Be Progressive

People often defend the idea of absolute, fundamental truth.

I agree that at a very basic level, there are basic truths - about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and also scientific truths.

They are all linked as well. Science is part of God's creation. He made it, He defined it, and so any proven 100% (as opposed to 99%) scientific fact can be called true. True about God's creation.

Science is limited however. There is only so much you can measure with science.

However, if you look at science as a dimension of God's creation, or even part of God, then you have a slightly different view. God the creator expressing Himself through creation, and science as a means of making it all happen.

Almost like God created science in order to help us understand His creation and measure it. They are two sides of the same coin. They compliment each other. Science can't 100% prove God's existence, but God can sure explain the existence of science.

There are things about God, and about science, that we don't know yet.

Believe it or not.

In terms of science, well we are learning more every day; there are plenty of people looking for those new ideas.

As for God, well that's a different story. Progressives are always called heretics by their generation.

The problem, which can be found in science as well as in Christianity, is that every generation seems to think they are the enlightened ones, that they have the definitive answers to everything, both spiritually and scientifically.

Each time this happens progressive thinkers come along and come up with new interpretations, new ideas. In science, until they prove it, they are called crazy.

If you're a Christian, you're called a heretic.

The Christian faith as we know it now is very different from that 400 years ago. Most Christians living now would be burnt at the stake as heretics if they went back there and spoke the same things.

Yet now, many of these self-same people call any preacher or church that comes up with progressive ideas which challenge us to look at things or at God in a different way, in a new way, in a way which is radically different from anything before, a heretic.

Here's an interesting fact for you. Jesus Himself was effectively called a heretic. He was accused of blasphemy. He was executed for it in fact.

Is that not a lesson for us?

Every so often a time comes in history where we need to push forward, where we need to look at things in a new way, where God is showing us new dimensions of Himself and giving us new challenges.

The church needs to move forward and adapt and change so that it can communicate a relevant message in a relevant way. The basic truths never change, but how we live them out has to change.

I think often we're more the problem with making Jesus relevant.

We limit the message, we put boxes around it, and we say there is only one right interpretation or meaning to a passage.

Well some people do anyway.

There are so many new things God wants to say through old scriptures. Teachings which don't go against old truths, but elaborate on them, but open them out and open our eyes to new ways of seeing them and new ways of applying them.

Christianity more than ever before is something not just that we believe in, but a way of life. A culture in itself. A way of living, a lifestyle choice.

It always was meant to be so, but now, in the lifestyle culture we live in, that teaching, that interpretation is more relevant now than ever. Being a Christian isn't just about believing and going to church.

It’s a lifestyle choice.

It’s an attitude.

It’s a state of mind.

Based on basic truths found in the Bible.

We need to be humble. We need to be open to anything God says, even if it hurts our pride or ego. Fear too is a boundary to hearing new ideas and teachings from the Bible.

As long as they don't contradict the nature and character of God, as long as they don't contradict the very basic truths in the Bible - at a very basic level - then they are worth considering.

Basic truths for me are summed up beautifully in the Nicene Creed....

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."

In my opinion if any teaching comes along which doesn't in any way deny this, and doesn't go against the perfectly just, loving, merciful, gracious and forgiving nature of God then it is worth considering and thinking about.

There is so much more to learn about God, and about how to be a Christian. There's so much more He has to say to us.

Let’s not get so caught up in religion and tradition that aren't aware of how God wants us to live. Now. Today.

Because the way He wants us to live today will be different from what has gone before, purely because the culture, society and world that we live in today is different from even 50 years ago, yet alone 400 years ago.

Let’s not get stuck in tradition. Let’s be progressive. Let’s grow.

Personally I'm excited to see what new things God wants to say and do and I want to be open to see and hear them.

Aren't you?

Reflections on Brian McClaren & the emerging church

Brian McClaren, an American pastor and theologian, has come to prominence over the last few years, with books like 'A New Kind of Christian' and 'A Generous Orthodoxy' and has been behind the rise of the emerging church in recent years.

I'm reading 'A New Kind of Christian' at the moment, and undoubtedly over the coming weeks there will be more blogs on Brian McClaren. But reading online some of the things he's said and written, I wanted to offer an initial response.

McClaren wants to see a church that is constantly changing and adapting to the post-modern culture and one which exists without needing a objective truth in which to believe.

But how does that work?

We as Christians believe in the God of the Bible. We recognise he is real, true and that He sent Jesus to die for our sin. We acknowledge the power and authority of the Holy Spirit at work in the world.

If we don't have that truth in us at even a basic level, then we don't have a faith.

There needs to be some sort of basic truths about God at some level for us to even find out about Him. If we feel His presence without having ever read the Bible, then that truth exists in our experience. We cannot deny that experience, it is true.

If we experience God through the Bible, then we acknowledge that is true.

Rob Bell talks in his book 'Velvet Elvis' about springs, and that there are some fundamental things which act as springs, but that everything else is open to interpretation. He compares it to bricks, which are solid and immovable, and where taking one out ruins the whole wall. He's talking about fundamentalists who say there is only one way to interpret the Bible. He calls it 'brickianity'.

To him, the Bible is a spring. There is no one single meaning or interpretation, but lots and they change and adapt over time as the culture we live in changes and the circumstances and lifestyle we are born into changes. So then we face different circumstances and different challenges as a Christian. The interpretation is different.

