I was talking with a friend of mine about our pet peeves about the way theology is developed and discussed today. We talked for a bit about Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, then moved on to theologians as a whole.

His problem is that theologians generally write for other theologians. They tend to sit back positing, hypothesizing, and generally wondering out loud, but little (if any) of that is usable by the layman. They use a lot of words in order to sound smart, whether they are or not.

I add that while that’s happening, many of those who teach the church are reducing theology to pragmatism, washing out the foundation of their positions when they speak to the congregation. They are, in essence, discouraging people from thinking theologically about things by spoon-feeding them “life lessons” and “practical application”. The result is that people are unable to associate their beliefs with their everyday activities.

One example that jumped out at me recently is that a number of pediatricians support breastfeeding, but recommend a formula supplement. There are a lot of conclusions that people will draw from that, but few will see that this points to a lack of faith in God. If you have faith, and are able to associate your faith with everyday life, you’ll realize that God gave your baby every nutrient she needs for her first 6-12 months in the form of breastmilk. If God is providing, is there any need for a formula supplement?

I’m not saying that supplements are evil, and I’m not saying that you lack faith if you listen to your doctor. I’m saying that neither you, nor your doctor have been encouraged to think theologically about such things.

My friend says that it’s like theological texts are written in another language, and there are only a handful of skilled/called/responsive translators. We need more ministers to heed the call to teach their congregations to think theologically about life. Not just church life, but every part of their lives.

This post is about me. I can hear both of you saying, “Aren’t they all?” Well, yes. But this one isn’t about me, per se, but about “me”. As has been said many times, in many places, our culture is driven by the consumer. It used to just be an economic phenomenon, but it’s spread. The consumer determines whether or not you have a job, and how hard you work, and how much money you make. How much money you make determines how much money you spend when you get off work and become the consumer. The consumer determines what movies and TV shows get made, and what kinds of commercials air during those shows.

I know you’ve seen the whole “consumerism is EVIL!” rant before, so I’ll stop there. Suffice it to say that (several years ago) it made its appearance in the church. People started choosing churches based on what they “got out of it”. I’ve done it myself, and I hate that part of me.

Like I said, that was several years ago. When people started seeking church that way, rather than correcting that error, church leaders began to cater to it. Robert Webber says this in the intro to Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches:

While the sixties were the age of secularism in which God had been shoved to the periphery of existence, the eighties and nineties rapidly shifted to a new era of self-focused spirituality…In this context, a “pragmatic evangelicalism” was born…[it] created new practical solutions - corporate churches, entertainment worship, need-driven programs, therapeutic faith.”

Webber goes on to discuss how theology took a back seat to meeting felt needs. I went to a conference last year that brought to my attention the concept of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The basic idea, as stated on Christianpost.com, is this:

• 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”(Deism)
• 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”(Moralism)
• 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”(Therapeutic)
• 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”(Deism again)
• 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” (Moralism Redux)

I just read this article to brush up…the comments are especially telling.

It’s clear that based on the evidence of MTD that we can easily see in our world, theology - Biblical theology, that is - has taken a serious hit. I was speaking with my pastor today about a conversation I had with some of my teens. Our Sunday School conversation turned to world religions, and two of my students said that they believed that a) God revealed himself differently to different cultures, and those made up the world religions…so they’re all equal, and b) that a good person - the example was Ghandi - must be deserving of God’s love.

I told my pastor that I disagreed with them, and first he asked me why. I was a little confused, but he said that he’d tell me what he thought, and that I could tell him what I thought, and we’d go from there. Here is a paraphrase of his position:

I see religion as people watching a baseball game through a wood fence. They’re looking through knotholes, one from first base, one from centerfield, one on the third baseline. They’re all different perspectives of the same game.

I had a friend who was an alcoholic and a drug addict [note: I assume he was recovering]. He told me that we’re all suffering from the same disease: separation from God. Everyone’s trying to fill the void inside, he had chosen drugs and alcohol.

I’m a Christian because I believe with all my heart that Jesus is the way to God. But if someone tells me that they’re Muslim, or Buddhist, and that fills the void for them, who am I to say that’s wrong?

It’s like in the the Gospel lesson this week. When they asked Peter why he had to eat with the uncircumcised, he said, “If these guys had an experience just like we did, who am I to keep them out?”

There are two things in this conversation that stand out to me, showing that Biblical theology has become unimportant. First, my pastor believes that the purpose of faith is therapeutic. Whatever stuffs your turkey. It’s about you feeling complete, satisfied, happy. Second, he either misunderstood, or intentionally misstated the passage that had been our reading this Sunday.

