Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

"I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." Vincent van Gogh (as quoted by my sister Anna)

"Thoughts undertaken for God's sake--like that on which we are engaged at the moment--are continued as if they were an end in themselves, and then as if our pleasure in thinking were the end, and finally as if our pride or celebrity were the end." C. S. Lewis

I've been reading a lot lately about what people have called the "Emergent Church" movement. Like all the timid members of my age group, I am wary of labels, but it will suffice to say that I think I agree with many (but not all) of the ideas purported by the movement. I belong to a church that has been called "Emergent" before, and though they (like the members of their congregation) would probably rather stay away from labels, I think the label is accurate in some ways, but certainly not all.

One thing that I think it is important to realize is that the "Emergent Movement" is made up of a lot of people who are not unified and have not discussed just what makes their movement what it is. It's a lot like talking about the "Homosexual Agenda" - as if all the homosexuals in the world had met one day and agreed upon on a specific set of ideas and goals. Nonsense. So what one person says is Emergent isn't Emergent to another, so on and so forth.

This being said, I didn't come here to explain to anyone the Emergent movement or to really comment on it at all. What I wanted to do is share a few ideas that have been rolling around in my head, and how those ideas relate to the Emergent movement. A lot of these come from two books I've read lately which Emergent kids tend to like, which are Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (given to me by my sister, who is a much greater student of God's kingdom than I will ever be) and Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (given to me by the great Drew Norris - see the comment about my sister).

And so, here are some things I've been thinking about, that are slowly shaping the kind of Christianity I am attempting to live.

1. The Bible has a lot of contradictions in it, some of which are not satisfactorily explainable.

How I have wrestled, fought, and desired for this not to be true. I can think of all the people in my life that would cringe to hear me say it. I may be back here in a few months or years saying "Wait! I didn't mean it! It isn't true!" But the fact is, when you read the Bible, you can't get around it. Paul says God chooses each man for hell or for heaven, and John says every one who chooses to believe will be saved. Christ says if you don't forgive you will not be forgiven, but we know he died for all sins. The Trinity. The list goes on. We know it is impossible for an infinite being (one that cannot change) to contradict itself or himself, so we are left calling these contradictions "mysteries." My church calls them "tensions." Which honestly, sometimes feels like a cop-out. A big one. I am convinced an answer is out there that explains all of these contradictions in a way that does not violate God's supreme, logical truth. I am not convinced anyone knows these answers. I am not convinced they are knowable (or unknowable, really) while on this earth.

2. Some of the stuff in the Bible, I don't really like.

Blasphemy, right? At least I thought it was at one time. Now I think it's okay. The Bible can handle questions, even questions about its intentions, about whether they're right or good. It handled Job's, David's, Moses', Hosea's, Gideon's, Peter's... it can certainly handle mine.

3. The Bible is absolute truth, but no one can fully understand it (which is the nature of absolute, divine truth). Therefore, everyone who claims the Bible says something is only giving their interpretation of it, which must be taken with a healthy dose of salt and critical thinking.

This one's from Rob Bell, although really it's an obvious truth and I don't know why I didn't see it before. Let's see if I can get it right. No one man can say he absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knows how to perfectly interpret the Bible. Therefore, every interpretation we hear is simply that - an interpretation, and a human interpretation at that. Because these interpretations are human have the potential to be false, and the onus is on us, the Christ followers, to decide which interpretation we believe is correct. Once we decide that one school of thought, one denomination, one movement, or (heaven help us) one person has got the whole thing figured out and all we have to do is listen and believe, we're sunk. Of course this sounds elementary because it applies to life in general, but I believe it's a crucial aspect of the current church culture movement. We must realize that neither the Calvinists nor the Baptists nor the community churches nor the reformed seminaries nor the Pope have a corner on what exactly the Bible says. True, the Bible has only one perfect, divine, logical interpretation. And true, it is possible for someone to read the Bible and be able to understand and even teach this truth. But if any man (or group of people) says he's got the whole thing figured out beyond a shadow of a doubt, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. (Please note that this is NOT to say that no interpretation of the Bible can be said to be better, or more truthful, than another.)

