I have been watching with some interest recent trends within the emerging church to forge a clearer self identity. Within the emerging movement itself there are recognisable groupings and trends of movement and migration that would make for fascinating sociological analyses.
Being inherently full of diversity, the emerging church will have a tough time hanging together. As those with similar interests and goals discover each other (a lot of this via the blogworld) and start forging separate identities, some signs of tension and splittiness have become evident.
We, as a species, have a tendency to classify things. Adam’s very first action was to name all of God’s creatures. I do think though that we don’t often realise that our tendency to be taxonomists is also now a fallen tendency and can lead us to sin. Celebrating our individuality and our uniqueness is not the same thing as lumping ourselves into this or that camp.
Branching is a natural and necessary part of being a good tree. But just because I am in this branch on the North side of the tree and you are in that branch on the East does not make either branch less a part of the tree. My self identification and attempt to classify all ‘other’ branches should not lead me to conclude that the differences outweigh the essential unity of the tree.
When we classify we involve ourselves in making judgements and these judgements usually lack righteousness. Yes there may be discernible differences, unique and outstanding features, trends and so on but where is the equally important acknowledgement of the ties that bind? “I am missional” should not be opposed to “I am emergent”. The fact is that all shades of mixtures exist together, and more to the point there are many who choose not to think in terms of taxonomies at all. When we declare a classification we inadvertently (I hope!) force a division and create camps that actually do not ‘really’ exist. All those ‘in between’ or undecided or unaware are forced suddenly to choose or, even worse, a label is attached willy nilly. Certainly, apart from being a fun thing to do, we have not elucidated anything of eternal significance. Is the fact that I am of a Reformed, Calvinist, Evangelical, Anglican Free Church, and now postmodern bent, going to make me any more or any less of your brother in the Lord?
if we are to learn anything from our history, let us at least learn that diversity does not entail division. Diversity is good and has been created by God, division is satanic and antichrist in every way.
In fact, I would argue that we should be proud of the breadth of the emerging church and try desperately hard to retain that very precious diversity. Yes, we should recognise real differences but let not our tendency to be taxonomists be exercised to the exclusion of our real oneness in our Lord - let us celebrate our differences without a spirit of fear.
the analogy of a tree
and if we take your analogy of a tree a step further and recognize that in the end result, the tree is the “cloud of witnesses” the “sea of glass” or “the body of christ,” we see that in the history of this tree, the emergent branch is a fledgling branch and not the tree itself.
i agree that one of the most destructive forces in the kingdom has been divisiveness - but it is a very old divisiveness - look at the conundrum between peter and paul in the first century!
i think arrogance is the reason differences become divisive. beginning with the early church you had issues of arrogance in the jew who followed christ and the resistance to gentile inclusion, the arrogance of the reformed breaking away from the church and the arrogance of the church that remained, the arrogance of the evangelical movement, the charismatic movement (i am sure there are many more; i am not a church historian). what do these have in common? i am superior to you - i am chosen, i am enlightened, i am right - therefore i cannot commune with you.
woa. what if christ had been so?
in the same breath as i say this, i recognize the deep need for renewal in the minds and hearts of the COLLECTIVE body of christ, myself included, and so i seek new patterns of thought, a new way of relating, a new way of operating IN ORDER THAT i might give and receive love more fluidly - or dwell in the tree more joyfully.
i am a dreadful lover of the bride of christ. that is my confession. and while i am desperate for an emerging theology that doesnt crush my soul and crave a place where my spirit can thrive - i am aware of the folly of potential arrogance for this new branch, for however much it may be the way god accomplishes “behold i do a new thing” in the historical tree of the kingdom of god, if it becomes the EXCLUSIVE, ENLIGHTENED path - planting itself as its own tree, i think it will have failed.
my hope is that emergent pulls away IN ORDER TO draw together.
dreams
I have spent many a moment, afternoon puzzling over these sorts of question, why do we divide ourselves why do we feel the need to be taxonomists and all that. I tried for a long time to never label or divide anything, but then I thought about the usefulness of labels, without them we could never communicate, we would be like the Ents in Lord of the Rings, taking an eternity to decide and describe anything. These labels are just tools of language which we use to describe different branches in the tree.