Before Peter went to Cornelius’ house in Acts 10 he had a dream. God told him not to call “common” that which he has made clean. Then the Spirit directed him to follow the three men who had come from Caesarea. He did, where he was told of Cornelius’ dream, then he preached the Gospel. Then the Spirit descended on them. When questioned, Peter recounted the whole incident, including both dreams, and applying Jesus’ words of them being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Then he said, “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

Peter’s experience was directed by heaven itself. Supported by dreams, prophecy, and the words of Christ. Moreover, it doesn’t conflict with Scripture, it confirms it. Scripture tells us that “the nations will rally to him” (Is 11:10), that he would proclaim justice to them (Is 42:1); Christ told the apostles to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19-20), etc, etc.

But my pastor’s argument does not confirm scripture. It contradicts it. Those who do not believe are “condemned already” (Jn 3:18), no one will find God except through Christ (Jn 14:6), “there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ (1Tim 2:5).” How can my pastor, who seems in all ways conventional hold this belief? I honestly don’t know.

I know it’s a product of our consumer culture. I know it’s a product of the “tolerance” movement that is en vogue in progressive churches like my own. I know it’s a result of “niceness”: you must be careful not to offend. Nobody wants to seem arrogant or superior, so they won’t point out error. They won’t point out anything that will make another person uncomfortable. So they pretend there’s no right way.

In the end, it all comes down to “me”. What makes me happy right now? What makes people like me? What will keep my parishioners and the members of the community from thinking I’m cocky?

I told him that Jesus’ purpose wasn’t to make us feel whole or complete, that’s just a by-product. He came to reconcile us to God, for his glory. Our purpose is to give glory to God. This isn’t about “me”, it’s about him.

One of the biggest problems affecting “conversation” and “dialogue” between progressives and conservatives, especially when Christians are involved, is that no one seems to understand the difference between social ethics and Christian morality.

The left is convinced that the church needs to adhere to contemporary Western culture’s ethical standards. Wherever they go, the church should go as well. The right is likewise convinced that the church needs to make society conform to (its particular version of) Christian morality. Both sides are wrong.

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world…” Paul’s statement in Romans is something that progressives would do well to focus on. The left wing of the church is getting co-opted by liberal ideals. Pluralism, feminism, reversed or merged gender roles and altered gender identity…all these have moved from society to the church.

There’s no place in the church for the acceptance of other gods or religious practices. And for any official church leader to say that there is salvation outside of Christ is…brace yourself…heresy. We don’t like to use that word; there’s just something about clearly calling out someone’s error that bothers our contemporary sensibilities.

God lays out pretty particular roles for the genders. They’re clear in Scripture and biology. Men are called and created to lead, protect, to be the head of woman as Christ is the head of the church. There’s more, but that argument is for another place. Western feminism though, is pushing for not only gender equality, but for the total interchangeability of the sexes. That’s led to the progressive Christian movement ordaining women as a norm rather than an exception, against the example of Scripture.

As with Newton’s Third Law (”For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”), the right has done the same type of stupid stuff. Pushing for things such as school prayer, making same-sex unions illegal, and making women feel as though they “should” (read: must) be stay-at-home moms are ridiculous intrusions into the pluralistic world of civil ethics.

Ethics deals with right and wrong in our society, which is a mishmash of cultures and religions, and we need to be conscious of those around us with different beliefs. Christian morality is based in the Bible, and for believers there can be no other standard; but while that standard comes from the God of all mankind, we only apply it to those who’ve heard and accepted His truth, because the unregenerate mind is incapable of accepting it.

These two concepts can interact just fine in society today. For me it looks something like this: The Bible speaks negatively about the issue of homosexuality. It receives no positive treatment in Scripture. On top of that, the examples of Scripture support a marriage of one man and one woman (1 Cor 7). However, I can think of no ethical reason to deny homosexuals the right to enter into a contract similar to marriage. But the church should not bless same-sex unions. This is just one example.

My biggest pet peeve is that both sides claim the moral high ground in living as Christ wanted, but no one is following the most important of Jesus commands. The right would say that the most important part of Christianity is to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” while the left would say loving our neighbor is most important. They’re both wrong.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.” Matt. 22:36-38

Loving God is more important than loving our neighbor. It’s more important than personal holiness. Without a surpassing love for God, neither of those things means anything. How do we love God? We obey His commands. We glorify His name. We love the good, shun evil, and devote ourselves entirely to the Kingdom.

Loving our neighbor is an idol to the left. It’s taken on a whole new meaning. To the progressive movement it means accepting them and their sins. But if we truly love them we’ll confront their sinfulness, so they can repent and turn to God. Holiness is an idol to the right. But it manifests itself not in true holiness, which is characterized by servanthood and humility, but in the self-righteousness of the Pharisees. Pretending to have no struggles is not holiness.

Both sides have a long way to go in understanding the meaning of love and holiness.

“For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” If we raise someone out of poverty, but don’t teach her to love and follow God, and to keep his commands, she is still lost to eternity. Likewise if we teach someone to follow all of the rules but they don’t have love for God or compassion for others, he is also lost to eternity.

