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 faithinfiction |
Challenging Your Religion |
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Posts: 376 (06/25/04 10:17:35) |
Asher sets himself in opposition to the religious forbiddance of images and cultural forbiddance of using the image of the crucifix.
Should we stand in opposition to anything in the Christian religion? How about cultural Christianity? |
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vesperlight |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 125 (06/25/04 11:51:09) |
Mercy, Dave, do you really want to go there? Yes, and yes.
I have a friend who has spent the last few years redefining his own faith and writing a book. It's unfortunate that he can't write. I haven't seen the finished product yet. It is almost impossible to hold a conversation with this friend without hearing him say, very politely, "I challenge that." It can get very tiresome, particularly since he has a firm grip on one facet of faith, one facet of scriptural truth that has been misunderstood or ignored by most of the church, and he filters everything he says and does through that. I think it's unbalanced and he's missing out on a lot of richness and texture and variety. It makes it hard to share a cup of coffee with him. But it's valuable. I've come gradually to believe that most of the ways we "do church" and many of the things we do or say when we come together as believers are unnecessary, non-scriptural, and can hinder the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I still go to "regular" church but believe more and more that the future lies in the "emerging" church. I love it when our usual church service is over and the leader says "you can leave if you want but we're enjoying worship so much that we're just going to keep going" because that is the point where the church agenda for the evening is finished and everyone is there purely because they want to see what God is going to do next. One night it was two hours of drums and dance with little kids coming up onto the stage and singing into the mike or pounding along with the drummers. I wish we could just START at that point instead of finising there. I used to get together with a group of believers who met in an unused church on Wednesday nights. Sometimes there were a few from the core group, sometimes there were fifty or sixty people with a worship and a scheduled speaker from out of town and we made so much noise the neighbors called the police when the drums didn't stop at 10 pm. But they were determined not to "do church" and agreed that when the Holy Spirit said it was time to stop meeting in this way, they would stop. It went on for about two years, and then the Spirit said it was time to do things differently, and they started meeting on a very occasional basis in people's homes, with meetings announced on an email list. For a long time, the group didn't even have a name, then a name given by a guest speaker seemed to stick. The one time I brought a friend, everyone was just sitting around in the pews talking because the band was late. After about a half-hour of this, someone walked in, realized what was going on, and said "Look at you! Don't you see what you're doing? You're doing church! You're sitting here on your hands waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to come in and lead you." She made us all troop outside and come back in and start over. My friend thought it was extremely weird. Shucks. I was going to keep this short and sweet. Yes and yes. I am really really going to stop now and go job-hunting. Someone slap my hand if you see me back here before 5 pm Friday. Elizabeth Evans |
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sapokedak |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 766 (06/25/04 17:09:08) |
We should stand in opposition to a whole bunch in Christianity. Starting with several things in Elizabeth's post.
 But we little old ladies are too weary from battling all the nudity here, to start in on the worship practices of the beatniks.  I'm not laughing above. I'm doing some holy rolling at the laughing revival. I'm kidding. Don't send hate mail. I do wonder, Elizabeth, how the Holy Spirit told you to do one thing for two years and then how did he tell you to change? But I'm afraid to ask because as you said to Dave, "Do we really want to go there?"  I hope you don't mind my calling you a beatnik. I've enjoyed your posts. sally |
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vesperlight |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 125 (06/25/04 20:19:52) |
Quote: Well, I wasn't in the leadership in that group -- I just showed up when I could. But as I understood it, it was along the lines of "to everything there is a season." This wasn't one of the big doctrinal issues -- baptism, creeds, divorce, faith-works-grace. It was when and where to meet. |
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acornstwo |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 638 (06/26/04 00:53:49) |
This is a topic I approach with great fear and trembling. Here goes.
