Friday, November 17, 2006
Competitive Faith
You know, we Christians are a testy bunch. We tend to throw down at a moments notice about almost anything, much of it relatively insignificant. Baptismal forms, methods of communion service can start shouting matches. Catholic and Protestant can start actual wars! Heck, protestant Anglican and protestant Purtians can get physically violent. What are we really fighting over?
Do you think God is actually constrained in His granting of grace if we are merely blessed from the baptismal fount instead of immersed? Come on - He's God for crying out loud! His grace is His to grant, and He will do so as He sees fit, regardless of our ceremonial and liturgical forms or our particular theological understanding.
See, here's my point. That we should seek the truth in these questions and in so many others goes without saying. It is an integral part of trying to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." Seek the truth, seek it actively and diligently. But fighting over it? - even arguing loudly over it, is an entirely different matter.
You see, we are not fighting over THE truth, we are fighting over our understanding of the truth. If we had a handle on THE truth, don't you think God would work it out so that we all had the same basic understanding?
It seems apparent to me, I even think the book of Hebrews bears this out, that salvation and living a Christian life is not even a matter of the correct Christian theology. The great "hall of faith" delineated in Hebrews seems to communicate that some gained salvation, certainly gained grace, and lived as God would have them live before Christian theology was even possible!
What are we fighting over?
We are fighting over our stuff. We are fighting over institutional power, even poltical/governmental power. And we are so fighting when we are supposed to be recognizing that all things emminate from the same God. We are fighting over control of something, when we are supposed to recognize and live as if God is in control of everything. We are fighting over the same kind of stuff the rest of the world fights over, we are just doing it in God's name.
This does not mean some things are not worth fighting over, they are, God's name is one of them. But we have to remember that God's name is not necessarily attached to the things we think important, only the things He does.
Maybe we need to spend more time trying to figure out what He thinks imporetant, and less fighting over what we do.
Related Tags: Christian, fighting, priority, importance
Do you think God is actually constrained in His granting of grace if we are merely blessed from the baptismal fount instead of immersed? Come on - He's God for crying out loud! His grace is His to grant, and He will do so as He sees fit, regardless of our ceremonial and liturgical forms or our particular theological understanding.
See, here's my point. That we should seek the truth in these questions and in so many others goes without saying. It is an integral part of trying to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." Seek the truth, seek it actively and diligently. But fighting over it? - even arguing loudly over it, is an entirely different matter.
You see, we are not fighting over THE truth, we are fighting over our understanding of the truth. If we had a handle on THE truth, don't you think God would work it out so that we all had the same basic understanding?
It seems apparent to me, I even think the book of Hebrews bears this out, that salvation and living a Christian life is not even a matter of the correct Christian theology. The great "hall of faith" delineated in Hebrews seems to communicate that some gained salvation, certainly gained grace, and lived as God would have them live before Christian theology was even possible!
What are we fighting over?
We are fighting over our stuff. We are fighting over institutional power, even poltical/governmental power. And we are so fighting when we are supposed to be recognizing that all things emminate from the same God. We are fighting over control of something, when we are supposed to recognize and live as if God is in control of everything. We are fighting over the same kind of stuff the rest of the world fights over, we are just doing it in God's name.
This does not mean some things are not worth fighting over, they are, God's name is one of them. But we have to remember that God's name is not necessarily attached to the things we think important, only the things He does.
Maybe we need to spend more time trying to figure out what He thinks imporetant, and less fighting over what we do.
Related Tags: Christian, fighting, priority, importance