Until we start talking about the same things, our debates will continue to be meaningless posturing and shouting matches. Let’s get on the same page.

You’ve all seen this skit on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, right? Well, here’s to science and religion meeting on the web.

The Slope is Really Slippery, from Christianity Today:

For many years, IVF proponents dismissed fears about IVF abuses as irrational slippery-slope arguments. But now the Abraham Center for Life, through embryo selection, is moving society farther down the slope. This abuse of biotechnology opens the floodgates for commercializing human life. When will the embryo drive-through service start?

The slippery slope is real, and it involves a broad cross-section of the bioethics industry. W. Jay Wood, associate professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, notes that the Christian view of sinful human nature makes slippery-slope arguments credible. “Humans naturally test limits. Any cop will tell you that if you post a 35-mph speed limit, drivers will go 38, 40, 42, until the law cracks down.”

People tend to say that the problem with “slippery slope arguments is that they assumer we’re at the top of the hill right now. But in reality, does that matter? If we’re halfway down the slope, shouldn’t we be trying to stop and turn back?

Science, Superior to God? (JackeHammer):

Some men look to sex to fill an uneasiness they sense in their soul, some look to wealth, some to knowledge, some look, yes, to science as they seek and when they do they find answers to questions about all sorts of things, just as do those who look to God and God’s Word—the Bible. Sometimes scientists can’t find an answer but they have faith that they will one day, when they do enough experiments, when they ask the right question, just as those who believe in God have faith that they will one day understand things which they can’t understand today.

Secular people tend to ignore the faith needed to pursue science as the basis for your understanding of life. They act as though science is totally based on fact. What they ignore is that much of the science that forms the foundation of their “belief” in the ordered, autonomous world, is only theory. Of course, you can test your theory through the scientific method, but that process isn’t as simple in it’s implications as some people believe:

Science is the OPPOSITE to faith. The scientific process is all about finding evidence to prove or disprove a theory. Science is always moving forwards, trying to disprove earlier theories, searching for new theories, trying to gather better data[...]

So [the Big Bang is] about as proven as scientific theories get (which doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot get replaced by a new theory in the future if competing evidence becomes available, although that seems highly unlikely).

Well, if people are always trying to disprove you, and if you look at history, likely will, how do we know that this is right? Once we’ve “proven” a hypothesis aren’t we believing on the faith that we’ve taken into account all the details and tested them purely? And how quickly we forget…as recently as 1949 “big bang” was a term of ridicule for the theory that many now revere so well. So why is anyone confident at all that a new theory isn’t going to pop up and knock the big bang right out of the picture?

In the line of thinking of the above quoted blogger’s six-year-old (”Who invented God?”), here are some questions that might make your head hurt:

The big bang theory says that the earth expanded “a tremendously dense and hot state” in which all the matter in the universe was packed together. But where did that matter come from? And what did it expand into? If space is generally a vacuum, containing no matter, what is space expanding into now? Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how did we come to have so much of it? Wouldn’t it have to have had a beginning?

And what if one day all of our scientific experimentation leads to proof that God exists?

People toss the word “literal” around when describing the beliefs of theologically conservative Christians, and it’s getting to me. They say things like, evangelicals are:

Protestants who believe that the Bible is literally true, that salvation requires a �born again� conversion, and that one must share that faith with others. Some belong to established groups like Methodist and Baptist churches.

I can’t decide if it’s ignorant or insidious. One of two things is true, they don’t have any clue about the nature of the Bible, or they are intentionally trying to paint us as simple, gullible morons.

Why do I say that? Because no one in their right mind would take the whole Bible literally. It’s just not reasonable, and we all know it. The Bible is 66 books. There are histories, narratives, songs, poems, prayers, biographies, prophecies, and law…all folded neatly into a leather-bound package. Of course we don’t take the Bible literally, not as a whole. But there are parts that we do.

When we look at the creation story we see a literal and figurative language woven together. But throughout the rest of Genesis we see history. In Exodus there is history and law, in Psalms there are prayers and poetry, the prophets use hyperbole, metaphor, simile, and literal language to proclaim the Word of God. The Gospels are biographies of Jesus. They are literal, but Jesus, as all men do, uses figurative language. Not always, but sometimes. I’m pretty sure he never saw anyone walking around with a plank in his eye. But when he said that God sacrificed him so that those who believed would have everlasting life, he meant it.

What would life look like if we took the whole of the Bible literally? “Dad, I punched Tommy, do I have to cut off my hand?” It takes diligence and faith to understand the difference between the literal and figurative parts of the Bible. For those of you who are having trouble, here’s you’re first lesson: Yes, a tree did catch Absolom by the head; no, John the Baptist didn’t actually leap in Elizabeth’s womb…he was swimming.

« Previous Page — Next Page »