Doctrinal Purity

My church is going through a phase of doubling down on doctrine.  My pastor posted this parachurch Statement that was the basic evangelical thing about how we need to take scripture as literally as possible and if we don’t believe that the Bible is a perfect document where every word is perfect from God then we are all doomed.  I posted the following on that Facebook thread.
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So, as far as I can tell, here's the mechanics that are work under the game of life... In every kind of social group there is a balance between cohesion and openness. (This applies to everything from political parties to art enclaves to sports fans to religious denominations) When a group creates policy that moves the slider more towards openness they start to lose the essence of what defines them as a group. This has the advantage of bringing more people to the group and the disadvantage of miscommunication/contention regarding the things that make the group special/worthwhile/important/etc. This happened to Goth in the 90's. The scene was so tilted towards openness to individual expression and fresh injections of ideas and aesthetics from the outside that it got watered down and fractured into a million pieces. Now you have Steam Goths, Pastel Goths, Cyber Goths, Romantic Goths, etc. And there's no longer a strong inherent worldview associated with the scene as a result.

On the other hand, when a group creates policy that moves the slider towards cohesion they block outside influences, remain static in their beliefs and as a result are much more clear about their identity and who's in or out.

Creeds, Confession and Statements of Belief are all mechanisms that are utilized to move the slider towards the cohesion end of the spectrum, and as such, move the threshold for who's in or out. If I was a sportsball fan who attended a game or two a year of the local sportsball team, but the team decided to release a statement saying "If you don't come to ALL our games, you aren't a TRUE fan, so don't bother coming at all." That would put me (and a bunch of others) in a situation where we'd either have to radically shift our priorities, adjust our budgets of time and money and relationships in order to comply so we could be "True Fans". That, or just silently keep watching and cheer quietly, tacitly admitting that the team we love doesn't accept us where we're at. OR, give up, and stop being around the team/fans all-together. If my presence is disturbing, annoying, troubling, etc. to the True Fans who have all signed on the dotted line, then my continued presence is not a loving thing.

None of this is an admonishment for or against Creeds, Confessions and Statements of Belief. It's simply a description of what they do. Groups tend to swing between the poles on this spectrum between openness and cohesion throughout time. It seems that at this time, my home church is swinging towards cohesion, and since I can't in good consciousness sign on the dotted line, the loving thing to do is to let my home church move to where its leadership is leading, which simply leaves me out of its Venn diagram. I can't personally agree with inerrancy any more than I could force myself to love the Seattle Sportsballhawks. But I also have no desire to try to convince anyone of my particular convictions. As cohesion becomes more important to the church, folks like me in the periphery will be ... dun dun duuuuun... LEFT BEHIND! A 'great falling away' if you will.

Then there was some responses which I won’t put here… And my follow up....

To be very clear, I'm not intending to DO anything. I'm not upset by anything, nor would I sever relationship because of doctrinal issues. All I'm indicating is that at some point, those who see a particular doctrine as central to not being dangerous will see me as dangerous. And I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable if I don't have to. That's all. (Since I don't physically attend church almost ever any more -but still stream all the sermons- it's not like my presence is some great grace that my withdrawing would hurt anyway)

Really, the thing that got me thinking this way was the word 'dangerous'. I absolutely "undermine scripture" if your definition and interpretation of it is as described in that Statement of Belief. And I don't want to rock anyone's boat. I like talking about theology and philosophy, so when I engage with Christians who need to see the Bible as it is described in that Statement they could be influenced by my words to not see it that way. I don't want to be responsible for that. I suppose the better part of valor is to just not talk theology to those kinds of Christians. (According to them, the only real Christians as far as I can tell.) I don't mind being considered not-a-Christian. I would mind being considered dangerous. Does that make sense? Either way, I'm not threatening a walk out, and I see now the use of my word "sever" carries too much emotional content for what I meant to convey.

So here’s how I see the tradition I inherited.  (American Protestant Evangelical Christian)  

How to “get it right” when it comes to following God”

1.       Have faith that God wanted to create a perfect text for you read for guidance.

2.       Have faith that people who don’t believe the right things will be tormented eternally.

3.       Have faith that reading the text of the Bible is the necessary way to learn the right things to not be damned.

4.       Have faith that believing that the texts in the Bible are meant to be read as literally and historically as possible.