I do not agree that “…our tendency to be taxonomists is also now a fallen tendency and can lead us to sin”. It was God who brought the animals to Adam to name, it was God who made the animals in order by days and what not, surely our tendency to label things is a gift and not a curse.
There is a tendency amongst us post-modernist, emergents or whatever to label ourselves as those who do not label things which is both bizarre and unhelpful. I do agree though that the tendency toward superiority and exclusivity in terms of groups and divisions is deeply wrong, but I think that this is a distinct problem separate from our tendancy to label things.
Let us celebrate our diversity and divisions, the trouble comes when we are insecure about our own theology and this insecurity causes us to be protectionist instead of accepting of different views and emphasis’, not as our own, but as valid and acceptable to God, as a valuable and essential part of his “tree”.
what's in a name?
I’m glad to make the acquaintance of one person who believes that anything in us is not a part of our fallen nature! If all christians, or even most of us were as enlightened and mature as yourself, then indeed we would not have to worry about our tendencies to classify for classification would be purely descriptive and would not result in divisiveness.
For the weaker, less mature, and more fearful among us (including me) who take James 1:26-27, and 3:5-12 a bit too seriously, I would be very pleased if all my more mature brothers and sisters would desist from naming each other as anything other than ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in the Lord. You would all be doing me and those like me a favour and helping us not to stumble over all those innocuous little labels.
To be honest, I do partly agree with you. I think that the fact of naming has little to do with our divisiveness as such, it is not usually the cause but only a final contributory factor that confirms and precipitates matters. The calling of names and lumping or splitting of taxonomy is only the end of the road that perhaps only labels the real differences that we have already fostered to the point of producing divisions.
On the other hand, labels and names are shorthand that point us to the full descriptions containing all of the necessary information needed to make a classification legitimate. I would argue that the implication in Genesis is that each creature was (as the KJV puts it) “after its own kind”. I take this to mean that there was enough distinction to justify classifying each as one or another “kind”. Somehow, even in today’s science, dealing with fairly objective data, one will find no unanimity amongst taxonomists…
Perhaps if we were to follow our Lord’s example a bit better and extend more love and fellowship to those with whom we have the greatest differences, then the labels may even produce a good effect in that we would know whom we were to love even more selflessly!
But seriously,there must be ‘ways and means’ by which the emerging movement can try to avoid the pitfalls of the past. I would really like to hear some positive suggestions and perhaps see a ‘coming together’ specifically on how we maintain and foster our oneness in the Lord.
Live to serve : Serve to live
practical? perhaps a start
in my mind what follows is practical, but i have no idea if it will come out so:
naming and being named is a subject madeleine l’engle adresses beautifully in a number of her works. to my memory, her feel about it is that being named makes us whole. to be nameless, without our unique identity, makes me think of the borg (star trek) where humans were reduced to numerical brain power. to be named is to have your spirit/soul/essence recognized.
i suggest that “naming” verses “classifying” or “labeling” may be an approach to foster.
in our culture (i am from the states) we have a very segmented society, we have parceled out mind - body - spirit and relegated these segments of ourselves to various “experts.” let me use an example from medicine: a naturopath, an orthopedic surgeon and a chiropractor must each prove why his/her medical approach is the ONLY WAY to health, when what we need is a team of these three to work together, offering some surgery, some muscular adjustment, some dietary support and some the benefit of all three. but while each of these people must prove that “they are right” they are trapped in a status battle that keeps them from safely acknowledging that they each are LIMITED!
to me this is the key, to recognize with joy that we are limited creatures! this is not a result of the fall! we were created as limited - that is HUMANITY. we were never created as deities, able to know all, see all, be all. we were made limited, but made “male and female” to operate within the realm of relationship in the image of the father son and spirit.
so practical application for me is to be confident in my limitations, named by my unique combination of gifts and short comings and needful of other strengths i do not have BY DESIGN!
imagine if we could know ourselves and each other, delighting in each other’s varying capacities without feeling that this somehow reduced us? i think then we would have “knowing and naming” verses “labeling and dividing.”
a start
Stacy, I really like the idea you put forward that we are limited, each of us. I think this a really good begining towards understanding diversity and difference of opinion to be usefull and even Godly.