If by "Christian religion" you mean the teachings of the Bible, then no, I can't stand in opposition. But we must be careful even with this. One Christian writer has found that the cries of his soul seem to contradict what the Bible says, and has concluded the Bible must therefore be wrong. I can't go there with him. But neither do I think he should simply disregard the cries of his soul, because I have come to believe that those are very, very often the cry of God within him. So what do we do when the two seem to disagree? Of course there is always the chance that the cry of our soul is not the voice of God but rather the voice of our own delusions. But can we at least admit the possibility that there is no disagreement at all, but we have read the Bible wrong? So often we are afraid to consider it. Let me bounce this off you: I think there are three ways of being a Christian (at least): One way is to be a Christian because you want a system of belief, or a set of principals that make sense of life. The trouble is that this life just doesn't make sense, and the disappointment can be devastating when we find it out. Another way is to be a Christian because you have an agenda, and you need a moral basis and a platform to push it from. It may even be a good agenda - or it may not be. Evil loves to go to church. And the last way is to be a Christian because you have heard a Voice, or felt the pull of the Spirit, and you just have to follow. I don't mean to hit the Church too hard with this. In fact, I think we are probably all Christians for all of these reasons at varying times. But try this: re-read the Gospels, and watch for the times when Jesus seems to be prodding people to know things they have absolutely no human way of knowing. You won't believe how often. He says, "Blessed are you, Peter, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but the Spirit of my Father in Heaven." He asks the disciples, "Have I been with you this long, and you don't know who I am?" To the crowds he says, "My sheep know my voice and follow me." He asks Pilate, "Do you ask if I'm King of the Jews of yourself, or because they say I am King of the Jews?" To Thomas: "Blessed are they who have not seen, and still believe." And when two disciples realized they'd been walking with Jesus after He rose from the dead, they asked, "Didn't our hearts burn within us??" It goes on and on - these are just from memory. If I could change Cultural Christianity, Christians would unfold their arms and wipe that pinched look off their faces and open their eyes. And they would be adventurers, who wrestled with God and followed after Him with all their heart and mind and strength, who would not let Him go. They would be great lovers who knew a passionate, succulent, wild relationship with with the King of Heaven. And they would walk in utmost confidence in His fiery, all-consuming love for them. George Macdonald said, "a man will please God better by believing some things that are not told him, than by confining his faith to those things that are expressly said-said to arouse in us the truth-seeing faculty, the spiritual desire, the prayer for the good things which God will give to them that ask him." So many Christians are afraid to go there, afraid to step into uncharted territory, for there be dragons there. (They don't know about the little dragons under their pews.) The Pharisees had a system of doctrine that was awesome in its complexity, and they worshiped that system. The problem was, it was wrong. Jesus didn't blaspheme Scripture, he blasphemed their interpretation of Scripture. It was the disciples who dared to launch into the wild, and trust the love of God to shield them from the dragons. Katy |
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vesperlight |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 125 (06/26/04 08:10:07) |
I have to remind myself sometimes, when I get into these topics that yes, the church is the Body of Christ. Yes, the church is the Bride of Christ. The Beloved. In every church body, in every denomination. There is one church, despite our doctrinal differences, and he is its head.
But so much of what the church does is based on culture rather, including practices that were incorporated centuries ago from pagan religions. I really want to see something in action that looks more like the early church. Elizabeth |
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Vinemeri |
challenging your religion | ||
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Posts: 23 (06/26/04 09:10:32) |
Well - let me tell you a story. We (my husband and our 3 girls) had just returned from a year in Papua New Guinea. My husband was preaching and demonstrated how, in one of the churches we'd been in, the women joined hands and did a little dance - two steps left, two steps right, two steps forward, two steps back. He demonstrated.
Can you guess what's coming? Someone's 'religion' took offense. Major offence. We finally went to visit the woman and her husband because we sensed something was wrong. When we asked, she gave it to us, with both barrels. We were stunned. And I realized we were in a dilemma. Our daughters had just that week asked to take dance lessons. What to do? We finally decided that we couldn't stand on other people's convictions. We knew what that would do to our kids. So we stood against the legalism. That same week I attended a dance recital with my girls, so see what kind of performance the group they wanted to join put on. The first dance was about creation. It was so beautiful I cried. The second dance was a depiction of the ugly duckling and I was amazed as I saw the story of grace unfold. As I sat there in awe I heard that small voice - "I will use this. Let your daughters dance." In her last of highschool, one of my girls performed a lyrical solo dance in a packed public auditorium. She danced to a song that spoke about her faith in Christ. I can't remember the name of the musician but some of the lyrics were - "I know who I am, one set free by Jesus Christ." Most of her classmates were sitting in the front two rows of the auditorium. She had invited them and was amazed at how many came. She was even more amazed at the conversations she had with some of those kids over the next weeks and months. It had an impact. God used it. I'm so glad I let my daughters dance. That's kind of a long way to answer, yes. Marci |
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acornstwo |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 638 (06/26/04 09:12:39) |
Elizabeth,
Which practices were incorporated from pagan religions? And if our church today looked like the early church, what would be different? Katy |
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vesperlight |
Challenging | ||
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Posts: 125 (06/26/04 17:27:21) |
Katy asked about a couple of points I brought up. You're going to make me work, huh?
