I was talking to a friend a wee while back - he's about 50 grew up in the church,was a missionary, was the principal of a Bible school and the pastor of churches. In recent years he has moved away from going to church and has been meeting with a group of individuals each week who also have moved away from the church but have not abandoned their faith.
He said this phrase (which was actually his wifes phrase) which I quite liked - 'forward sliding'. He says many of his church going christian friends become concerned about him and are scared he is 'back sliding', to which they try and comfort them to say they are not going backwards but forwards! Using the church and their back grounds as the basis of knowledge and experience and now exploring beyond that to other possibilities....
In fact during this holiday time I have had recently, almost all conversations I've had with people about where they are at with God show a real move to people asking a lot more questions and exploring ideas related to spirituality other than the classic fundamental christian world view. I find it quite encouraging that there are so many others also in this 'stage of christianity' ( for lack of other wording...) I wonder if this is a sign of the times or if most christians develop into this stage throughout their christian life span?
Again I feel a refeshed energy for the blog, but don't have any great questions to pose at the moment.... has anyone else got any?? learnt anything new lately? had any little revelations? I'm still thinking about the below points actually and have had quite a few interesting conversations on those topics... has anyone got any responses to those questions below?
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If you take a list of Christian doctrine - say for instance, the Trinity, transubstantiation, end times, speaking in tongues, the role of women in church - and ask different people to explain them, you will get a wide range of interpretations, often even from within the same church.
If, say, half the people are right about any given topic, and half of those are right about the next topic, it doesn't take too many topics before you get to a very small number of people who are actually right about everything.
1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 .... after only ten topics you end up with less than 0.1 percent of people who have everything right. After 20 topics, out of all the world's Christians less than two thousand of them would actually have 'the truth'.
So...my question is...does God actually care if we believe the right thing or not? And if not, what does he care about? Are there some core things which we must believe, and if so, what are those things?
Hi Amy, just wanted to say I think this blog is a great idea. I remember you mentioning it in an email ages ago and I meant to say back then I thought it was a great idea, too! Anyway, hope all is well with you in Anakiwa. Jess and I have been living in Bangladesh for the last seven months. We leave in December. It's very warm. Looking forward to reading more on here as it progresses.
- James
I've heard it said that if you find the perfect church don't join it 'cause you'll spoil it but I often struggle with the whole concept of modern church. I currently meet reasonably regularly with a group of people and that, to me, is church. What we traditionally do on Sunday morning is something else...
I have to agree with @"George the first" about the "rightness" of our doctrine. We can debate it forever but I doubt anyone has ever got it all right.
So after working through that my question, that has been my question for years, is how? How do we have a relationship with this God who seems very distant and, dare I say it, irrelevant to our culture and society? I guess its this question which leads many people to religion (religion being the traditions and rules and ceremonies we do because that is what we "are supposed" to do) instead of the relational model that is what Jesus seems to be teaching about.
How do we move beyond the transactional to the relational?
hmmmm...brain dump....
Hi Amy!
Hi Amy love the new lay out! for those that just joined and are enjoying this and want to check out more there are a bunch of old posts as well. still plenty of ideas to hash out.
Scolly, love your thinking great comment. I too have come disillusioned with the certain facets of the “modern church” however I personally feel it is the “modern” church not God that has become irrelevant to the culture today.
As society in the western world has moved into a post-modern age and beyond, it seems a large portion of the western church has just managed to perfect “modernism” and is still trying its best to relate to their communities in that form.
Maybe trying to have a relationship with God in a “best friend” kind of way was a high point in our “modern” understanding. Maybe a new/old way of thinking is that we just live in communion with God all the time, that God is in everything we do and are. Not in a spiritual way e.g. we are constantly praying, just that there is no separation between the physical and spiritual.
I do find that looking to our church history in terms of faith practices e.g. meditation, has provided meaningful ways to connect to God in a deliberate way (emotive weeping not required), when I could no longer stomach more “modern” ways of connecting to God.
Anyway just my 2 cents worth, obviously open to further discussion…
hmmm... the way we "do" church...