Perhaps we are limited for good reason, that we would need each other, as individuals needing communities and groups (emergent church) but even that those groups would need each other, a bit like the medical professionals in your example.
Ideally the surgeon needs to remain a surgeon as does the chiropractor in his chosen speciality, but they must work together recognising each others specialities and each contributing towards the wellness of their patient. Their fighting over supremecy or importance is a side issue, the patient requires both surgeon and chiropractor alike.
So perhaps the global church requires both emergents, anglicans, catholics, even evangelicals! And maybe we are required simply to be the best emergents that we can, not fighting for supremecy but still contented and passionate about our position in the body/vine whatever. Perhaps, just a thought.
free to be
Both jana and stacy have a great point. And while we do our best to follow where God is leading us let us also be peacemakers and actively seek to fellowship with the rest of our tree. I do believe that while God allows us the freedom to be different, God would also love to see us be different together in His love.
Perhaps as the Vine grows, branching is both necessary and good but as we grow outward let us never forget that we are grafted in ‘somewhere back there’ and therefore that we do need to remain connected in practice too.
We could perhaps even try to explore how we could be missional together, rather than always be discussing our differences in thinking/theology/labels etc.
Live to serve : Serve to live
yes!
sam, you wrote: “We could perhaps even try to explore how we could be missional together, rather than always be discussing our differences in thinking/theology/labels etc.”
the two churches i have belonged to over the past 20 years have both done this - ministering alongside churchs of different race and theology - sometimes even protestat and catholic. this summer my girlfriend’s mennonite church had a gathering with a local islamic group, they prayed together.
and jana, thanks for hearing my thoughts so well.
common mission
re missionality, great examples stacy, I guess we need to be aware that our patient as it were is the same world, so while we should retain our speciality and our difference we must also work together in order to achieve our goals. Personally I think with other groups from other religions (or non religions) aswell, go the mennonites!
Emerg/ent/ing anthropology and etymology
If I were to name the three most important influences on my theology, they would be Harold Kushner, Walker Percy, and Joel Brondos. I think especially of Percy in the context of naming the animals. Only in wishing that he’d explicitly expounded on that narrative (or, having done so, that I knew where to find it). His semiotic analysis of man’s alienation, and Christ’s intervention (more implied than announced in his novels and essays), made me think Adam incapable of naming, before the fall. But the granting of names is not a fallen attribute of man, obviously. Only what we do with names. I’m an inadequate re-stater of Percy’s premises, and direct anyone interested to his “Cosmos” — [I hate this editor — how do you end Italics, once you start? — it’s not a trivial question].
Something else I glean from Percy, among others, is that man is pretty much incapable, individually, and corporately, of “theology”. What we do have is ourselves and the words we share. We may call it theology, but are really practicing anthropology and etymology. What words mean seem to occupy most my attention when dealing with what faith tells me that God has revealed to men. And that is certainly true when fighting with Joel Brondos over the meaning of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, which discusses, especially in Chapters 10 and 11, those who separate themselves from the community (centered around the Eucharist), and form their own communities (centered around a confession, a heritage, or the recognition of a special authority granted one individual (mary baker eddy, joseph smith, john calvin, the occupant of the Roman See) to speak with authority.)