4. Based on numbers 1-3, being correct is not a virtue.

So from what I've stated so far, I'm left with a Bible that contains a lot of apparent contradictions. I must also rely on possibly fallible human interpretations to understand it. Besides all this, it's got stuff in it that anyway you slice it, I don't really like. These things throw a wrench in the gears of the way I used to live. I used to think a lot about theology and try to come up with a satisfactory answer to every theological question available. The idea was to figure out for myself a Christian theology that I could be assured was correct, and could be defended. If I was to meet the world I was going to have to be able to spell it out for them, to argue it beyond question. Paul did this many times in the synagogues. I was going to have to do it in High School, College, and "the real world."

The problem is I got so enamored with truth and logic and theology and doctrine that I couldn't see the forest for the trees, and I started talking a lot more about God than to him. And though I'm using the past tense, I honestly still struggle with this week in and week out. The truth is though, that religious teaching can become what we call "too much of a good thing," if you let it consume the Christianity you live, expelling everything else, like love, service, and knowing God intimately. That's what I've learned and I'm trying not to enact it.

People like me, who tend to gravitate toward the temptation of glorifying "being right," sometimes believe that being correct is a virtue. But the trouble is it isn't. Being right is strangely absent from the fruits of the spirit. I've mentioned this before, but the idea here is that God probably cares very little about how correct my theology is or isn't. He has bigger fish to fry.

5. Love is a virtue.

Number 4 leads right into this one. If being correct is not a virtue, we who have made it one must turn and acknowledge the greatest virtue of all, one worth living. Like van Gogh, the more I live and the more I learn the more I feel love is the highest, most supreme calling, the most beautiful endeavor known to man. It is simple and it is powerful. I have grown (for I was not always this way) to admire and appreciate the man who has learned to love his enemies and his friends more than himself, to sacrifice his needs and desires for theirs if it will help them, more than even the most cunning and insightful thinkers in history. I am now daily striving to dedicate myself to loving others over and above understanding my God, my religion, and my world.

6. Being a Christian is simple.

...Which is not what some would have you believe. The idea that having perfectly "correct" doctrinal beliefs is absolutely necessary for living a (or "the") Christian life has crept into many Christian circles. Dallas Willard mentions this in The Divine Conspiracy, and he points out that it's just not true. Certainly there are foundational ideas that one must believe to call themselves a Christian (all men are sinful, the wages of sin is death, Christ alone has paid the price for your sins, you must repent to be free - the standard Gospel message), but when these foundational ideas expand to include all sorts of details that are debated between denominations and sects constantly, this Christianity becomes complicated and the people living it become elitist.

Over the years denominations (i.e. groups of people, communities) have agreed upon ideas that they felt were correct, and agreed that other ideas were not, and so formed creeds to make up groups of churches that believed similarly. This is all well and good until these ideas start becoming fundamental truths, and people start arguing and believing that anyone who disagrees with their principles is either not someone they wish to associate with or worse, not a "true Christian."

The idea here is that it's simple, simple, simple to be a Christian. There are very few things one need believe, and really only one virtue that need be pursued, out of which all others follow. The extra doctrinal baggage that I love so dearly is not bad, but it's not necessarily good either. It's all in how you use it, how you believe it, and how you refrain from letting it consume your spiritual life.

Rob Bell takes this idea a little too far in my opinion, describing how the truths of the faith can flex like a trampoline instead of a brick wall, and we shouldn't have stopped crafting theology hundreds of years ago like an artist who creates a velvet Elvis and proclaims that artistic endeavor has reached its pinnacle and can go no further. These are ideas I don't like and I don't think I agree with, but the idea that they point me to which I do believe is that I need to stop bickering over the details and start loving my neighbors. I believe the Emergent church is striving to open up the conversation between post-modernists and Christians, to get everyone to sit down and have a meal and an open minded discussion on both sides, neither party rejecting the others ideas before they've even been put on the table. I think if we stuck to the simple ideas we need to follow Christ, and strove to love our friends, we would get much further.

As I read over this I realize that I've seen all of it before, that to most Christians this will seem like the recycled stuff they teach you in Sunday school. I'm sorry if that's indeed what it is. I think perhaps that in this stage of my life I'm learning to really grasp and truly understand the great truths I was taught in Sunday school. It is hard (maybe impossible) to learn what it means to love your God and your neighbor. The older I get the more I realize how things like this that seem so one dimensional when you first learn them are really mountains of truth that men have been struggling to live and understand for ages.