Epignosis

Recently in the Christian Blogsphere, there seems to be a lot of debate, conflict, disagreement, and downright nastiness. Yes, we’re all human and have those tendencies. But at what point in our growth as believers did we get to the point where we can no longer disagree on topics of ambiguous theology?

Ambiguous Theology, what exactly do I mean by that? I mean the thoughts, doctrines, beliefs we have that are minor points simply because we aren’t given a clear cut answer in scripture. Not really liking that phrase, but I couldn’t think of anything better for now.

Take for example, Hell. Do we really have a clear picture in scripture as to the exact nature of Hell, and what it means to both the believer and non-believer? Sure, there’s a lot of common rhetoric we use about it, but do we really know the exact details and every nuance of the reality as express by our beliefs?  Scripture is clear that there is a separation between the believer and non-believer. But beyond that, we have a few passages that try to give us an indication, but don’t give us a lot of details.  We aren’t given a play-by-play, but more of an overall concept. And that should be okay with us. But it doesn’t seem to cut it any longer…

On a similar note is the ever present debate between predetermination and free-will. We see that both perspectives are clearly portrayed in scripture (even though both extremes of the spectrum will argue that the opposing side is misinterpreting scripture), and at times those perspectives seem to be at odds with each other. How can we resolve that?  Typically the answer is to pick one or the other and yell loudly at anyone opposing your view.

But maybe we’re not supposed to “pick a side” but to be amazed at a God who is able to get, from our small human perspective, two opposing ideas to coexist simultaneously. I am convinced, as I’ve said before, that we’ve so analyzed, systematized and classified God that we’ve lost the sense of mystery and wonder of who He is.

So what happens then in all these ongoing debates? In these “majoring in the minors”?

For starters, we see the opposing views start to openly criticize their counterparts. Sometimes it starts small, and then grows exponentially.  With the immediacy of todays social media outlets, it’s almost instantaneous nowadays. Then it moves from criticizing to open hostility. Then it gets to the calls of “blasphemy” and “heresy”. *sigh* Whatever happened to the idea that we are all human and prone to mistakes. None of us are perfect. And by working together, we can edify, teach, learn, build up the body of Christ for the greater good of all of us.

But instead, all we see today is things like:

• “Farewell Rob Bell”
• “There’s nothing loving about preaching a false gospel. This breaks my heart.”
• “It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.”

I understand that there needs to be guidance and correction, especially of someone who teaches something that may or may not be correct. But our calling as Christians is to love one another, exhort one another, and admonish one another. Do we decide today that person X said something that I don’t agree with so I must question his faith? Even if we look over the history of certain people and find that they don’t have the same concept of salvation, heaven & hell, etc, does that mean I publicly condemn them and pronounce them apostate? I truly believe that it saddens the heart of God when we do this. And we do nothing more than make a spectacle of ourselves to the world.

Because here’s the real question: How do you know that your self-righteous view is the right one?

We have so many things that we do not have clear directions/answers on in our spiritual walk with God. The scripture is not clear on many things, especially about things that many of us have deemed as important or crucial. We can work our best over time to wrestle with those questions and dilemmas and in time we can come to certain conclusions. But in the end we have no way to know for sure. Of course that doesn’t mean we don’t stop trying to understand. But if we are honest about it, we can look back over the history of the church from ancient times, and we can see all the places in the path from the time of Christ till today where the church has made drastic mistakes in it’s beliefs and practices. But you know what? They were just as self-righteous about the validity of their beliefs as well.

• The church of the middle ages strict beliefs in a salvation of works.
• The church of the 1600′s persecuting Galileo for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun.
• Calvin’s belief in infant baptism and opposition to believers baptism.
• Luther’s belief that baptism was salvific.

Am I saying that we should just drop our defenses and listen to any version of doctrine that we want? Absolutely NOT! But I do think that we need to be mindful of how judgemental we are when someone proposes something that is outside our comfort zone. Not necessarily because we need to listen to them. But the reality is that if someone as prominent as Rob Bell can ask some really tough questions and (probably) get some of the answers wrong, then what about all the other believers who are out there today asking those same questions but don’t have a forum to express their questions and doubts? Scott McKnight said this directly in one of his blog posts about the whole Love Wins blowup:

But I’ll tell you this:  Rob Bell is asking my students’ questions on that promo video and then, as you watch the video, he walks away. Rob and his people are artists, and you can read that walking away any way you want – but I’ll wait until I read that book for myself. I hope you do too.

People are asking more and more tough questions today. And more and more Christians are becoming unsatisfied with the same old answers every time because they realize that something just doesn’t sit right about the normal answer. Almost as if we’re missing the point somehow.

So do we go to our normal hangout and order the same thing each time? Do we instead go to the all-you-can-eat buffet and pick and choose only the things we really like, but ignore the things we don’t like? I really don’t know…  But I think that we need to be willing to question our own beliefs, and why we believe those things. We need to be willing to listen to people who say things we don’t agree with and potentially learn something good from them, and certainly be willing to not agree with the things that we don’t agree with.