I found myself expressing a metaphor different from the tree (like the Biblical vine rooted in Christ) or Paul’s frequent metaphor of the body of Christ (within which metaphor, I enjoy the personal conceit of being a nose hair). I’m more compelled by the blind men and the elephant metaphor, but more in terms of people witness to an event localized in space and time. While we are distributed in space, and our attention distributed within time. We see it from our perspective, according the duration of our witness. And we hear tell of it from people who have a gift of narrative, and embue what we experienced mostly as spectacle, with some context, perhaps made from whole cloth, by which apprehend the wordless awe of what we witnessed. And we come to hold two things more precious than the event itself. The perspective given us by the ground upon which we stood. And perspective given us by the community which own the narrative which we’ve bought as fitting what we saw (or wish we saw and pretend we saw, as befitting our need to be among that community).
This brings the metaphor from the suspect Pauline hierarchy to the normative Jesusian buried treasure. (I, with many others, regard Pauline exegisis as ridiculous at times — as ridiculous as Jacob’s husbandry — and his pronouncements short of normative). We find something the value of which excites us. And we buy into the milieu in which it was discovered. Jesus taught anthropology at least as much as theology. He told us how we respond as individuals, not as classifications or hierachially arranged roles. We make too much of context. That treasure, though, is portable. Portability was the principle attribute of the Kingdom of Heaven — an apt narrative for those who are soon to be known as the Diaspora.
The problem comes in distinguishing what ought be indicative (necessary and sufficient) of membership in the Christian community, from what is the idolatrous distinctive of the schismatic community. Closed confessional communion of the type that Brondos advocates, despite the beauty of his (Missouri Lutheran) confession, offends God by not yielding to any departure, regarding the same as a departure from Christ. Walker Percy might describe this as the fallen trait of confusing the signifier with that which is slgnified. I don’t think Adam was so confused, when naming the animals — be was afterward confused when, expelled from the Garden, calling them by name. Every generation of Christians must be attentive to kerygma and azym.
For the meaning of these metaphors, look to Christ’s use of them. The sprout of new (emerging) life from the corruption of the planted seed. The annual sweeping clean of domesticated leavening, to allow reseeding from the wild. This is renewal. This is emergence. (my wife, a nurse, gives an entirely different meaning to emergent, seeing it as imperative of immediate and concentrated attention — but perhaps not so different a meaning, after all)
A puff away from 3 packs a day
inflexible metaphors?
Trees are not as biblical as vines and indeed the tree is far too independent a creature to really express the body of Christ. Vines require a supportive framework so the more we lean on God the better our vine will be. Lay a vine on its own on the ground and it will soon rot away.
The problem of course is that whatever else is taught about the body is subsumed under the dominant fact that there is only one vine. One is either a part of it or not. Herein lies the schismatic’s problem for one cannot declare oneself cut off, instead one has to argue that all others are just ‘vinelike growths’ and are not branches of the one vine.
With us “emergers” we do have an in-built diversity that should help to protect us from infighting. But, I see the bigger problem as being that while we may be emerging theologically, from whatever our roots were (to spoil the metaphor), we still have to figure how we are still connected in real ways to the parent body. Thinking that we are out to plant our own private vineyard(s) will mean a complete break from the bible and from the God-declared one vine.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Faith to let die.
I struggle to articulate things. I really don’t know what emergent is all about. I find that I’m neither a traditionalist or avant guarde, nor communal at all, with any ease. I get the taste, sometimes, from some self descriptions of emerging church of a self-congratulatory cleverness to it all. Again, something I strain to express in words…. but perhaps a dichotomy between people who get it, and people who don’t. And the “get its” are condescendingly patronizing of the “don’ts”, in a way that is flavored the same as New England carpet baggers in the 1870s and Emersonian puffery of a generation before, and frankly, of gnostic spark-bearers of the second century. And the whole scolding self righteousness of the politically correct academics of the eastern universities. I taste molasass — more New England than Christ. But then, I lack an epicurian palatte.
