. And may God bless His Church with many more like her.

Now, I think that she is obviously right when she talks about false fundamentals. We attach to what it means to be a Christian, things that just have no business being associated with the faith. So, what are we to do? First, we need to acknowledge, as Rachel did, that we all have a problem here. Then, we need to identify the false fundamentals that we are carrying around so that we can get rid of them.

Sounds good. But now a critical question. How do we do that? How can we even recognize our false fundamentals? The answer to this begins by recognizing true fundamentals.

Jesus faced the same problem that Rachel described. He may not have labelled it ‘false fundamentals', but that's what we see Him dealing with as He confronted the false teaching of His day.

One set of false fundamentals had to do with 'the tradition of the elders'. Here, learned teachers of the past had concluded, 'You can't be a Jew and …' What followed was quite a list of things. The items on the list were different from Rachel's list that I quoted above, but it was the same idea: false fundamentals.

Consider the time that Jesus' disciples fell afoul of one of those traditions. 

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” (Mark 7.5-13)

So, here's the Pharisee's false fundamental: the tradition of ritual hand washing before eating as an act of religious purity. Jesus confronted them. 'False fundamentals!' But note how He made His case. He quotes Scripture. First, there's that tidbit from Isaiah that speaks to the general problem of holding to some faulty tradition. Then, Jesus follows up with something from Moses. Here, He shows that what they were teaching conflicted with what God had already said. False fundamentals!

All of that leads me to this. False fundamentals can only be exposed for what they are only by evaluating them according to a true fundamental, God's revelation of truth, the Bible. It is by a careful study of the Scriptures that we will be able to come to see more and more clearly those false fundamentals that we hold to and which cloud our vision.

At some point, (maybe my next post?) I would like to discuss what 'a careful study of the Scriptures' looks like.

Progressive Christianity: Love and Doctrinal Statements

I'm back taking a look at Rachel's chapter titled 'Adaptation' from her Faith Unraveled. And we'll start again with a quote.

Love. It’s that simple and that profound. It’s that easy and that hard.

Taking on the yoke of Jesus is not about signing a doctrinal statement or making an intellectual commitment to a set of propositions. It isn’t about being right or getting our facts straight. It is about loving God and loving other people. The yoke is hard because the teachings of Jesus are radical: enemy love, unconditional forgiveness, extreme generosity. The yoke is easy because it is accessible to all — the studied and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the religious and the nonreligious. Whether we like it or not, love is available to all people everywhere to be interpreted differently, applied differently, screwed up differently, and manifested differently. Love is bigger than faith, and it’s bigger than works, for it inhabits and transcends both.

It's not difficult to see what Rachel is reacting to. It's a sad fact that there are many Christians and churches where taking on the yoke of Jesus really is about 'signing a doctrinal statement or making an intellectual commitment to a set of propositions'. What makes this so evil is that it misses something so very important about who God is. He really is love. (So often sorting out large issues can be done only as we understand better who God is.) Before there was a creation, before there was a need for doctrinal statements or intellectual commitments, there was love. The Father was loving the Son and the Spirit, as the Son was loving the Father and the Spirit, and as the Spirit was loving the Father and the Son. Love is eternal because God was loving eternally. So, to miss this is to miss something beyond huge. God is love.

This explains Jesus' - what shall we call it? - annoyance/anger/rage with a church eager for doctrinal commitments but not for love.

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.  I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.'

So, here's a church holding the line on orthodox teaching, testing 'apostles' and hating the evil works of phony believers. And Jesus commends them for these things. And yet, He threatens to remove their lampstand. He threatens to destroy them as a church! And why? Because they are failing to love. Can it be any clearer? To be sure, faithful teaching is important. But it's not more important than love. It just isn't. And this is a lesson that many Christians and churches that stress orthodoxy need to learn. And if they don't, Jesus just might take them out also. It really is that serious.

Now, having vigorously agreed with Rachel when it comes to one point, I need to vigorously disagree with her on another. Again, a quote.

Whether we like it or not, love is available to all people everywhere to be interpreted differently, applied differently, screwed up differently, and manifested differently. Love is bigger than faith, and it’s bigger than works, for it inhabits and transcends both.

There are some things here that I'm not sure I understand, like the last sentence. But there are some things that I think I do understand and that I need to disagree with, like

… love is available to all people everywhere to be interpreted differently … 

'Interpreted differently?' The concept of love is up for grabs? If that's true then it loses all meaning whatsoever. And what we end up with is people justifying their actions by simply saying, 'But that's my interpretation of loving my neighbor.' And who could disagree? Could God?

I actually think that God has a particular definition of love. It's the definition that was working quite well for an eternity between the Father, Son and Spirit. What we need to do is agree with this definition and submit to it. That way, as we face some decision, we can work to understand His definition and then apply it, telling ourselves, 'God says that this is the loving thing to do and not that'. And we can help each other come to this kind of understanding of love.

