My wife and I had one of those great conversations the other night. We had just finished watching a documentary called 'Jesus Camp' that looks at a branch of evangelicalism that encourages prophecy, speaking in tongues, they are self-acclaimed fundamentalists, and they have a summer camp. My guess is that many people who watched this particular documentary walked away thinking to themselves, "how could they have gotten the Christian faith so wrong?... how could they possibly be that way?" After discussing the documentary for a bit, our conversation gradually caused us to ask some more self-reflecting questions.I recently finished up a book by N.T. Wright who said, "My guess is that 80-85% of what i teach my students is 'true' and 'correct' and the other 15-20% is wrong... The problem is, I don't know what that 20% is."
That is how I feel sometimes. As I grow as a believer and follower of Christ, one of my greatest hopes is that I am able to talk about and understand the God I am striving to know and serve more and more each day. I believe it is very important to speak accurately about our faith. However, I am sure there are places where I have simply 'got it wrong...' The problem is I am not sure what those 'places' are. In fact, I could make a list of questions that I sometimes ask myself:
Have I become too liberal in regards too what it means to be a believer?
Should I be doing more to teach the students at my local church?
As I believer, should I take a greater concern in politics and government?
Has Protestantism strayed too far from its Roman Catholic and Orthodox history?
If Jesus were hear in the flesh, what would his words be to me?
And so on, and so on....
The obvious response is, "We need to see what scripture says and live according to God's Word." But the problem with that response is that there will always be different interpretations and understandings of God's Word... Hence 10,000 Christian denominations (which is a pretty sad statistic, might i say) Different people who share a great love for Jesus will always walk away with different conclusions. I guess our job is to continue to seek the Spirit's leading and guiding in our lives and resist the temptation to settle for easy answers.
One thing I do know? We need to be ready to admit that we don't have all the answers, and we need to stand firm and be unwavering in the essentials. What are those essentials? Just add that question to the list above.
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Watched that same documentary. My struggle I have is that how do I know that they aren't saying the same things about me that I was saying about them in regards to being "off"? At the end of the day, I remind myself that we are all trying to follow Jesus, however cliche that might sound. That being said, no matter the person or denomination, we need to remain extremely humble, gracious, and eager to learn more at all times. The God we serve does not pledge allegiance to one denomination, so I have to be open to the notion that the spirit moves and breathes in many different ways and (Christian circles), no matter how hard that may be to swallow at times.
ReplyDeleteOne of the questions you asked got my attention. You stated: "Has Protestantism strayed too far from its Roman Catholic and Orthodox history?"
ReplyDeleteI think a greater question to ask is: "Has Protestantism strayed to far from not the Catholic and Orthodox history, but from 'our' Jewish history." Yeshua was a Jew and so were all of His disciples. The NT (or, NC writings), if translated correctly and not transLITERATED will show the bias that even our "church fathers" had towards the Jews. Thus, have we had 1800 years of backwards theology? Origen, Augustine, Aquinas; were they anti-semitic? Martin Luther was the most anti-semitic "father" of them all. He hated the Jews and wished they would all die - even advocating their death (Hitler LOVED Luther). Can we follow such false teachers? Can celebrating Pagan holidays like Easter and Christmas be a tradition to force out the Jews and seperate the christians as superior? Easter ham was started as a tradition to prove that one was not a Jew and thus, they ate pork. What about the Shabbat? We all know it is on Saturday, it wasn't changed in the Bible, why do we now celebrate on Sunday? because of anti-semitism in the "church." Speaking of the "church," that word does not exist in the original apostolic writings. Our interpretation of ekklesia is all wrong. Ekklesia is mentioned all throughout the Tenakh (obviously, the "church" is not a knew concept). In fact, William Tyndale was burnt at the stake because he refused to put the word "church" into his translation. The KJV didn't have it in there originally, but was forced to put it in there - by the "church." Being born-again, not a new concept - all throughout the Talmud. Being grafted-in? Not to the tree of Yeshua, but the tree of Israel.
.....Boy oh boy I could go on forever. As you can see this is a hot topic for me. :)
To comment on the basis of your post - For many years I was wrong about my faith. Dead wrong. Even though I had all the "right" answers and could spout off the "meaning" of ANY subject in the Bible. My "meanings" were wrong, and that is a most humbling experience. Relearning everything you were taught because there is 1800 years of mistransliteration and theological garbage is very hard to do. But I faced the fact that if I loved the Lord, I had no choice but to face the truth. Here I was, a Bible College Educated and ordained minister of
the "church" and I had it SO WRONG! Now, I am getting it right, but I know that I was wrong then, so I now have left a lot of room for error.
Here is something to chew on... For 6000 years the "experts" and "authorities" believed that the world was flat. They also believed that the Sun and stars rotated around the earth.
"Suppose we knew half of everything there was to know in the world, is it possible that the truth is found in the other half?"
Andrew- Thanks for sharing. Definitely a lot of things to think and work through.
ReplyDeleteRyan- Sounds like you have been spending a lot of time and effort studying the Hebrew scriptures and wrestling with a bunch of stuff. I think it is great that you were able to get to a point where you saw the need to go back and look at all the things you believed and evaluate them. It is essential for all of us to do.
True, a lot of time indeed. However, wrestling wouldn't be the right word. When you are faced with something you can't deny, acceptance comes easily. Humbling, sure, but fulfilling - absolutely! I have never been so fulfilled in all my life as a follower of "Christ" as I am as a follower of Yeshua. Keep up the good posts....PS. You never answered my post about Rob Bell. i am really curious of your perspective on his stance.
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