But it’s really something else I had in mind when starting the response….and it’s the holding on to things which once helped us believe, but have been discredited. Kind of like the lies they tell in Sunday School, that we touched in another topic. Yet we cling to these propositition, as if God’s truth will dissolve if we don’t erect a fanciful defense to preserve the shape by which we know it.
And they call that “faith”? I think quite the opposite. Faith tells me, the truth needs no defense, and seed must die for the plant to live. We come to know Christ through the corruptable, and either put it in a box or plant it in the ground. And when we plant it, we must watch it die to see it live. That takes courage. That takes faith. Saving it from corruption takes fear and dread. And fear and dread is the predominant copraphagic taste I get from evangelicalism.
A puff away from 3 packs a day
the stench of fear and the aroma of love
Bob, a number of others have commented on insecurity and fear as major contributing factors to the schismatic nature of christianity. The fear is often hidden behind a front of ‘hungering and thirsting after righteousness’.
‘Holding on to things which once helped us believe, but have been discredited’ is also a hallmark of the same fear - we tend to stick to what is familiar for ‘out there’ can be dangerous.
I grew up in Africa. One of my earliest experiences of fear was when I was about 7 and out in the bush one evening. The area was very familiar and we kids played there almost every day. It was typical savannah - grassland with some clumps of thorn tree here and there.
We had played hard and decided to have a nap. When i awoke it was dark. My friends were missing. There were strange noises. I could not see the path. There were no stars visible for it was cloudy and no moonlight. My mind kept telling me that there was no problem, I know this place, I can get home but I was frozen in the dark and couldn’t get moving.
I realised vaguely that my greatest fear was probably of taking off in a wrong direction and ending up somewhere completely unknown and somewhere where no one would think to look for me…safer to stay put and await rescue!
Another, sort of similar ‘freezing in fear’ happened when I got too far up a huge tree. Someone had to come up and hold my foot, placing it securely on the next foothold, and after much coaxing and cajoling I was saved.
Sometimes, what is needed is understanding and patience, going to where the frightened person is deperaely clinging to that one apparently solid branch and gently coaxing them along. Sometimes some people never get over their fear of heights (or the dark) and we will never make tree climbers (or explorers) out of them.
Live to serve : Serve to live
high anxiety
Both the “how did I get here, and how do I get out” experiences are part of all childhoods — certainly mine. Hostility is not the right approach — that’s clear. Though when confronted by those who hold closed communion because “It’s syncretism to abide any deviation from what we believe” and point out texts like Romans 16:17-18, I begin to wonder if I shouldn’t regard them as willfully cut off from the catholic (small c) body of the Church, and leave them to their delusion that such tests instruct them, rather than reprove them. But then closed communion is a small and technical problem, compared to the problem represented by Roy Moore, for instance. Now I can find a place in my heart to love Roy Moore, and I do my LCMS friends who taught me so much, but will not have me at what they presume to be Christ’s table. I have a harder time to find a place in my heart for those to whom my response is always “What begins with the premise of ones own righteousness is not Christianity, and I curse you for naming it such.” — and the extent to which Christianity is identified by the prevalence of people I would so curse. (And in making the curse, wondering if I’m not Pulling a Foley).
I have to read Psalm 1 again and again to confront my own anxiety and hostility. My own exegetical slant — but it help me, nonetheless.
http://www.thestarlitecafe.com/poems/89/poem_689356.html
A puff away from 3 packs a day
Spiritual Confusion
Did I read that right? Mennonites prayed with Muslims????
So………………… who did they pray to?
Last I read, Isaiah 45:5 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God.”
Unless the Mennonites had shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were leading the muslims in a salvation prayer, this exercise was completely nonsensical and forbidden by Scripture.
no confusion here
hmmm. well, i’ll begin with your premise that you have the only truth about god and this muslim seeking god has nothing. i’ll add to that your desire to share your “good news” with this brother. how might you go about that? just tell him he is wrong? show him your bible and how it is better than his? argue logically for your way, for the stupidity of the religion he is willing to die for?
or might you find the common ground? where your stories of god intersect? what about listening to him? and yes, praying. if you believe there is one god, then this is who you pray to, how is this forbidden? and your muslim neighbor? who he is reaching toward in his prayers is unknowable to you. it may well be the same. your verse from the OT says one god.
