Lately I have been discussing on this blog and elsewhere the expansiveness of God’s love and mercy and how I believe that at Calvary and on Easter Sunday something so phenomenal occurred that the first witnesses could not help but to call it Good News. This is not good news for some but for all the world. The first people who were to be called Christians (not a name they gave to themselves but a pejoritive name given them by pagans) were called such because on the authority of witnesses to the resurrection they claimed Jesus is Lord and not Caesar. To be a Christian meant that you believed Jesus is Lord of heavens and earth and will one day return to establish his earthly kingdom.
What does it mean today? Peter Gomes says in The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus that in the early 20thcentury, some Christians who would later be described as fundamentalists, “imposed a series of fundamental beliefs essential to being a Christian, including a belief in the literal truth of scripture, the virgin birth, the second coming, and substitionary atonement. Those who affirmed those things were Christians; those who did not, were not” (pg. 60-61).
The effects of expanding the requirements to be called a Christian (as opposed to expanding the attributes of God), are far reaching. One of the most damaging in my opinion is how impotent it has left the Church. The proclamation that Jesus is Lord led those who were maligned with the name “Christian” to stop at nothing, including death, to spread the Good News that death has lost its sting in Christ Jesus and because of this Rome can no longer carve up the world with their greatest weapon – fear of the sword. Now, free to live fully in the present (the Kingdom of God being at hand), we can reach out to the poor, the homeless, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan and the marginalized, and even we lowly Gentiles, to announce that Justice will be served – but until that day we strive as fellow workers with God and pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But this is not happening. Why? Because within the Church, the vessel God instituted to share this Good News to a dying world, is too busy trying to determine who among them are worthy to be called Christians (note how it is now a description of notoriety rather than scandal) and of those who they can work alongside without smearing their own good reputation or legitimatizing the other’s ”mistaken” doctrinal positions. And as we point fingers and divide the family of God we have the audacity to claim Christ’s words, “Do not think I have come to bring peace but a sword” as our marching orders.
Rather than reveling in how narrow we have made the path to get to God l hope we can recall the words of hymn writer F.W. Faber when he wrote, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,” singing:
For the love of God is broader,
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
grace and peace,
Chad
EDIT: Those of you visiting from CRN or elsewhere, welcome. Please feel free to read and/or respond to my lastest post, The Wideness of God’s Mercy Extends to CRN.
Filed under: Theology, books | Tagged: Atonement, Christianity, Church, Doctrine, Grace, Jesus, Mercy
Chad –
Doctrine is important and it is usually castigated when people are unwilling to admit they might have to re-think what they believe and promote rather than to submit to what is true. In the guise of “Rodney King” Christianity (can’t we all just get along), some plead for a setting aside of everything that divides.
But to do this, and say, join hands with the Catholic Church, is not what we ought to do. I do not believe the apostle Paul would have joined hand in hand with such a group that promotes teachings completely in opposition to the message of Christianity and so proudly disregards truth when it is laid bare.
God’s mercy is wide indeed in that He sent His own Son to be an offering for our sins while we were still enemies of His. That’s love and mercy.
But to disregard the 100s of warnings in the NT alone in favor of fellowship with apostate movements is not the path. Remember Paul’s warning regarding Jannes and Jambres withstanding Moses (letter to Timothy). How did they do that? By copying whatever he did: in our time, this might include preaching a warped version of the gospel…
“And no marvel, for Satan is transformed into an angel of light [actually preaching a false gospel], and his ministers [preachers] as the ministers of righteousness [wonderful works.”
But to do this, and say, join hands with the Catholic Church, is not what we ought to do. I do not believe the apostle Paul would have joined hand in hand with such a group that promotes teachings completely in opposition to the message of Christianity and so proudly disregards truth when it is laid bare.
Chris,
This is the rub, isn’t it? I disagree that Paul would not join hands with anyone who proclaims Jesus is Lord to bring about justice and equality in our world. In Philippians Paul says he doesn’t care what motive others have who are professing Christ just so long as Christ is proclaimed. Didn’t Jesus say that a house divided cannot stand and the very apostles who sulked over the “others” who were doing things in the name of Jesus yet were not “part of us” he rebuked. What I hear much of the church doing these days is exactly what those well-meaning disciples were doing.
