Avoiding Division By Respecting Diversity (Corinthians 1:10-18) 10Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. To be in agreement with no divisions we must be united in mind and purpose. Dont quarrel over identity, who’s a Christian or not, or over doctrines or beliefs. Dont be divided by ideology, philosophy, or theology. Instead, experience the saving power of God! Christ is not an idea or thought in your head. Christ is real! We all experience God in our own ways. Having a personal relationship with Christ means to have a unique relationship with God. Discern, in consultation with others, what holds true for you, and be open to new and different ways of understanding God and the Bible. Christianity should not be about doctrines and creeds. “Belief”, as used in the Bible, means to love, to hold dear, to cherish, to trust, to follow. (Borg, 2011) Christianity is about following Jesus, his teachings and his path, and trusting that this path leads to the Kingdom of God. The early church was divided about the nature of Christ. Some even believed that Jesus never actually died. This belief, called “docetism”, held that Jesus’ human form was an illusion. As a divine being, Christ could not die. In fact there were a wide diversity of early Christian beliefs, even more diverse than today. Many of these views seem strange to us today, and many others sound strangely modern. The earliest Christians were Jews. They viewed Jesus as the Messiah. They argued that to be Christian one must follow the Jewish Law. They claimed Peter and Jesus’ brother, James, as their founding authority. They saw Jesus as completely human and not divine. Then there were the Marcionites, lead by Marcion, one of the most significant early Christian thinkers and writers. Marcion thought the God of the Jews was an evil God. He saw the God of Jesus as the new true God come to save man from the vengeful creator God. To the Marcionites, Jesus was completely divine and not human. There were also Gnostics. They saw evil in the material world. Human sin brought corruption into creation, but within some humans there is the spark of the divine. Gnostics believed that one is saved by this secret knowledge or Gnosis, the knowledge of who one is. Jesus provides this knowledge through his life and teachings. Most Gnostics saw Jesus and Christ as two separate beings. Christ is pure spirit. Christ entered into Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove. This Spirit is God’s emissary who conveyed secret knowledge through Jesus. Christ left Jesus before his death. Jesus suffered and died alone. To Gnostics the Resurrection was real but not some “crass revivification of the material body, which itself is illusory.” For hundreds of years after Jesus’ death, the nature of Christ was debated among Christian leaders. The winners of this struggle, the proto-orthodox, finally hammered things at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE some three hundred years after Jesus’ death. These early Christians had not even formalized the cannon. Final agreement on which books would be included in the Bible didnt happen until the late 4th century. (Ehrman, 2003) The Bible is “Divinely inspired”, but it is not perfect, inerrant, or even consistent. The authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit did not tell them what to write. The Spirit led them and gave them vision but didn’t dictate to them. These leanings and insights were then filtered through the author just as an artist is inspired to paint and the sculptor to put chisel to stone. The authors were men of their age, with pre-scientific world views and first century prejudices. Their writings reflect the world in which they lived. God did not write the Bible. Men wrote it. Yes it’s God’s word, but it isnt God’s words. The authors did not channel God. A channeled book is where the author claims to be in contact with a spirit who tells the author what to write. The Bible is not a channeled book. The men who wrote the Bible were human beings, inspired but imperfect human beings. They were not inerrant. They were imperfect conduits, as are we. The Bible isnt perfect. It has errors and inconsistencies. These include errors in citation, errors of fact, incompatibly different versions of events, different and even contradictory opinions, and even, yes, wrong and evil things. Use common sense. Nothing is true, no matter how vile or absurd, simply because “it’s in the Bible.” God is not bound by a book. Our doctrines and understanding do not define or limit God. God is bigger than then we can imagine. Our understanding is incomplete. Better to approach God with humility than to call others heretics and declare them condemned to hell simply for thinking differently, something that in incompatible with a wise, loving and caring God. The Bible did not “fall from heaven in a Glad bag”. It didn’t magically appear. Instead, the Bible was born of bloodshed and conflict. There were disagreements and arguments. People were defamed, maligned, tortured and killed. Different points of view were systematically and sometimes even violently suppressed. When the “proto-orthodox” won the debate, they proceeded to suppress different views. They destroyed many early Christian’s