Plenty of Confusion There
Let’s tackle this very simply for you Stacy.
1. The Bible is the only truth about God
2. Jesus is the Word of God
3. Jesus is God (I sincerely hope we don’t need to discuss the truth of the Trinity otherwise this exercise will have become a waste of time with you)
4. Therefore those who pray to and worship God also pray to and worship Jesus. (Are you with me so far?)
5. Muslims reject Jesus as God. He is a good man and a prophet but that’s as far as it gets in Islam.
6. When Muslims pray, they are praying to Allah. Allah is not the God of the Bible. Allah is the object of worship in the Islam religion. Since Jehovah God is not Allah and Allah is not Jehovah God, they are praying to a false god.
So the question I posed is an extremely simple one to answer. The Muslims were worshipping a counterfeit, i.e. a satanic idol.
They were not worshipping in Spirit and in Truth.
One’s faith is not based upon the one who prays but is upon the object of one’s faith. I can pray and worship with great passion and sincerity to a chocolate shake, and I can even do it on my knees with 500 others, but ultimately I will still be praying to a glass of cold cocoa.
I’m sure it would feel really good to do that with so many people but it would be utterly meaningless.
If you like some good reading material related to this subject, I would direct you to the story of Elijah and the followers of the demon god of Baal in the Old Testament.
Having said that, I have befriended Muslims. But I do not pray with them. I pray for them - that they come to the truth of Jesus and renounce Islam.
too bad
well, i guess you put me in my place. how nice for you that life is so neat and tidy. i am afraid you have extinguished any possible conversation we might have had. thats too bad, i might have benefited from your perspective.
God as object
I’m afraid that the number of astute statements of faith in such explanations only serve to hide a multitude of inner confusions. Take a statement like: ” One’s faith is not based upon the one who prays but is upon the object of one’s faith.” If any prayer has any meaning it is because God participates. It’s rather foolish for any human to be telling the Creator, what He can and cannot do, whom He can and cannot converse with.
Some confusions begin at the very beginning “The Bible is the only truth about God” says the bible or says AG? We are saved by God’s grace, but He nowhere says that He has given us an encyclopedic certainty as to what the Holy Spirit has and has not been up to.
That’s your brand of belief, and I hope that you too believe in Jesus, in which case, whether we want to or not, we are branches of the same vine. So, let’s find ways to communicate, and hopefully fellowship in the Lord.
Live to serve : Serve to live
samlcarr, I am shocked
samlcarr, I am shocked beyond belief with your reply but honestly my heart weeps for you. How can you believe yourself to be in the same vine when basic truths of the Bible are perceived by you to be confusing?
Read Isaiah 45 and please point out the confusion. There is only one God, there are no others, the God of the Bible alone determines Truth, unbelievers pray to a god who cannot save………..
Is it confusing for you that Jesus and God are one in the same? Is it too difficult to accept that salvation is found in no one else (but Jesus), for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved? (Acts 4:12). What did Jesus really mean when He said in Luke 9:23 that if anyone would come after Him, they must take up their Cross daily and follow Him?
I think it’s a safe bet that He didn’t want any competition in our hearts with other false gods of Islam and Hinduism for example.
Samlcarr, there is only one way to heaven. Jesus Himself makes it crystal clear. We can only come to God through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
You have some serious explaning to do son. When you call biblical concepts and truths into question, you’d better back it up with good solid evidence and well-thought out reasoning. Thus far you have spoken from human emotion and a worldly perspective. If I might suggest something: it would speak volumes for your credibility if you would quote from Scripture when you share your thoughts. So far, the only confusion here has been coming from you.
too many assumptions
AG - not that samlcarr needs my defense, but your concern seems to be more with him having doubts and confusion about his faith or faith in general rather than with him as a person. Did Christ put doctrine before people’s hearts?
