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TWO VIEWS ON DIVISION AND BEING HATED
Not sure what has caused my usually family picture oriented blog to go so deeply theological lately... but I find myself thinking a lot based on a lot of stuff racking around in my brain.
I think evangelicalism- for lack of a better term- is in a funk these days. It seems like with the threat of subjective truth floating around, people are so scared of the unknown, or that it might threaten their establishment, that we spend a lot of time fortifying what we believe and why.
Maybe that's what I'm doing. I don't know.
But this post and this post both seem to express two sides of a Jesus loving coin. Maybe they know one another. Maybe they don't. But both authors love Jesus. Both, I'm confident to say, are loving and serving the same Jesus and have been redeemed by the same Savior's blood. One questions if being hated is evidence of the gospel. (side note: I once read an article about Billy Graham in the 90's and how the author didn't think Billy really was a believer because he was liked by too many non-christians). The other sees it as a badge of honor and a responsibility to express so as not to be unclear about the gospel.
I hope heaven is happier and more peaceful than the church. I sure hope there is not a baptist or charismatic or episcopalian or seeker sensitive or yatta yatta sectors. Won't that be a relief. Sadly, I guess either Jesus will come back or we have to die before we'll experience it.
In the meantime, the more I read of the Bible and the more I read of God-fearing, God-loving people disagreeing on similiar issues (both modern day and ancient), the more convinced I am that there are few and fewer hills I'll really really die on. Yes the Bible is very clear in spots. Other places, are great to converse over... just really lousy places to build a fort.
I'm not claiming either post I linked to does one thing or the other.... I just think they make me think... and they probably are both right and wrong.
That's the story of my life I think.
3 comments:
Last year in my theology class my professor said something I thought was kind of funny, and true. We were talking about this sort of thing you're mentioning here - seeing both sides of an issue, something the Bible teaches about maybe not so clearly, and discussing it with people who disagree, etc.
He said "the difference between pastors and theologians is that pastors have to make a decision." Some of this stuff can stay in the realm of discussion but in other things we do have to make a decision as to how we're going to do x/y/z and how we're going to relate to people who do it differently.
For example I think immersion is the way to go with baptism but I don't think paedobaptists are heretics or anything. But I do think that those who teach baptismal regeneration are doing something very harmful to the gospel and the people they are teaching...but how do I interact with them and how do I talk about their ministry to others? Is it unnecessarily divisive to say those people are preaching a false gospel? I don't think so. But I need to be careful about how I do it.
Er, I realize immersion and child baptism aren't in opposition to one another...I meant to "believer's baptism" vs. child baptism...but you get my point, I think..
Jackson,
thanks for the thoughts. I think sometimes the definition of "false gospel" overflows pretty freely into something adjacent to the gospel. Much of the stuff that "divides" Christians or at least the stuff that we tend to argue about is often not how one gains redemption or that we need the blood of Jesus for atonement, but instead is something more like you said.. how we baptize or what it looks like to be blessed by God or whatever...
so, I think there are true healthy divisions where we should decide we are for one thing and not another because that is so clearly the teaching of the Bible. However, like I said,the older I get the fewer things that actually make that list.
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