what if we are way off?

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.