Limitations of "Biblical"

I frequently hear people defend a concept by saying it's biblical. That's a statement that's hard to argue against because it's just so final.

The problem is different people have different ideas of what is biblical. It largely depends on approach to interpretation and reading the Bible. As everyone knows, anyone can find support for anything within the Bible through proof-texting.

Is that biblical? Of course not. In order to achieve an accurate interpretation, we need to consider the entire text (chapter, book, and entire Scripture) and cultural context. The problem is that people can take all of those things into account and still disagree on interpretation.

So what's the point of calling something biblical? It seems like it's, once again, a way to defend oneself and one's beliefs. It also disallow any ability to have an honest conversation and exploration, leading to Truth. And that's a problem.

Challenging and Accepting Beliefs

Yesterday, I discussed some reflections on doctrine. During my thinking and struggling on the issue (it's not over yet, by the way), I read Romans 14 as part of the liturgical year in my Mosaic Bible.

If you don't know Romans 14, please read it now. I've read it a couple of times since because it seems so relevant to my current questions and even this blog. In particular, Romans 14:1 is a good summary of the chapter:

Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.

In crafting my post yesterday, I had this in mind a bit, focused more on writing what I believe rather than criticizing others' beliefs. Okay, so I didn't do great on this, but in some ways it relates to the idea that arguing and needing to defend oneself is not necessarily what we are called to do.

The purpose of this blog is to help people explore their beliefs. I've thought of adding a new tagline: "Deconstructing to Reconstruct." However, I also have long said these conversations are not for new Christians. They're for people who want to take their faith to the next level and really challenge themselves to seek Truth.

It's very easy to get into a pattern of pointing out others' false belief and challenging it. I think I've done that a few times here. However, my goal is not to really call people out, but rather to provide a space to validate others who are having similar experiences, thoughts, and concerns.

In various church groups, I get the urge to challenge and criticize others' beliefs. But there may be a good reason they have them. What is the use of making that challenge? Oftentimes, it just causes strife.

I think of an analogy in terms of psychotherapy. I see plenty of people with a very different set of beliefs about behavior, motivation, faith, etc. I don't simply debunk all of their beliefs. For ones that are immediately damaging and to which they are open, I will present an alternate perspective. I rarely say something absolutely to a client or family, even if it's considered to be absolutely true in the field. It's just generally not helpful.

I need to remember this regarding theology.

Providing opportunities for discussion is important. But I also need to know the limits and let people believe what they will, no matter how unbiblical and damaging I see it.

However, if a lot of these ideas are premised on Romans 14, particularly verse 1, then we also need to focus on the phrase "believers who are weak in faith." What does that mean?

Everyone thinks they're strong in faith. So it can quickly result in spiritual narcissism. "I'm more faithful than so-and-so, so I will accept their immature faith." I don't want to be that person, but I border on it at times (and may just simply be there).

I wonder if we're not necessarily supposed to operationalize that phrase. It may be something everyone is supposed to hear. No matter if we think someone is strong or weak in faith, we need to focus on building each others' faith. And according to Romans, that doesn't seem to be about defining right belief or right action. After all, Romans 14:17-19 states:

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.

To me, this emphasizes the futility of detailed doctrinal statements. We are to focus on "living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Arguing over biblical interpretation and types of sins does not usually do this...

Christian Humanitarianism @christianaudio @caReviewers

I received two complimentary audiobooks from christianaudio at the same time: Jesus Manifesto (reviewed yesterday) and Humanitarian Jesus by Christian Buckley and Ryan Dobson. I was expecting to like the former more than the latter, but that's exactly the opposite of what happened.

Humanitarian Jesus was much more engaging and legitimately struggling with real-life issues that many Christians are facing today. As being "missional" is one of the hot new things for young Christians, it is important to know what it actually means to be missional.

Social justice is important. So is evangelism. But how do you define each?

That's exactly what this book tackles. The first half of the book is Buckley's argument for finding a delicate balance between both social justice and evangelism (he says both are needed explicitly). And yes, Buckley wrote the whole thing. He says that in the introduction. Dobson helped him get the interviews that comprise the second half. His name probably helps sell copies, but I don't think he was particularly involved.

Buckley is an excellent writer and is definitely on the more conservative end of the missional/social justice spectrum. However, unlike the negative and unfair stereotype of conservatives being unwilling to consider alternatives, Buckley does a great job of looking at all the options when engaging humanitarianism.

This is particularly seen in the second half, in which Buckley interviews a very wide variety of well-known (on the order of Franklin Graham and Tony Campolo) and not-so-well known Christian leaders who also engage in humanitarian work. I found the second half much more interesting and engaging. This is where the reader (or listener) gets to hear from the people who are actually doing the work and how they approach the balance of humanitarianism and evangelism.