sacred texts and labeled them heretical. Over the years the Church waged war, tortured, beheaded, and burned at the stake many who thought differently. The Bible has human origins, and it’s a violent and bloody tale. Worshiping the Bible obscures this violent reality. It whitewashes history and makes the development of the cannon seem pure and clean when in reality it was violent and bloody. Worshiping the Bible is a form of idolatry. It is called “bibliolatry”. Bibliolatry consists of claims that the Bible is the inerrant, literal or actual words of God. Claims that the Bible is perfectly accurate, consistent, and correct in every way are false and a form of idolatry. They turn the Bible into the embodiment of God rather than what it really is: a compilation of different books written by different authors over different periods of time expressing different and even conflicting views about God, humanity, and spirituality. Many exclaim: But if the Bible is not a magical perfect book handed down to us by God, if it is not the literal words of God, then why study it? If the Bible is not superior to books like the Koran or the sacred texts of other religions, then why become a Christian? These questions are answered simply. The Bible fostered the world’s largest religion. It is the most influential book in human history. It is a foundation of the Western world. It’s an extremely important book, one that takes center stage in the history of the world. It must be read. It should not be ignored. It is divinely inspired and when read properly it transforms us spiritually. My denomination, the United Church of Christ, has a saying: “God is still speaking.” God still speaks through us. God inspires us. God breathes creativity into us. God uses us. We are God’s instruments in the processof creation and transformation. Christians know this. We feel God’s presence in our lives and sometimes even recognize God’s providence. We perceive God as present in what we say and do and in the synchronicities in our lives. God is constantly providing us with opportunities to transform ourselves, others around us, and the world. Sometimes things happen because of God. This does not mean, of course, that every misfortune can be avoided, or that God is conniving to give us everything we want, to make us rich, or that the universe gives us anything we set or intention on, though intention is a very powerful tool. What it does mean is that we can understand the Bible as divinely inspired without turning it into an object of worship. As we say at my church, we “take the Bible seriously, but not literally.” There is much more to the Bible facts and data. The Bible is not a history textbook. It’s a religious text. It’s a book of stories, lessons, and myths that enlightens us and teaches us to grow spirituality. The Bible teaches us how to live in community, do God’s will, and be in communion with Spirit. It does not tell us what to think and believe. Instead, it encourages us to ask questions. By questioning the text and listening to the many different responses and explanations we gain spiritual insight and understanding. As churches split, divide, and indoctrinate others to their own version of correct belief and theology, they rewrite history. Every sect claims it went back to the original Christians. Every change is an effort to get back to” the Truth”. The claim is always that the church has gone off course is some way. We are 2000 years away from the events at issue. The original disciples and the early church thought differently than we do. Christianity was much more diverse. Later theological developments were unknown to early Christians. Yet none of this is essential to Christianity. There is only one Christ, not three. God’s saving power should be our focus, not creeds and doctrines. Life after death either is or is not, but God’s saving power is real and present. Unless we can offer the power of Christ in the here and now, what good is the promise of eternal life? If we have eternal life, we have it now. In fact, “eternal life” and “salvation”, as used in the Bible, is more often about our experience of life in the present and not life after death. (Borg, 2011) God promises to be with us. If we don’t have God with us, then how can we say we have “eternal life”. If the grace of God is not present in our church, if we are in such a ruckus with bitter disputes and division, when we are weighed down with doctrines and creeds denying the validity of other’s experience of Christ crucified, we are not demonstrating the saving power of God. A narrow minded, my way or the highway, approach to Christianity is repugnant to truth. Church doctrine has been written and rewritten over and over for 2000 years. Doctrines have become stale, dry and dead. We hear the same things over and over. Church has become a “repeat after me” and “you dare not disagree” event. We should not promise life after death unless we can deliver it in the here an now. Experiencing God’s saving power, not waiting for it, is what Christianity is all about. Open your mind and hearts to the experience of God’s saving grace.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 05:38:52 +0000
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