I've moved away from a lot of my past ideas, I have no idea what I think anymore, I have no answers to any of my questions and I have no idea what is right or what is wrong anymore and the older I get the more confused I get. I am actually in a space where the only truth I know is that God exists and and that I cannot deny! In fact I believe propose that perhaps muslims, jews and christians are all following the same God but that our understanding of Him has developed down different routes down the ages and I maybe non of us have in completely correct and that the truth is somewhere in the mix of the three and even more than any of them. I think it's important to want to seek God and to know him. I have to believe that as we seek Him, he will reveal himself and the manner in which we do that is not as important. It is good to have others to bounce off and spur eachother and to give accountablility though... this I don't have at the moment so maybe I'm totally on the wrong track... thanks for reading:)
Hey Hannah, me too! It is funny how much my ideas have changed over the years; from thinking I know everything to “what is it that I know?” I also agree that Muslims, Jews and Christians are worshipping the same God and that our histories and traditions have the same root, that no institution of faith has discovered “the truth”. I also think any person seeking God and seeking to bless the earth and their society through the understanding of their God is ultimately worshipping the same God. I do not believe in, “in” and “out” groups when it comes to following God.
This thinking raises some troubling questions for me, like:
So is there any point in pursuing truth?
Should I be bothering to tell anyone about my faith?
There are just so many more questions in my faith today than I ever thought possible before. It feels like starting the process of questioning is much like Alice entering the rabbit hole, you’re not sure where it will end and if you will like that ending…
However I do think there is hope for us seekers, what do you all think?
we are all just pilgrims on a journey.
I wonder if we would be asking these questions if we new our bible better. If the bible is an autobiography of this 'being' we are seeking then maybe the answers are there. I could certainly know my bible a lot better and reading it from the perspective of 'who is God' rather than 'what can this teach me', which is how we are taught to read it in church, might make a difference. Maybe I'll try that...
How well do you know whats in there?
I could definitely know my bible better and I certainly read it more often, but in answer to the question “if I knew the bible better would I still have these questions?” the answer for me is yes.
My experience in the more recent years is as I re-look at scriptures with more open thinking (usually spurred on by something I have read or heard) the more questions I have found. And in topics that have taken my interest and I have studied deeper, at best I have come to a place where I am a little more certain of what I personally think.
One outcome of this journey is that I am now a lot more comfortable with not knowing (or at least not being 100% sure). I still believe it is important to kept striving for the truth because of what God can revel, about Gods’self, myself and my role here.
Also on this journey I have become very uncomfortable with claiming I have “the truth”, because in doing so I will enviably undermine some one else’s thinking and prevent myself from learning another truth from that parable or scripture.
So I think for me reading the bible and seeking “truth” is very important but for me I think “the truth” as ultimately unattainable. And for me I love the fact I am following a God and living a life that is full of mystery. J
In regard to my own question “why should I tell others about my faith?”, the understanding I have come to for now is that I do not believe Christainity is superior to another faith in its knowledge of “the truth”. I believe as Christians we could learn things about God and truth from other faiths.
However I do believe we have the ultimate example of “Truth”, I get excited about the idea trying to understand what Christ did and was here on earth and sharing those revelations with others. I believe that if we live out these revelations we will achieve a freedom and wholeness that can only be found in God through Christ example.
Some great ideas here and as I read them I just think, 'yep agree with that' or 'same! that's how I think!'
I saw on a friends wall awhile ago a quote "Embrace the tension that is humaness..." I think that's one thing that I'm coming to love! Obviously these calculations prove that is impossible to have the truth on every topic (if any...if infact there is one!)but like Jared says this whole mystery is kind of fun if you embrace it!
Obviously God will understand our prediciment here... and it would be unfair of him to expect us to get it all right. I think that he cares if we're on a journey towards him or away from him and I think he cares if we care about trying to do what seems best to us (that is in our hearts) - I, with the others wonder if the mode of that journey really matters.
The one thing I do absolutely believe ( see earlier posts on personal fundamental truths discussion) is that God does exsist!
In regards to Scollys comment of God being relevant to our current culture and society... I absolutely think he is but we need to not try and restrict him in how we see that connection! As in - is it God that is not felxible or is it our idea of religion and 'relationship with God' that actually restricts us?
Perhaps one advantage of sharing our faith is that it gives scope for others to see one mode of being on this journey...?
as to - Is there any point to pursuing truth? well, maybe that's our purpose...? to do our best to pursue truth, and if God is truth then we're really just pursuing God...and that's the Journey...
you express so beautifully Amy.
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