Gomes makes a compelling point in his book that we are so hung up on following the Bible that we have forsaken the gospel. We are so intent on Jesus that we have lost sight of what Jesus actually taught.
The warnings against apostate movements were actual movements in Paul’s day. We ought to be careful of making broad generalizations and setting ourselves in the judgment seat to determine which is apostate and which is not. The things they were against in the early church are those who would claim that Jesus is NOT Lord and had not risen from the dead. As my first post said, a Christian was not someone who adherred to a set of modern, man-constructed doctrines but someone who believed Jesus is Lord. This leaves a lot of wiggle room, doesn’t it? How we live this out takes a lot of prayer, love, community and reliance on the Holy Spirit (more than ourselvs) to show us the way to live out the gospel message to the world.
Thanks for your comments. Even in these disagreements we can all share in the body and blood of Christ and declare that it was given for the healing of the world, no?
grace and peace,
Chad
Chad –
To the blind teachers in Jesus day, He simply said, “Leave them alone; if the blind lead the blind they shall both fall into the ditch.”
He rebuked His disciples when they became preoccupied with what other movements were doing. Just leave them alone was His response (notice: don’t join hand-in-hand).
In regards to the early church, the reason they were focused on refuting lies that denied Jesus as Lord and risen from the dead is because this was pretty much the height of deception. After all, the church was in its infancy and the easiest way to destroy it (so thought the Devil) was to war against Jesus’ claims.
HOWEVER, in the day we live in, the name Jesus is pervasive with everyone claiming faith at some level. Deception has evolved and Jesus and the apostles recognized this would be the case, hence:
> Jesus multiple warnings in Matt 24 regarding false teachers: these men wouldn’t deceive by preaching they themselves were Christ, but would come in Jesus’ name (as He clearly says)
> Paul warns that the devil would be transformed as an angel of light: what does this mean to you? Don’t pick one verse in Philippians to prove a point when there are dozens elsewhere that don’t support that being Paul’s over-arching view.
The Catholic church promotes doctrines that are pagan:
> praying to saints
> rosaries
> purgatory… the list goes on
They also promote false teachings:
> Mary worship/veneration
> infant baptism (followed up with confirmation?? why not just let the child, when he understands that Jesus is Lord, be baptized?)
> … the list goes on
The blood of Christ was poured out for the healing of the world – but only “to as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become the sons of God.”
Paul,
I have never heard anyone interpret Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples as a way of saying, “dont join hand in hand.” That would seem very odd concerning the whole corpus of Jesus’ work being to heal, not further divide. As for the blind teachers don’t you think that has much to do with them “heaping laws” upon their hearers and forgetting all about justice and mercy and righteousness?
One might say that Satan’s greatest tactic has nothing to do with refuting Jesus’ claims (afterall, even demons believe) but causing division among Christ’s bride. If Satan can keep us arguing amongst ourselves over doctrine and over who is right and who is wrong and who is “in” and who is “out” than he can continue to be the ruler of this world and hope, joy, peace and love will be put off for another day, another group.
I didn’t mean for this to become a Protestant vs. Catholic debate. I understand you have some problems with them, and some may be valid concerns. But are these concerns so important that they ought to prevent us from living out the gospel together? Would you really decline feeding the poor alongside someone who had a rosary? Those seem so inconsequential to me not to mention so very open to various interpretations. Jesus did not come teaching about infant baptism (which I practice, btw) or proper use of rosaries, etc. He came preaching the Kingdom of God and invited ALL peoples to proclaim the Good News that he is Lord and death has been defeated.
The beauty of doctrine is in perhaps its ability to teach us who claim Christ as our Lord to live together in peace and harmony even while adherring to distinctly different ways of living out that hope that is within us.
peace,
Chad
If you think the few words you quoted from Faber are good ones ( which I think they are) perhaps you need to look up the full poem from which was taken the well-known hymn.
Some of the more controversial phrases were left out of the hymn:
It is God: His love looks mighty,
But is mightier than it seems;
’Tis our Father: and His fondness
Goes far out beyond our dreams.