This is a better explanation I think. They are saying very similar things, but very different as well. McClaren denies the need for fundamental truth, Bell says that it is merely a spring to much more which we don't know about and that we can explore.

Brian McClaren also is quoted as saying the following "It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts …"

Now I don't want to take this out of context.

There are two things McClaren could mean when he says this.

If McClaren is saying that we want people to believe in Jesus and yet remain Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish, then he's contradicting what Jesus said about "No one comes to the Father except through me" and also what Jesus said about people not being able to serve two masters.

If you are of one religion, then you can't take bits of another as an add-on. If you follow Jesus, you don't follow any other religious leader or teaching.

Jesus certainly didn't want that.

That's not being dogmatic or inflexible, but there is no interpreation of scripture which says to me that following Jesus yet still following another god is okay. That makes no sense to me, and if that is what McClaren is really saying then I just can't agree with it.

If however, as I suspect, he is saying that Christianity needs to be different for each culture then he may have a point. The way we live out our faith will be different wherever we are born, whatever culture we come from, whatever tradition we are in, whatever social or economic class we're in and whatever our circumstances, our experience of Jesus and the way we live out our faith practically is going to be different wherever we are.

Someone living on the streets of India will live out their faith very differently from a middle-upper class westerner. Their entire lives are different, therefore while they may believe the same basic truths then the way they interpret them and put them into practice will be very different.

Now that idea I can get on board with.

Judging by these two points, I think that Brian McClaren has some good ideas at a very basic level, but some of the detail and way he interprets that is a little different, maybe a bit too liberal, for my own liking.

I await with interest to see what other things he has to say, and of course as I read more of his work and understand it, then I will be able to form real opinions about his work.

Whatever my opinions on Brian McClaren though, the emerging church has many branches to it and is merely a conversation, a discussion about how to do Christianity and church today. How to take the best of the old and make it into the new. How to take the best of the church today and bring it together and build a church and a faith for today and the future.

Rob Bell is certainly the man who has captured my perspective on it the most clearly of anyone, and my own pastor Jason Clark as well.

I may not totally agree with Brian McClaren but I like what he's trying to do.

We need to be exploring what church and Christianity looks like today, what's right with church, what's wrong with church and what we can do about it.

Some people say the emerging church is a heresy.

The interesting thing is that if they went back 400 years and said what they believed now, some of what they hold as fundamental now would be called heresy.

The simple truth is that as culture and society changes, the way we do life changes and the way we practically live out our faith changes. It also is different depending on the culture and society we live in.

It doesn't mean the basic truths change. It merely means the way we live them out does.

Rob Bell: Not a heretic

I've read many blogs and articles on Rob Bell. I've read all his books and listened to a lot of his talks.

Why are people calling him a heretic?

Maybe because he's questioning the Bible. Maybe its because he's saying things which challenge the traditions of the extreme-evangelical and conservative wings of the church.

He challenges traditional viewpoints. But how does he do it? He interprets the Bible in its original language, with an understanding of the Jewish culture in which the NT was written. He understands what it meant then, and he then goes on and applies those truths today.

He affirms the nicene creed - he believes in Jesus as the divine Son of God and risen Saviour of the world, the only way to be forgiven from our sins. He puts a lot of stall in scripture, he preaches from the Bible. He reads it in its original language, wording, meaning and context, not some new fangled one or one decided by the elite church rulers or King James centuries ago.

He challenges convention and tradition of church. He gets us to ask questions of God and His word to help us understand Him more and develop our relationship with Him more.

He preaches a gospel of action, rather than just words. Living like Jesus is the most important thing, being a Christian is living like Jesus in our every day lives.

I know someone else, far more important than Rob Bell, who 2000 years ago challenged the religious establishment and their traditions.

He lived out the scriptures perfectly, and challenged what was meant by different commands. He was controversial and it ended up being killed. He was effectively called a heretic too, He was told He was preaching what was of the devil.

Jesus was His name.

Called a heretic by the religious establishment - but the Son of God.

Rob Bell is impacting many lives for Christ today. His church in Michigan is impacting the lives of thousands and many people who were unchurched before are coming to faith in Christ. The NOOMA DVD's present Christian truths in a modern, easy to understand but challenging context, in particular for young people today.

Does what he say make us feel uncomfortable? Good. It might just be God challenging us to think outside the box, to really go outside our comfort zone rather than into one where we know what's going to happen at the end, where we already know all the answers.

Rob Bell wants us to engage with Jesus and ask Him scary questions we'd never thought of asking. Jesus got the disciples to learn by getting them to ask questions (which He had posed them). Children learn by asking questions. We are children of God.

I don't doubt the truth of Jesus as the risen Son of God and the Messiah who died for my sins, and I don't refute that the Bible is the divine word of God for us and contains fundamental truth for mankind.

But not to ask questions of God, so we can understand who He is better and experience Him more deeply?

The Bible doesn't say not to do that.

It says not to test God, but that's something different altogether.

Rob Bell isn't a heretic. He's merely trying to engage with God in a modern context, wants to find out the original meaning of the original text in its proper context and apply it today, to build a church how Jesus intended, to live like Jesus and isn't afraid to question God so He can know Him better.

Unless you're afraid to go out of your comfort zone beyond what you've always blindly accepted as a Christian, into the unknown, how are you going to grow?

Trust God and engage with Him. Go out of the comfort zone. Its the first step on to a deeper relationship with God