Pagan practices: the name of Easter itself (the name itself probably derived from the goddess Eostre); Easter eggs and bunnies. Christmas trees and Yule logs and mistletoe. There's a good summary here. As this author points out, some of these practices were introduced in a deliberate attempt to Christianize them and most of them now have Christian meanings or messages attached to them. He also points out the our modern gods such as consumerism may be a bigger threat. The early church: People met both in small groups, usually in people's homes and in larger more occasional gatherings. In Jerusalem, we know that the disciples went to temple as well. The church in Jerusalem held property in common, but I don't know if this practice was widespread. There was a recognized leadership structure, but I don't know how many leaders were supported entirely by the church. Paul chose to continue to support himself as a tent maker, but he made it clear that he could have asked for support. Women as well as men were active as leaders. It grew rapidly and -- thanks to Paul -- was open to people from very different cultures. It was vibrant and alive, with many individuals practicing the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, with everyone encouraged to bring a prayer or psalm and to make music. They had a lot of doctrinal differences, and some of the lifestyle decisions we take for granted today were hammered out then (eating pork, circumcision, etc.). A lot of people are trying to figure out how to take this information and find a way to "do church" differently. What would the church look like if early church practices were translated into the 21st century? Some people use "the emerging church" or "the postmodern" church" to describe a growing movement that is asking these questions. One book to look at is House that Change the World by Wolfgang Simson. For a briefer look at his thinking, see Fifteen Theses. Another link on this topic: TheOoze: Conversation for the Journey (which I found in Dave's links). Elizabeth |
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ddg |
great and unsearchable things | ||
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Posts: 250 (06/27/04 07:34:19) |
Quote: Katy, It would be my guess that only someone who knew their groom in this manner could write such a strong and moving description. The Spirit within me jumped in response to your words. We are kindred, you and I. Quote: For the longest time, I had this verse tacked to my bulletin board: Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jer 33:3 I, too, Katy, dare to believe that God still speaks today. And if what I hear seems to contradict what Ive learned or read in the Bible, then its time to pray and ask that the Spirit reveal which of my interpretations was incorrectmy interpretation of the Scripture or my interpretation of His Voice. There comes a great responsibility with this, though. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. Rom 14:21-22 For me, that means that just because He reveals something, doesnt necessarily mean I should shout it from the roof topsunless expressly lead to do so by Him. And thats part of what makes the relationship wild, adventurous and passionateeh? |
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eloopa |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 400 (06/27/04 17:59:29) |
Sure, there are things we should oppose things in the Christian religion, based on Jesus himself.
Jesus was a revolutionary. Webster defines revolutionary as : a sudden, radical, or complete change b : a fundamental change in political organization; especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed c : activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation d : a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution> e : a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> <the foreign car revolution> synonym see REBELLION Sure yanks my chain. How about yours? I read Phil Van Auken's article at business.baylor.edu/Phil_...tural.html regarding Cultural Christianity. Ouch! I'm curious, where does the CBA fit in? Has it grown cultural? If necessary, how can it expand beyond Cultural Christianity? Interested in multiple viewpoints. |
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acornstwo |
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Posts: 638 (06/27/04 23:16:28) |
Quote: Amen to that, Elizabeth! And I'm not giving up my Christmas tree! I used to think that "renaming" pagan practices was always wrong, but I recently read some things that at least gave me pause. I'll try to look them up and quote them when I have time, but I'll give you a little bit from memory from a book called "A New Kind of Christian". There's a passage in there about an American Indian, a Christian, who said that in the tribal ceremonial dances, each foot fall is a prayer. I was moved to tears by the image, and I understood why they put their feet down very hard when they dance, and why they put so much soul into it. Why not "put your feet down" to the one true God?? As to the early church - later this year I will have an opportunity to visit a church in Ireland that models their way of doing things after the early Celtic church. It looks like there might be some similarities to the early church in Jerusalem. I'll let you know what I find out. DDG: Quote: Oh dear. I'm convicted. I know my groom to be more lavish in His love than most people (me included) have the capacity to process. And do I respond to Him in the way I described? Only sometimes. But what times!! It's a progression, and He is patient. Quote: I'm not writing another book of the Bible anyplace. I'm never sure I've got these revelations right, but I suspect plenty. And the end result is that I love Him more, and there is more freedom and play when I dance with Him. The adventure is the thing, I think, not any new doctrines set in stone. I'd just like to get Christians to put down their clipboards and stop adjusting their spectacles and chattering their beaver teeth and LOOK at Him! And that I will shout from the rooftops. He wants to dance and we're busy filling out forms. |
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skylarburris |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 60 (07/29/05 18:29:49) |
Challenging our religion has never been a problem for Christians. Its why there are over 2,500 different Christian denominations in the United States alone. Learning not to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel, on the other hand, HAS been a problem for Christians, and remains one.