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
The church I love could not put THOSE words in the hymn-book…
It is wrong for any of us to try to put God in a box… to claim that WE have the answers to just how far God’s grace can extend.
I think Faber got it right in the words of his poem that did not make it into the hymn…
Having looked more closely through the other post since leaving my first message, I wish to thank Chad for being so patient.
I’m not saying that I don’t believe that the focus of what we name as “Satan” would do anything other than to justify controversy… so I accept Paul’s concerns… but I believe the purposes of God are grander.
If God were not already willing to go to such effort to show what GOD would be willing to do for reconciliation ( at least as Judeo-Christian texts record), I might be willing to bash my fellows for not agreeing with me… However, based on years of study, I don’t find grounds for attacking the current Western members of the faith-core that all Christians evolved from.
I may not agree on all fronts, but enough to stand with these Catholic brothers and sisters in a unified front… as it were.
I do not think it is right to deify holy people that have come before us as GODS, but if one accepts life after the grave and a Christian heritage, then one must accept the concept of “the Company of the Saints.”
For a non-Catholic believer, I would have to ask if he/she believes there to be any merit in prayer. Would you believe it appropriate to ask a friend to pray for you if you were in need?
This is the primary basis for the Catholic tendency ( at least in modern times) to entreat the assistance of the saints… asking those already to be in favor to be praying for the supplicant…
There have been ( and may still be) times where this asking of the saints to join in prayer has been/is misinterpreted even by the one praying… but I have found countless other examples of “prayer errors” in my own faith community…
I remember a man that was POSITIVE that by “making a deal with God” in terms of financial gifts, he had “fixed” all of his problems. This man WAS beloved of God, but no more than the old lady on Social Security that came into the church office to help answer the phones even after she could no longer drive a car…
Christ came to bring peace.
If Satan slips in here and there to make trouble, so be it… but the worst thing Christians could do is to lose faith in extending God’s love… not just to the un-churched, but to our brothers and sisters in different denominations as well.
Like it or not, we ARE one family… and we have as much to learn from “them” as “they” do from “us.”
There is so much other hurt to work on healing than just fighting over petty differences among those that already believe…
Harold-
Sorry for my delayed response (to all!) but we were traveling home from vacation and I am just now starting to catch my bearings.
Thank you for jumping in here and sharing your thoughts. I love those words by Faber! I appreciate you sharing them.
I was curious about what you said about it not being in your hymnal so I looked it up in mine (UM hymnal). The song is there but, oddly, the verses you cite above are not. Hmmm. What a shame.
grace and peace,
Chad
Sorry for jumping in late and if the party is over well….so be it. But I am reminded of Paul saying;
And I became as a Jew to the Jews, that I might gain Jews;to those under Law as under Law, that I might gain those under Law; to those without Law as without Law (not being without Law of God, but under the law of Christ), that I might gain those without Law.I became to the weak as weak, that I might gain the weak. To all I have become all things, that in any and every way I might save some.
I doubt if Paul meant that he would become something like an underground spy, but that he would fellowship and attempt to understand those who may not appear to be the ‘right’ people.
And as for the fundamentalist idea that those “who affirmed those things were Christians; those who did not, were not” I am reminded of what CS Lewis said. That it’s not like we are comparing cats and dogs. That’s easy. But it could very well be that people of other faiths may be closer to Christ than many who are “Christian”. In fact, within the church itself that seems to be the consensus, that many Christians have got it wrong – hence all the denominations.
Nice post.
“Sorry for jumping in late..”
the last shall be first, Christian
Welcome and thanks for joining in!
“But it could very well be that people of other faiths may be closer to Christ than many who are “Christian”. ”
I think you may be right. It reminds me of Jesus saying to the “Christians” of his day that the whores and tax collectors and sinners will enter the kingdom before they.
Do you think we lose something by getting a way from the earliest name given to followers of Christ – The Way?
peace,
Chad
[...] attention because his reasoning and his argument are ALMOST verbatim what Brian McLaren and the Emergents are saying about the Gospel. The similarities are down right [...]
Wow Chad, it seems that you hve become the prototypical exampe of the “emergent type”…
A proud friend of the “emergent type”
Eugene
Oh well… now you know
Eugene
Serious??? LOL