The views are on both extremes and everywhere in between. And that is a good thing. It helps the reader/listener really engage all the nuanced issues in the arena of missional living. As Buckley states, the goal of the book is not necessarily to convince people of one perspective or another, but to get people to look at their views again and understand the complexity of the issues. For that, I have a lot of respect. And the book achieves that.

As with other audiobooks, I wish Buckley would have read it himself. The narrator was excellent (one of the best non-author narrators). However, there is something lost when the author does not read his own work, particularly when it comes out of a particular passion.

Another Definition of Religion

As I have argued before, we use really poor definitions of religion quite frequently, unfortunately often posing religion as quite different from and the enemy to authentic spirituality. This is a dichotomoy that should not exist, along the same lines as spirituality and psychology and religion and science.

In any case, this is an interesting article looking at the definition of religion in a way I haven't really considered it before. While I have advocated for broadening the definition of religion, this author argues broadening it in a different way. It echoes some observations about the more communal versus individualistic traditions.

Politics and Hypocrisy

I recently saw a promo for a documentary accusing some politicians of hypocrisy because they vote against their group. I'm intentionally not going to say what documentary or issue it is addressing because it doesn't matter. I've heard this argument many times: Christians who vote for abortion or against prayer in schools, Latinos who vote against immigration, homosexuals who vote against gay marriage, and the list could go on and on.

There is an assumption that there is one unilateral opinion among a group. As we all should know by now, there isn't. Just because one person is part of a particular group does not mean that they may believe a certain thing or vote a certain way.

That does not mean they are hypocritical. They have found congruency in their beliefs and actions. It is when those two are incongruent that we delve into the realm of hypocrisy. The problem is many people have not found peace in discovering a congruency between struggling beliefs and values they may have. And then they attack others with whom they disagree. This does not help the spirit of dialogue and struggle.

While we may not always understand how a person can hold two values simultaneously (or even understand how we ourselves could do so), we need to have faith that this can occur and not condemn so easily, particularly in such a public setting as a documentary.

There are true-believing Christians who do not think abortion should be illegal or that prayer should occur in public schools. There are Latinos who believe in strict immigration laws and do not support amnesty. There are homosexuals who do not think gay marriage should be an option.

And I doubt any of them would consider themselves hypocritical. We may not always agree, but does that mean they are living incongruously and hypocritically? No, I don't think so. What say you?

Liturgical v. Contemporary Church

As my wife and I moved a few months ago, we have begun looking for a new church community closer to us. In the places we have visited, we went to one that is a pretty traditional contemporary service (nice oxymoron, huh?) and one that is a pretty traditional high church, liturgical service. Both Laci and I have had much more experience in the former, so that feels more comfortable.

However, we noticed some key distinctions between the communities, which led me to think about differences between liturgical and contemporary communities in general. The thing I noticed (which is not an amazing or new insight) is that liturgical communities tend to be more liberal politically and theologically, focusing on communal issues and social justice at large. In contrast, contemporary communities tend to be more conservative politically and theologically, focusing on individual experience and personal responsibility. Now there are obvious exceptions to these rules, but often they do characterize churches as a pattern, I believe.

That got me to wondering why this is the case. And here's my conclusion:

Liturgical churches are by their nature communal. They focus on the whole community, not individual's reactions. Liturgy by its nature is participative. It is also not focused on creating a conversion experience or a deeply moving personal experience. Again, it is focused on the group coming together. As a result, it would make sense that these churches would focus more on the whole community and larger social justice issues.

In contrast, contemporary churches developed out of the Protestant Reformation and a focus on personal relationship with Christ, personal conversion, and personal conviction. The service is therefore focused on moving each individual. Hence, you can get a more performance-driven service that is non-participative, but leads to touching, emotional experiences. As the emerging movement has emphasized, these services have usually lost the participative quality. When that is lost, then it makes sense that politically and theologically they would ignore the social justice issues and instead focus on personal morality and responsibility.

Interestingly, I saw these two blog posts with similar ideas. Maybe I just had my eyes out for these concepts. What do you think about these patterns? Have you seen them? Have you seen a successful mix of the two? That's one of the strengths of the emerging church, I believe: It attempts to merge the strengths of both while cutting out the weaknesses of each.

Religion Definition

One of the things I advocate for is widening our use of the term religion, as we often use it in too narrow of a way (i.e. for only theistic perspectives).

Anyway, this is an interesting article looking at identifying science as a religion. I would agree with that assessment under certain circumstances.