“The simple claim of our faith is that Jesus of Nazareth destabilizes the
human world, makes something new happen that is human, and requires us to get
on with life in a new way. So the real issue is not, how do miracles happen? The
real issue is, what shall we do with Jesus? Shall we trust him like the man and
obey him like the sprit and be raised? Or shall we continue in our recalcitrant
disbelief that leaves the world closed and close to death?”[1]
Heresy generally
has been understood as a matter of incomplete or partial, rather than
erroneous, articulation or living of faith. Another approach might say that
heresies usually are formulated as either/or dichotomies, while the realities
of life and faith normally confront us as both/and continuums.
As an
example, some churches emphasize eternal salvation to the relative exclusion of
temporal ministries of compassion, while other churches tend to reverse that focus.
Either approach is incomplete.
Ironically,
heresy frequently aligns with secular categories: conservative and liberal. Jim
Wallis, founder and Editor of Sojourners
magazine, says conservatives tend to emphasize personal accountability, while
liberals are more likely to emphasize social accountability. His point is confirmed
by those conservative Christians who demonize his call for a balance between
personal and social responsibility.
The same Bible
that has John 3:16 and Acts 2:21 also has Matthew 25 and Luke 4:16-30.
Conservative Christians emphasize salvation and evangelism to the relative
neglect of giving the cup of cold water and feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, etc. Progressive Christians are more likely to neglect evangelism in
favor of political influence to help the poor. Both approaches border on
heresy, not from error, but from an incomplete proclamation of a divine Word.
My own
denomination essentially abandoned evangelism in the mid-20th century,
and today numbers about 15% of its 1955 membership. The churches that
maintained an evangelistic emphasis have become, by default, the “voice of the
church.” As a result, two generations of “spiritual-but-not-religious” North
Americans are conspicuous by their absence from organized communities of faith.
They have perceived (rightly or wrongly) that “the church” has become
self-absorbed, judgmental and uncaring.
Part of the
problem is that the evangelistic message and strategy that worked in the first
half of the 20th century became
increasingly ineffective in the last half of that same century. The message was,
and is, still valid; but confrontational strategies replaced the simple
approach of “lifting up Christ” and drove people away, rather than attracting
them. Spiritualized 19th century jargon failed to connect with a
public already turned off by incongruities between that language and the
behavior of their perceived stereotype of “the church.”
But the final
nail in the coffin was (1) the marriage of the entire church to the language and
strategies of the marketplace, and (2) the marriage of the evangelistic[2]
churches to, and their consequent total absorption into, the political right.
Today the loudest voices from the evangelistic church, and thus the default stereotype
of all churches, is virtually indistinguishable from the political alt-right. [NOTE: some will argue, with some merit, that the
political alt-right is the offspring of the Christian right. Either way, the partial
gospel proclaimed is relatively oblivious to “the least of these”—the most vulnerable
of society.]
The result
is a broken church represented by an ineffective testimony from the so-called
Mainline churches and a counterproductive counter-testimony from the default typecast
of the church of the 21st century. Both messages are incomplete.
The 21st
century church wallows in relative heresy.
And the “spiritual-but-not-religious”
millennial generations can see it; ergo,
their absence. Isn’t it ironic that a relatively secular spirituality is calling
the church’s bluff?
The
political/ecclesiastical right calls for the elimination of governmental
participation in the care of the poor. Many progressives, including me, also favor
the smallest government possible for the effective application of Constitutional
mandates.; however, the political right projects no compensating strategy for
dealing with poverty. Churches, non-profits and philanthropic individuals and
organizations already participate, although many do so selectively, and their
combined resources are inadequate to meet the need.
The
political/ecclesiastical right focuses disproportionately on welfare fraud and
voter fraud, both of which represent miniscule problems in the total scheme of
things. Most progressives would gladly participate in a credible strategy to
eliminate any kind of fraud; however, no compensating strategy is offered to
deal with valid poverty or with legitimate accessibility to the polls
for all legal voters.
The list goes
on: the voices that form the public image of church meld with conservative
political ideologies, and their consensus principles, by default, exclude full
participation of many people in the life described in both the Christian Gospel
and the American Constitution.
Exclusion. The
intention behind any creed, including heretical creeds, is to identify and
articulate authentic faith. Nothing wrong with that; however, in the process
the emphasis virtually always becomes the elimination of error, rather than the
advancement of truth. While the two purposes are not mutually exclusive,
neither are they identical. Ultimately, the purpose of credal formulae historically
has been to exclude any who are wrong (understood as “any who disagree with
me/us”).
Well, to
that extent, the church has been exceedingly successful in the last
half-century.
But Brueggemann
offers hope:
“The key religious question among us is whether there is ground for an
alternative rooted not in self-preoccupation or in deadening stability, but
rooted in a more awesome reality that lives underneath empires, that comes
among us as odd as a poem, as inscrutable as power, as dangerous as new life,
as fragile as waiting. The poet names the name and imagines new life, like
eagles flyng, running, walking.” [3]
That’s the
way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.
Together in the Walk,
Jim
[1]
Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) Kindle edition Location 394
[2] I intentionally
use “evangelistic” rather than “evangelical.” They are not the same thing.
[3] Brueggeman,
op. cit. Kindle Location 384.
[1]
Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) Kindle edition Location 394
[2] I intentionally
use “evangelistic” rather than “evangelical.” They are not the same thing.
[3] Brueggeman,
op. cit. Kindle Location 384.
