How should Christians discuss their differences? There is a thought, not unpopular, and not without long historical precedent, that debate is the way. That's predicated upon the precept that someone is right and someone is wrong and that formal argument can get to the truth of which is which. I cannot disagree more. Not only may both be wrong, but even if one party is more right than the other, it does not necessarily follow that it even matters. If the argument is over something that does not undermine a believer's essential nature as a person born of the Spirit, it cannot possibly matter.
I think Calvinism is fundamentally a scripturally untenable system of doctrine. To my understanding, it assaults the character of God, says of him what he clearly does not say of himself, makes nonsensical most of the commands and entreaties in scripture, and misses entirely the ultimate aim of God in creating man. That may sound like a big deal, but I know a few Calvinists personally. They love the Word as much as I, love the brothers as much as I, serve Christ as fully as do I, and love the Spirit as much as I.
I am not likely to ever accept their approach to the "doctrines of grace," but I will heartily accept them. I may discuss our differences with them, but I am not looking to brand them as heretics or nonbelievers for their doctrine if they believe Jesus rose bodily from the dead and they are trusting him as their means of salvation. That would be a divisive spirit that refused to lay down itself for the brethren. Someone who shows other believers no grace is in no position to lecture anyone else on what grace is.
Debates are the means that heathens use to deal with opposing viewpoints. Christians operating in some field with heathens may need to debate those heathens, or even with other Christians also working in those fields, but Christians should not deal with matters of faith and conduct in the same way. Debates are rarely, if ever, about helping either side see the other's viewpoint better, or even helping someone see something clearer. Debates are about ego, about winning and losing, even suppressing a viewpoint if possible. How is such a format remotely acceptable to the Christian community?
Our discussions should be respectful, aimed at edification not destruction, and if there is any prejudice, let it be on the side of deference and esteem. I have a prejudice of my own in this regard to this subject: when an argumentative, insulting, smug Christian looking for a fight rather than trying to help a brother, starts sounding off, everything they say sounds like nothing but a clanging cymbal to me. If one cannot rein in his tongue in deference to a brother, that person is at best an immature novice, and at worst a wolf in sheep's clothing. He understands nothing!
I could care less how many degrees a person has, or how many books he or she may have written, or how many fans line up to see that person, if they mistreat a brother during a disputation, their words are empty. My suspicion is that so is their confession of faith. If we don't love a brother whom we can see, we certainly don't love God whom we cannot see. If you want to talk to me, talk to me, but leave your attitude at the door. Otherwise, we really don't have anything to talk about.
Everything about Christianity is dependent upon faith. I like to say that it's the currency of heaven. God's love (or grace if one's of the reformed persuasion) is foundational, but God saw fit to make either efficacious only through faith. Unfortunately, every believer seems to have moments when his or her faith is on the bottom of a dogpile, or languishing, or tottering, or under assault. What do you lean on when your faith is out of breath? Is there is spiritual safety net?
I have found such a safety net through experience, really a Dragnet that pulls me back to the safety and clarity of faith. I remember watching Sgt. Friday on TV deadpan, "Just the facts, ma'am," in my childhood and recall the settling affect it had on an excited witness. So when my faith is squishy, I deadpan to myself, "Just the facts, Steve" and with my response resuscitate my trust in God. So, what facts do I answer myself with? Just two, the second actually more important than the first:
1) Nothing makes sense if God isn't behind existence. I know that there is no way to explain, not only the cosmos, not only the presence and complexity of life, but also the abstraction of human thought apart from God's existence and creativity. Call it a Romans 1 moment. Fact one: God is.
2) Jesus rose from the dead. The tomb was empty, no one ever found the body. One of the most brutally pragmatic empires to rise upon the face of earth lost track of a body they truly wanted to keep their hands on. To a ragtag crew of bumpkins? No way! The Jews, who tried to deflect the force of eyewitness testimony by suborning perjury, wanted to confiscate the body more than the Romans. Their money perished with them, because they never got anyone to lead them to the body.
Despite the efforts of Roman and Jew, never was one eyewitness induced to recant, even in the face of torture. So a cabal of twits withstood the mighty and the artful. Why? There was no body, it was in use! It was not a spiritual resurrection, a mythological resurrection, nor a metaphorical resurrection--Jesus was finished being dead so he came back to life, bodily! Fact two: Jesus rose from the dead.
Christianity is not philosophical, it's not theoretical, it's not wishful thinking. It's founded upon a rock solid fact in history (Jesus arose) and an elegant bit of logic (God is). Those two facts inflate the life raft of my faith anytime it springs a leak. With the most salubrious effect, they are my answer back to myself whenever I've fallen into confusion or doubt and have to say to the mirror, "Just the facts, Steve" Perhaps they can do the same for you.