Now, I don’t want to make too many assumptions like you did, but what is so troubling to you about finding God behind the strangest corners? Did God not make all things, and is he not in all things? In fact, did Paul not say that in Christ “all things on heaven and on earth” are being reconciled back to God?
Why then would you be surprised that God is in all things, or demand that someone you converse with has to quote scripture when he shares his thoughts with you? Does quoting scripture make one holy or better than another human being? What I always find surprising and shocking is the neatly folded theology that folks pull out of a drawer whenever they are confronted with doubts. It is true though - confronting doubts is much harder than ignoring them, and tearing down idolish paradigms is always more uncomfortable than swallowing doctrine whole without any questions.
shocking but true
God’s ways are not our ways. so, it’s not unusual for us to find that something that God is doing, fails to fit into one of our neat little ‘theological’ categories. I’ll take your excellent advice and quote from the bible for you.
You need to read Isaiah 45 a bit more closely, for the very subject is God calling Cyrus and makes him the instrument of His righteousness, Cyrus, a non-Jewish, pagan king, is “his anointed whose right hand I have grasped”. Further on:
“I have stirred him up in righteousness,and I will make all his ways level;he shall build my cityand set my exiles free,not for price or reward,”says the Lord of hosts.
I believe the bible and I believe that only God is God, One need not go to Isaiah to discover that, the truth is plain from Gen 1 onwards! I believe that Jesus is God’s only son and that salvation is only in the blood of Jesus . What did I say that made you think otherwise?
What I have questioned is your understanding, or the apparent lack of it, as far as the sovereignty of God is concerned.
Being a part of the same vine is not a matter of choice!
Live to serve : Serve to live
God's qualities in all things
In Romans 1 Paul wrote eloquently: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
shocking but true (double entry - sorry all)
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: Ramification
Diversity is what its all about. If there are other churches out there, other religions, who are we to judge what they believe? In the end, come judgment day, the Lord will look at us as equals. Whatever our beliefs in religion or what not won’t matter to him, as long as we believe in Him and our faith unwavereing. The Muslims have Allah, the Buddhists Buddha, the Church in whatever form, God. They’re all one and the same.
Re: Ramification
Diversity is what’s it’s all about? Really? I’m not familiar with that concept. Can you point to a single, solitary verse in the Bible that can even remotely substantiate your claim?
What about the violent Wahibbi sect of the Sunni Muslims? The homosexual churches? The Wiccan churches? The Grail sect in Europe? The Branch Davidians in Waco, TX? Rev. Jim Jones in Guyana, South America? Christian Scientists, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses? All of these and more who claim belief in Jesus who in reality deny the living triune Christ, practice wanton disobedience toward Scripture, who in darkness of mind wallow in sexual immorality and gross perversion? They have already been judged by God and found to be wanting. The so called great religions of the world like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are diametrically opposed to each other and are nothing more than satanically inspired counterfeits. The Muslims have Allah, the Buddhists have their Budda, the Hindus have their multiple gods but they are all dead and rotting in their graves whose souls are smoldering in hell. Christianity has the living and resurrected Jesus Christ who sits before the right-hand of God on the throne who has already defeated the enemies of the Cross.
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” Acts 4:12
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through me” John 14:6
Love one another as I have loved you
The point of my original post is that there is a diversity within the emerging part of the body of Christ. That diversity does have to be acknowledged and dealt with as between members of the same body/tree/vine and not as something that we have the liberty to fight about.
The issue of whether one can be a believer in Christ but subscribe to a different religion is a seperate issue and one that has been discussed in various other posts and threads in OST and elsewhere.
I do agree that we can not know definitely whether a person is a believer or not and that it is better not to judge, but I would really, really, like us to concentrate first and foremost on setting ourselves right with one another within the broader body and we could make a good start in our own little emerging ‘neck’ of the woods.
Live to serve : Serve to live