5.       Have faith that every apparent contradiction is either not a real contradiction or is, but in the good paradoxical kind of way.

6.       Have faith that God inspired/guided all the writers of the documents that got included in the Bible.

7.       Have faith that God ensured that every time those documents were copied it was done perfectly.

8.       Have faith that God ensured that every translation was a done perfectly.

9.       Have faith that God ensured that every time the documents that got included or cut from our current Bible they were the right ones.

10.   Have faith that God ensured that every language the Bible was translated into had the same idioms and words to precisely match the words and ideas of ancient Israel, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.

11.   Have faith that our current culture hasn’t given us presuppositions that would corrupt the intent of God’s meaning.

12.   Have faith that God put YOU in the right denomination that interprets the Bible correctly.

13.   Have faith that your denominational leadership is guiding you properly in your interpretation effort.

14.   NOW… Given that all humans are prone to error, and somewhere in the previous 13 steps something may not have landed perfectly, have faith that God will guide you when you seek to be Christ-Like. 

That’s how I used to think.  Over the years I seem to have Occam Razor’s some of it. 

Here are my current steps:

1.       Trust that God will guide you when you seek to be Christ-Like. 

It’s not that I think God couldn’t have provided all the miracles to provide the other 13 steps.  I just think they still end up leading you back to the same place.  Since I don’t trust my own interpretive faculties enough to give me warrant to judge any of those points, I simply can’t claim they’re true anymore.  They may or may not be.  I simply don’t care.  I’m very much at peace with taking the great things that the Bible has infused into my soul and do my best to emulate the Christ that inspires me.  That Christ didn’t need to be literal.  Didn’t need to be born of a virgin or rise from the dead.  Again, not saying those things couldn’t have happened or that I believe they did not.  Simply that it doesn’t matter to me.  Christ is in me.  And my best efforts at ‘getting at’ the ‘real’ Jesus are dust in the wind.  I strive to be Christ-Like.  Either there’s a God that’s guiding me towards that, as described in step 14 (or my step one)… or there isn’t.  If that God is mad at me that I’m unconvinced about those 13 steps… sorry?  I guess?  I mean… as far as I can tell I can’t really control what I believe or don’t believe anyway. 

Fundamentally, what those other 13 faith steps did to me was keep me from truly listening to other people.  I find that truly listening to people is foundational to love.  I’m sure others have different reactions to those doctrines, and if they can love like Christ with those doctrines, that’s great!  I simply could now.

The reason I couldn’t listen to others is that I had to protect my worldview.  After all, if I develop the wrong worldview I would be tormented forever, or worse, convince others to believe the wrong thing and be tormented forever.  I think that’s why the hell doctrine was the first thing that had to be challenged for me to become more Christ-Like.  I had to stop protecting myself from ‘evil’ ideas like homosexuality being a sinful disease that corrupted society.  Or that everything the Democrat party stood for was sinful.  It turns out that –like the Bible- a more nuanced and critical approach to my worldview yielded amazing new insights.  And, like the Bible, I don’t have to simply accept every word a person tells me as verbatim Truth in order to love and accept and gain insight from them. 

Fierce Love is my goal.  I’ve determined it is my true north.  My God.  To the extent that any posited real God IS Love, then that is the God I worship and strive to emulate.  My upbringing put that God in the clothing of a first century itinerant Jewish prophet.  My fumbling human attempts to embody Fierce Love are surely hit-and-miss.  Having a perfect literal Word-of-God didn’t make me hit the mark more often back when believed in that.  I sure don’t see people with a perfect literal Word-of-God doing a better job than me now.  Some do.  Some don’t.  Doesn’t seem to be the deciding factor.  I’m super grateful that I was raised with those beliefs and that structured worldview that helped me with constructing a Christ that I wanted to embody.  And who knows, maybe someday God will bless me with faith again and I’ll become convinced that Jesus and the Bible have to be literal.  I can’t say.  But I am convinced that where I’m at now, I’m more Christ-Like in my ability to listen to others and care what they say.