Ah..."the early church." I was for a few years in a church that insisted on modeling itself on the "early church." But the difficulty is that we don't know everything about the "early church," and what we do know we know in passingthings Paul mentions in his letters. And what we can tell is that there were SEVERAL early churches with different cultures and practices. Some in the "early church" went to synagogue on Saturday and broke bread on Sunday. Will we re-setablish synagogue-going? We can't use the Epistles as if they were a Leviticus-style blueprint for worship and church governance, and we probably shouldn't act as if the early church---divided over a host of issues, riddled with controversy, and constantly in need of rebukewas the pinnacle of what the church should be. Christianity continued to grow and develop after Paul wrote his last Epistle, and its doctrines (including that of the Trinity) were not fully formed until decades after the last book of the New Testament was written. Those post-Pauline traditions informed, to some degree or another, all traditions of Christianity to follow, even those that claim to rely on nothing but the Bible. I saw what an attempt to model the church on the early church resulted in: "If the early church didn't play musical instruments, we can't play musical instruments. If they didn't have stained glass windows, we can't have stained glass windows. If they didn't celebrate Christmas, we can't celebrate Christmas. If they didn't drink communion grape juice from little plastic shot glasses...oh, wait, we CAN do that. We can also use overhead projectors. But we can't use incense, that would be a tradition of men. But we can have a church van. And we can't celebrate Easter because the early church didn't celebrate Easter. But we must meet on Wednesdays and twice on Sundays--that's a rule!" My point is, when you try to model yourself off of the "early church," you inevitably become legalistic by virtue of what you are trying NOT to do--and since we don't have a Christian Leviticus, silly contradictions must abound. Modeling todays church on the early church would be something like trying to rewrite the U.S. Constitution from nothing more than a handful of letters written by the founding fathers. So I've decided just to admit it--I am a Christian and I rely on Christian tradition as much as I rely on the Bible. Indeed, I owe the Bible itself to Christian tradition! After all, it was those Catholic men who decided what books would be in the canon and what books would not. It is because of tradition that I read Corinthians today but not Clement, Revelation but not the Shepherd of Hermes. My religion evolved over time, and it did not reach its epitome when Paul wrote his last letter. Christ did not intend the church to remain in the 1st century forever. My religion is based on not just the Bible but upon a tradition of interpretation of that Bible. My tradiitons (and yes, some of my doctrinbes) differ from the traditions of other Christians, but we all worship the same Christ. I like my traditions and will maintain them. My traditions do not save me, but they define me culturally and bind me with other Christians. My traditions have a rich history, and I confess I owe something to the Catholics for them as well as to the Lutherans and the Baptists and the Roman pagans, and the Celtic pagans, and the Egyptian pagans, and the American pagans...And I will be hanging Christmas stockings this year! |
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tsbeckett |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 1070 (07/30/05 13:40:24) |
Extremely thought provoking. I was cheering you on gustily at the beginning. I know of a home church that will not go to a "church", because it does not follow the example of the early church. In this I agree with you.