I find it very disturbing that so many folks identify themselves as Bible-believing followers of Christ and yet embrace evolution. The Bible and evolution are incompatible as is betrayed by the labyrinthine exegesis of Genesis those who attempt to syncretize them invariably use to do so. The Bible says that God created life, and death followed afterwards: the evolutionist says that life was created through death. The overarching concepts are clearly at odds with with one another, and the details assure immiscibility.
The syncretic approach to origins, Theistic Evolution, is a result of faithlessness not evidence. There is not now, nor will there ever be a slam-dunk case for a scientific approach to origins that stands in opposition to the Word. Evolution relies upon trust in a godless narrative, Creationism on a God-inspired one, to fill in the speculative gaps that will always be left in either approach. Faith picks a side, whereas unbelief rides the fence. Shaky believers who mesh atheistic and biblical viewpoints attempting to achieve some happy median create nothing but a mess that destroys both.
Foundationally, I believe Jesus Christ, the Son the God, is without error in all he believed and all that he taught. He was, in fact, without error in every possible respect. If Jesus Christ was an evolutionist, he certainly gave no hint of it. Quite the opposite in fact, he believed in the biblical Creation Story and the Noahetic Flood. One can hardly cede authority to Christ as Lord and then take exception to his cosmology.
When it comes to God, it is always put up or shut up. Stand on the Word or confess to being a heathen at heart. Nothing in the scripture should cause anyone to blink if they also believe that Christ rose the dead. If one doesn't believe that, he isn't a Christian and has no basis for the forgiveness of his sins. If one does believe that, why blanch at Jesus' avowal of Creation and the Flood? Is it even possible to trust in the power of the blood of what would have to be an ignorant or duplicitous charlatan if evolution were true?Every time the evolutionists have laid claim to a smoking gun, we have always found, after the fact, that they spoke too soon and overstated their case. Whether the claim is for missing links in the fossil record, abiogenic experiments, ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, "undesigned" nylonase, fused chimpanzee chromosomes, interchangeable genes for nanomachine parts, or junk DNA, it's always the same. So the arguments endlessly ratchet back and forth while, in the end, the realm of physical and theoretical science can offer nothing but doubt. God chooses faith, not sight. Those who depend on sight seldom find faith, and those who depend on faith usually do just fine with sight. Why throw your faith in the Word under the bus for something that actually cast aspersions on Christ and which has nothing more as its greatest claim to fame than making a monkey out of you?
Why should believers go to church? There are a lot of excuses one could give for blowing it off, such as:
- Church folk are nothing but hypocrites
- Their idea of worship is not my idea
- All they do is ask for money
- It's too irrelevant, too loud, too impersonal, too ________...
- I am not genuinely needed, wanted and won't be missed
- I've got better things to do
- When else can I shop or do my household chores?
There are some reasons, which traditionally have been offered, as to why we should go:
- to maintain social cohesion
- because of necessary, clerically performed rituals within the context of structured liturgies
- to derive a benefit from what is offered there
- because it's the "right" thing to do.
I submit that none of the suggested excuses for not going, nor most of the traditional reasons cited for doing so are valid. They are mere rationalizations without any spiritual merit.
The scriptures tell us that together we are the body of Christ, and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. So we gather as the church because:
- We are connected with unseen bonds
- We acknowledge the truth of how God sees us (as one in Christ)
- We need the gifts of others and we need to be the vector of gifts for others
- The Bible tells us to do so.
If someone is so disillusioned with church that he or she doesn't want to go anymore, that one should do some serious soul searching. Has he or she been going for the right reasons in the first place? Has that one given his or herself fully to being a benefit to the church rather than deriving a benefit from it? Does that person believe that God changed his mind about this whole issue?
If someone is not motivated enough, or too occupied or distracted with discretionary things to go to church, he or she needs to change. Church exists because God selflessly loved us enough to do something about our lostness. Christ has called us to himself and to each other for all eternity. If we're not grasping that and are capable of treating church like we treat the choice of which grocer to use, we don't understand Jesus--not his plans for us, not what he calls us to, and not what he's making us to be.
Perhaps we don't truly believe in Jesus at all!
I am a pastor committed to church, but I have also been a lay person going to church reluctantly. I know what it's like to go to church hoping for inspiration only to find frustration. I know what it's like having a bad week and wanting to hibernate, or what it's like to have an option that seems better to the flesh. I even know what it's like to feel as if you've disappeared into the background of an impersonal institution and that it's of no use anyway.
I also know that the trying of our faith brings forth a peaceable fruit. In life on this side of eternity nothing is perfect. Church is not, church people are not, and pastors are anything but. Despite all that brokenness, perseverance in church attendance is God's will for us. When we faithfully commit to it, despite the drama and flaws, we become a blessing to others and blessing comes back to us.
Blessing in the midst of brokenness... that sounds exactly like something that's of Christ should look like on this side of eternity.