Here's a bit of Scripture that fits here. The disciples have a question about marriage and divorce. So, Jesus tells them,

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. (Mark 10.11,12)

What did Jesus just tell those guys? I think that we can phrase it as, 'Divorce does not fit with love'. He has a definition for love, and He tells His disciples that that definition rules out divorce. So, if one of them was to divorce his wife, that would be a sin against love. It would be a sin against love of neighbor, his wife, as well as a sin against love of God who said doing that would be wrong, adultery. Jesus applied His definition and we need to follow His lead.

And it's not just about things to avoid. Jesus also said this,

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. Matthew 18:15

Again, to rephrase this, telling someone that he's done something wrong can be the loving thing to do - even if he thinks that what he's just done, say divorcing his wife, is loving.

God has a definition of love, a specific idea of what it is. He's described it in the Bible. (There's lots more than just those couple of verses I mentioned.) So, love cannot 'be interpreted differently'. There may be a range of things to do in some situation, all of which qualify for the label 'loving', but that range of things is not unlimited. God has described the boundaries. We need to agree with those boundaries and live accordingly.

This is really important for lots of reasons. Here's just one. Loving isn't just a nice thing to do. It's something that God expects us to do. And meeting His expectations is important, if for no other reason than wanting to act in a way that loves Him. So, we are to love His way to express our love to Him.

On top of that, God really does bless and curse. Jesus revealed that in His interactions with people, blessing some and cursing others. And receiving a blessing or a curse depends on how we are living. Are we actually loving God and neighbor? Are we living according to His definition of love?

Let's pull this together. There actually is a place for doctrinal statements and intellectual commitments. But they are justified if and only if the goal of such things is to help us and others to love God and to love our neighbors. So, for example, it can be an act of great love to call someone to embrace the doctrinal statement, 'Jesus is Lord' and to commit to understanding the depths of what that means so that that understanding will be a guide to living well. It can be an act of love to call someone to repudiate their definition of love and to embrace God's definition instead.

So, you see, it is not an either/or but a both/and. Just as there is great danger to Christians and churches that fail to love, there is great danger to Christians and churches who fail to make appropriate doctrinal statements and commitments.

So, while I agree - heartily agree - with Rachel in her reaction to a loveless orthodoxy, she needs to understand that Jesus calls us to some very definite doctrinal statements and intellectual commitments about love. He calls us to these so that we will love like He does. 

Progressive Christianity: Adaptation (I)

The next chapter in Rachel Held Evans' book Faith Unraveled is titled 'Adaptation'. There were several of things that stood out to me. For now, I'm just going to write about these. I hope to return to the chapter next time.

Let's start with a long quote from the beginning of her chapter.

It’s always a little embarrassing when you come out swinging and there’s nobody there to fight with you. I think that’s how a lot of us felt when we realized that the world wasn’t asking the questions we had learned to answer. Many of us who grew up in the church or received Christian educations were under the impression that the world was full of atheists and agnostics and that the greatest threat against Christianity was the rise of secular humanism. But what we found upon entering the real world was that most of our peers were receptive to spiritual things. Most believed in God, were open to the supernatural, and respected religious ideas so long as they were not forced upon them. Most were like Sam. They weren’t searching for historical evidence in support of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They were searching for some signs of life among his followers.

 Not once after graduating from Bryan was I asked to make a case for the scientific feasibility of miracles, but often I was asked why Christians aren’t more like Jesus. I may have met one or two people who rejected Christianity because they had difficulties with the deity of Christ, but most rejected Christianity because they thought it means becoming judgmental, narrow-minded, intolerant, and unkind. People didn’t argue with me about the problem of evil; they argued about why Christians aren’t doing more to alleviate human suffering, support the poor, and oppose violence and war. Most weren’t looking for a faith that provided all the answers; they were looking for one in which they were free to ask questions.

The first thing that jumped out at me was her description of the training by her church. It sounds like she and her peers were being prepared to be full-time apologists, ready to fight with all of those 'atheists and agnostics'. This interests me because, based on other things that Rachel wrote in this book, it seems that one thing that was missing in her training was how to love people in the way that Jesus did. I don't know anything about her former church beyond what she has written, but it seems that they may have gotten things mixed up. The first thing about being a Christian is being taught how to love; first to love God and then other people. Once that's in place there may be some who will want to engage the culture around them. Fine. But if first things are first, then any engagement with the culture will be an expression of love. So, there never is any time to 'come out swinging'. If Rachel and those like here had been taught in this way there would have been 'signs of life among [Jesus] followers', the signs that her peers were looking for. Instead, what Rachel tells us is that her peers equated being a Christian with being 'judgmental, narrow-minded, intolerant and unkind'. That says something about at least some of the Christians that these folk knew. And what it says isn't good.

Then this caught my attention.

Most weren’t looking for a faith that provided all the answers; they were looking for one in which they were free to ask questions.

This is a theme that has popped up more than once or twice in my readings of progressive Christians. 'We don't want to know all the answers. We just want to be able to ask our questions.' I think that a person should feel free to ask questions, any question. And that young Christians were discouraged to ask (I think that this is how Rachel and others would describe their past) says something about those who were teaching them. Could it be that they weren't quite sure of the answers themselves? Or was it just that they figured that God is impatient with honest questions? To be able to ask questions is so important. God isn't threatened by them and neither should we be.

