ok... i know, asking a question in the form of either/or violates everything i believe also. so, feel free to talk on the x-axis between those two. some of you will wonder along the "y" i'm sure.
anyway, i have come across my second reference to the theological battle between 'growing' people in their knowledge and practice of following Christ, and protecting and preserving a theological purity. now i know that it's not either one or the other, (just wanted to restate that), but how do we balance allowing people to grow into their faith know that's a life time journey, and protecting the tenets of what we believe?
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ReplyDeleteit seems to me that this issue has everything to do with how one positions oneself within the "church" hierarchy (i only use scare quotes to indicate that i'm not referring to a specific institutional church, but rather to the church writ large). jesus seems to have manifested both of these roles during this ministry, but it seems that they were generally reserved for the higher and lower members of the church hierarchy respectively. jesus seems to play guardian with the church leadership and those who positioned themselves as particularly pious (the rich young ruler comes to mind) and gardener with his disciples and those who occupied lower religio-social classes (the woman caught in adultery for instance). this could be related to the fact that the overbearing legalism of the religious leadership, in a sense, created the lower religio-social classes, but i'll spare you my marxist critique in that regard. my point is that jesus's disciples seemed to have a penchant for saying fallacious (and seemingly heretical) things on a fairly regular basis without incurring the wrath that jesus reserved for the religious leadership (i know there are some exceptions to this, but i think it holds true overall). i'm not sure what the practical implications are, but it would seem to me that heresy, or at least incomplete orthodoxy, is more tolerable among the less educated (religiously) than it is among the church leadership, lay or professional.
ReplyDeletei'm probably wrong and inevitably short-sighted because of my own views, biases, ideas, etc. but here it goes...
ReplyDeletei remember reading through the sermon on the mount (sotm) with the college students i work with a few months ago, and we came across the section of Jesus' teaching that concerns adultery, marriage, divorce, and other issues of theological/moralistic purity...and we ended up discussing at length how Jesus' critique centers on those issuing the "writ of divorce" as outlined in leviticus for any issue across the marital dissatisfaction spectrum, rather than the woman receiving this writ who is made "an adulterer". In terms of theological/moralistic purity these individuals issuing divorces were absolutely correct, but their commitment to theological "correctness" resulted in the marginalization and degradation of women who were helpless to their decision making, and in this moment Jesus chooses to condemn doctrinal purity insofar as it results in the rejection, marginalization, and oppression of other people.
In my opinion, much like the wheat and the weeds, doctrinal purity isn't our chief job. we don't pull up the weeds, we simply look for wheat. Maybe that's some sort of wishy-washy, liberal response that results in a slippery slope to believing that all gods are the same (why is that always the inevitable outcome?), but i'm confident enough to say that as an aspiring church leader my job isn't to protect what we say about God, but rather to protect those doing the saying. because the way we say things (cheese warning) changes the meaning of the words we utter. Love just doesn't carry the same meaning when it's yelled through clenched teeth much like freedom doesn't have the same meaning when it's said fearfully from inside a bomb shelter.