But then ... you had to go to meddling . Being protestant I am very much sola scriptora. You are right, however, we owe our very scripture to the early fathers, and many things we do are based on tradition. But Christ chastised the Jewish leaders for following the traditions of man rather than the word of God. So where do I live. I am and will always be sola scriptora. The Bible is inspired by God and is my surest source of truth. I rely on it, and judge all things by it. Traditions are fine and necessary as long as they do not contradict the word of God. Btw -- I am really enjoying the English Standard Version. A very fine translation that I recently acquired. blessings, Marvin 
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CFisher |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 231 (08/01/05 13:26:23) |
Skylar,
Well, I was cheering you on all the way through. I especially like your point about how trying to emulate the New Testament church only leads to legalism. Marvin, I certainly have no problem with "sola scriptura." But in the spirit of "challenging religion" I have to reiterate Skylar's excellent point that our considering certain books as divinely inspired and certain other books as non-inspired is more a matter of tradition than revelation. In other words, there was no moment of specific revelation in which God's voice thundered down the mountainside, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts..." I know you're well-read, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but for the sake of readers who may not know, what actually happened was a group of African bishops got their heads together and basically voted, then sent their decision to the pope for "confirmation." So, in a sense, we couldn't even say "Sola Scriptura" if not for that long standing Catholic tradition, edict, encyclical, whatever you want to call it. Now I'm not saying any of this to invalidate scripture, but only to point out that God was obviously at work in the lives of Saints at that time (as He is today), and there is much for us to learn about God from history and tradtion in general, as well as from scripture. The only time I have a problem with tradition is when it creates an irreconcilable conflict with scripture, and by "scripture" I mean the text itself, not a specific traditional interpretation of the text. |
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skylarburris |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 60 (08/04/05 04:04:53) |
Hey, I like this discussion board. We can discuss weighty theological issues and differ in a civilized manner. It's actually the first time I've seen that on the internet.
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tsbeckett |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 1070 (08/04/05 05:14:55) |
This is a rare place.
Blessings, Marvin 
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faithinfiction |
Rare place, indeed | ||
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Posts: 376 (08/04/05 12:00:11) |
I've mentioned time and again how stunned I am at the level of discourse and the length of time this place has existed without melting down into flame wars. I think I'm the most ornery person on here. I'm going to have to ban myself.
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CFisher |
Re: Rare place, indeed | ||
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Posts: 231 (08/04/05 13:44:31) |
Dave,
Maybe it's your presence here that keeps everyone civil. I'm sure no one here wants to make a jackass out of himself in front of a potential publisher. (Oops. Did I just say that?) Two years later, publishing tyrant Dave Long snatches a manuscript from the trembling hands of a lowly intern. He glances at the author's byline and screams, "Christopher Fisher?! Isn't he that idiot who wrote 'jackass' all over my discussion board? Throw this back in with the slush! And get me another cup of coffee!!" |
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virginia(d) |
Re: Rare place, indeed | ||
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Posts: 70 (08/05/05 20:49:54) |
Finally...I've been looking all over the blogosphere for a place like this for more than a year!
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wgjones3 |
Re: Challenging Your Religion | ||
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Posts: 230 (08/09/05 21:04:52) |
I go to a church that bills itself as a postmodern church, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Is it because we have video screens instead of hymnals? Is it because we choreograph our worship services around songs by Hillsongs instead of the old standards? Or is it because that's the latest catchphrase in the world of evangelical Christianity, that to be relevant you have to be progressive, even if your progressiveness is nothing more than an infusion of technology into the old Baptist way of doing things?
As an aside, I should mention my church isn't a Baptist church, but my community is very much Baptist. We have, literally, hundreds of Baptist churches in the county--and combined they could seat about 10% of the county population, and between them I'd say they average around 30% capacity. What's that work out to? 3% of the population? Yeah, I guess that's enough to declare a cultural majority. Anyway, after reading this thread earlier today, I'm cracking open a book I was given in June at a church planting convention I worked. The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, edited by Leonard Sweet and published by Zondervan. I guess if I want my writing to mean something, I should have something to say. Novel idea, eh? Anyway, on the topic of challenging religion, I always look at this: Quote: I really have no comment, other than this--I'm still struggling with a lot of things, but to me, being a Christian isn't about going to a church two or three times a week. It's a 24/7 thing, something that's gestated inwardly, manifested externally, and is attained at times by struggle and conscious effort, but mostly by grace. |
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