NO METHOD TO THE MADNESS

Opinion is all over the landscape on the issue of Christian unity, but one phrase captures the essence of most of it – “dumbed down.” You see, one of the easiest ways to neutralize those troublesome little biblical truths that cramp our sectarian style is to simply look both ways and while no one is looking, quickly change their meaning.  More commonly known as revisionism, it’s the classic case of the wolf putting on sheep’s clothing,  but this little sheepy has a serious set of teeth and if I were a betting man I’d say they’re not for chewing grass.  You see when religion becomes little more than rhetoric, symbolism triumphs over substance as deception triumphs over truth and the pew sitting public become saps rather than saints.  It was banker David Hannun (no it wasn’t PT Barnum) who once said “there’s a sucker born every minute” and yes my friend we all do have mothers.  Words are the vehicle of ideas.  Ideas that corrupt or command excellence.  They advance heroes or promote slaves but nowhere and at no time are words neutral.  So the first order of business is to make sure we’re all on the same page and talking about the same thing.

     It really should be without question that the New Testament Apostles and therefore their churches had a clear grasp of Christ’s intention for the church. The fact that this is disputed in so many circles today under the guise of modern orthodoxy, only serves to underscore our incredible ineptitude on the importance of biblical theology. Rather than progressing from the wisdom of scripture, we have digressed into a religious vacuum of empty rhetoric and shear theo-baloney.  No matter what the justification or how fanciful the rhetoric, any time the church takes exception to the lucid and revelatory thinking of scripture, it is ALWAYS a move backward not forward.  Understandably many have been sold a bill of goods on this subject and simply are not aware of the need for change.  There is plenty of grace for those in that camp as there is for all of us as we move forward in Christ.  So please bare with me as we discuss this very uncomfortable subject.  While change is difficult it is necessary for all of us.

     When any people claim to love Jesus and be His followers while systematically undermining the truths and plan He gave His life and Soul to establish, there are certainly wicked deceptive powers at work that go far beyond human understanding. You see my dear reader, the devil is attempting, and has been doing so for a long time, to enlist the Church in his campaign of rage and rebellion against God. From the beginning his plan has been “Hath God said,” questioning the veracity and authority of the Word of God. When the church picks up the same mantra parroting such phrases as “Doctrine is divisive and confusing, we’re just into loving Jesus”, or “what we believe isn’t important, what’s important is loving Christ”, or “belief isn’t that important any more, its relationship that matters” and on the statements go – deceptively demeaning the importance of the Word for the sake of a religious form of dementia. When these types of statements become orthodox there is something extremely stinky in the mix. A witches brew that defiles everything it touches. It’s an intoxication that has landed so much of the current church system behind bars and the prison doors will not be opened until the church is willing to awake long enough to recognize her apostasy and come back into fidelity to the Word of God (Jesus). It is exactly on this point and this point alone that all the divisive sectarian mania has been able to take root throughout so much of Christendom. It would be ideal if we could all just gather around a table, shake hands and walk away unified. But the problem is much more serious than that. Division has been expanding in Protestant ranks for nearly 500 years. It has become so interwoven into the fabric of how we do church and how we relate to Christ that nothing short of a miracle will remove it. Therefore the primary issue is completely centered around our treatment of the Word of God. All the justifications and theo-babble supporting the incredible proliferation of sectarianism in the church rise out of the mud right at that point and everything they touch gets dirty. Until God’s people are truly willing to let the Word of God be the ultimate authority in all matters faith; the goal of New Testament unity will be impossible to achieve.

Along this same line, one of the major sticky points at issue in changing the church sectarian into the church unified has to do with method. Without question many voices are beginning to rise calling for the unity of the church. But the goal by itself is not sufficient. There has to be some sort of ideological vehicle to get us there.  It would certainly be an odd site to see a bunch of people, bags packed and waiting on a pier to go somewhere with no ship to sail in. Great Revelation #1 – to sail somewhere you need more than a bunch of people packed up and willing to go. You need a sea worthy ship to travel in. You need a vessel properly constructed and prepared to take you from where you are to where you want to go. Well in the same way the church is falling all over itself, infatuated with its so-called commitment to unity, but with no feasible way to get there. You see there has to be a workable and more importantly, a Divinely approved plan in place to make the vision a reality. Right now it seems the only thing the church is unified in is our divisive ideas on how to bring about unity. It’s the “me do it my way” mentality of an infant. Personal agendas abound- Why? Because our theology of Christ as Lord stops where our personal ambition and insecurity begins. Now don’t get me wrong. We want the Lord’s way alright, oh yes we do, until it gets in OUR WAY! To be even more blunt. In the current isolationist, big-egoed, atmosphere of the church “politic” we’re completely willing to move a fraction of an inch to achieve a miles worth of change, but just don’t flip that equation around mind you, because “we’re not going there O.K. BUD!” is the response. You see, to obtain the kinds of changes that are necessary we need to be willing to move miles from where we currently are just to obtain an inch of the right stuff. We have so much baggage in the way of even specks of New Testament understanding on this issue, it will require moving a mountain just to obtain a mole hill of truth. Sound depressing? Well unless I’ve already lost you, just hang on a bit. There’s always hope in Christ.  Anyway, here’s some practical advice for our bunch of shipless travelers in the church.  Unity is first a question of method not goal.

I once read a book loaned me by a friend, about restoring Christian unity. As I read the book it became abundantly clear that although the author’s goal was excellent, his method was so far out of the ball park you couldn’t reach it with a rocket. When I returned the book my friend asked me how I liked it. When I responded negatively he became confused and said, “I don’t understand, I thought you both wanted unity?” Well while there was no question our goal was the same just wanting unity doesn’t make it happen. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a little more money at times, but that didn’t make it happen. Oh yes, it would be great to wave a magic wand over a big hat and presto up comes a unified church. But alas, in the real world that most of us live in and some of us occasion to visit now and then, such Mary Poppins excursions around reality just don’t happen. Now don’t get me wrong, I really do wish I could twinkle my little nose and make all the church’s religious clutter disappear. No one likes the chore of laboriously cleaning up a mess. But my friend, Mary Poppins probably will not visit the church any time soon, and you and I just don’t have cute little noses able to accomplish such incredible things. So coming back to the real world of credit cards that never seem to get paid off and fancy cars that just won’t maintain themselves, we once again are faced with this annoying question of method.  More next article.

Luther Canon

Sola Scriptura