However, when someone asks a question he or she needs to take seriously the answer offered in response. I wonder if not 'looking for a faith that provided all the answers' is a way of saying that there aren't any answers, or pitiful few. And what's wrong with a faith that does, in fact, provide all the answers? Isn't that a claim that Jesus would make, that He really does have all the answers? Oh, I realize that that doesn't mean that any of us have all the answers. But could it be that we have some of the answers based on what things He said? After all, there are answers to the questions. Jesus knows them. To be sure, we might get some of the answers wrong, but it's at least a place to start. Maybe with some discussion we could take wrong answers and turn them into right answers.

I also sometimes wonder if there's something less than complimentary, shall we say, behind this desire to just ask questions. You see, if there is, in fact, an answer to some question of mine, a bit of truth, that means that I have to yield to the answer to my question. I have to accept it. It's the truth. But yielding to that answer, accepting it as God's truth, may well mean that my life will have to change in some way. What if I don't want to have my life changed? Always asking but never answering would be a way to avoid change. Paul warned that there would be those who are 'always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth'. They ask and ask, but they don't come to conclusions that would define how they are to live. That would require change. Am I saying that all who desire to be able to ask questions are like this? Absolutely not! But I am saying that there are some who are.

Let me be clear as to where I'm coming from. I think that Jesus has all the answers. And I think that many of those answers are in the Bible. That's why He had it written. It's a book with answers to life's serious questions, Jesus' answers to life's serious questions. What we need is people who are familiar enough with that book, with the nitty-gritty of that book (where, oftentimes, the answers lurk) and who love and care enough for the people around them that they will listen attentively to any question and then will offer, humbly offer, their best understanding of the Bible's answer - and then stick around for an open back and forth of ideas about that answer in the hope of refining it until it is clear that it's really pretty close to what Jesus would say if He were standing there. In this there would be a real love for people, many of whom have heartfelt questions about how to live, along with a stand for the truth of God. And the best example of this combination is Jesus.

Progressive Christianity: Sam the Feminist

Rachel Held Evans' next chapter in Faith Unraveled is a short one titled 'Sam the Feminist'. Here Rachel recounts some of her experiences with a co-worker at one of the newspapers that she worked at. There's one paragraph that captures what I think is Rachel's point of the chapter. Here, Sam responds to Rachel's invitation to come to church with her.

Listen, I respect you and your commitment to your faith. Really, you’re one of the nicest Christians I know. It’s just that I’ve had some pretty nasty run-ins with your conservative evangelical cohorts and I don’t think I’m cut out for that lifestyle. I’m not into all the hellfire and damnation stuff, and I’m definitely not into this submit-to-your-husband stuff. I can’t imagine telling my gay friends that they’ve got to force themselves to be straight, and I can’t imagine voting for a guy like Bush just because he’s pro-life. Now, I’ve got no problem with Jesus. But it seems to me that if evangelical Christians were the only ones to have God all figured out, then they would be the kindest, most generous people around. No offense to you, but in my twenty-plus years in this business, I haven’t found that to be true. Most Christians I know are only interested in winning arguments, converts, and elections.

It needs to be said that Sam's assessment of too many evangelicals is too true, and that too often. We can be so very focused on winning the argument. We can conclude that everything that matters depends on winning the next election. And as a result we can be nasty, very nasty. And it sounds like those evangelicals that Sam has known have not understood the difference between those things that are of first importance, like coming to Jesus in repentance and faith, and those things that are of secondary importance, like how to live as a married couple. Our reputation needs some work. And that work needs to start with some self-evaluation leading to heartfelt repentance.

There is, however, this. We need to take a stand for some important things, things of primary importance. And when we do that there will be those who will disagree with us. And some of them may disagree vigorously. As a result, they will say some pretty bad things about us. 

Back in the first century the Christians took a stand on something of primary importance, and there was a severe reaction. At issue was how you answered this question: Who is Lord? The culture said, 'Caesar is Lord'. The Christians said, 'Jesus is Lord'. And because of this difference the Christians were despised - and worse. There are some primary things that we need to take a stand for. When we do, we will be hated. Our opponents will describe us with harsh words. And they will have the support of the culture. Sadly, there will be those Christians who will compromise on these primary issues. They will say, 'Caesar is Lord over here and Jesus is Lord over there'. And they will be found acceptable as a result. But can we do that?

We need to be a people who are full of grace and who offer our love and acceptance to all. We are to welcome anyone, just as they are, into our meeting places. We are to go the second mile in trying to overcome any obstacles to friendship. And yet, when it comes to primary issues, we are to be rigidly uncompromising. In those situations we are to express ourselves with as much grace as possible. But we must not give in one inch. Faithfulness to Jesus requires it. And if, as a result, our reputation is trashed and people have all sorts of terrible things to say about us, then so be it. That is simply the cost of discipleship.