Jul 18, 2012

Conservative and Liberal Belief

Last weekend, two articles came to my attention that I would say "caught" my attention. One caught my attention because it was in the New York Times. (links below). Both articles spoke primarily of the Episcopal church's rapid decline in the last couple of decades and both suggest something closer to hemorrhaging in the last couple of years. It makes me sad. See, I love the church and I always want to see the church in all its forms do well. But herein lies a problem: one would be hard pressed to call the Episcopal Church, at least at the national level, a church. Yes, to be sure there are local churches in the Episcopal as well as other main line denominations that are healthy and biblical, but at the national governing levels, it's a different story.

The most fundamental founding moment of the church was when Peter said to Jesus, "You are the Christ (messiah), the son of the living God." (Matthew 16:6). As the New Testament continues to unfold, there are other core matters regarding Jesus that are foundational to Christian belief. One is the bodily resurrection, another is that Jesus is the only way to salvation - the only way to God. This latter statement is not a matter of dogmatic exclusivism but practical reality for those who understand sin and atonement. And then there is the doctrine of the Bible itself, forged through the centuries of witness, testimony, study and councils - all of which could be summarized in the word "canon" - those books that comprise the inspired word of God which is authoritative for doctrine, life and practice. Well, at the national level of the Episcopal Church, these foundational beliefs are not upheld. In some corners they are ridiculed. There are similar bells sounding in other main line (old line) denominations in the U.S. as well.

It was in 1995 that I finished my doctoral thesis, writing very much about these issues that are before us today. My case study was main line Presbyterianism, but the issues and declines in all the main lines are very similar. In that study, I concluded that if the main line churches didn't recover a commitment to orthodox belief, that they would die out like the dinosaurs. If they did recover orthodoxy, they may rise like a phoenix. Unhappily, I suggested that the course of drifting belief seemed irreversible, which led me to suggest that the day may come when some of the main line denominations merge. This will be done with the fanfare of the victories of ecumenism, but in reality organizations rarely merge unless one or both of them needs help. This would be the reason for merging. Such a church might be called something like what exists in Australia - "The Uniting Church of Australia." If it happens, it may become a bastion of liberal beliefs that the church calls Christian, but which in reality are not. There will be lots of obfuscated vocabulary which are the words of ivory towerism, all intended to sound erudite and scholarly (i.e. convincing) but they will not be the words of Christianity at all. They are the words of generalized spirituality that sometimes refer to Jesus, but are not talking about the Jesus of the Bible. In this regard, it is important to get it out on the table - that these words are not Christianity at all, and calling it such is euphemistic and deceitful.

Religion at its core is about belief. Belief, to mean anything has to have clarity to it. There have to be things held to be true, within a framework of an orthodox doctrine. To depart from clarity, from foundations of core beliefs is to depart from Christianity and morph into the amorphous world of new-age spirituality - a mixture of religions, of beliefs, of spiritual words - but without clarities of any kind that would comprise a defined doctrine. Many have said it, but to believe everything is to believe nothing really - it is a vacuous system of wanting religion without commitment, intellectual or volitional. In this regard, it lacks character or integrity - and also courage.

Christianity at it's core is a religion for living life. It's doctrines, while philosophically significant are not philosophical at root. They are practical. The resurrection gives hope to people both for the living of their daily lives, and more profoundly - for their dying. This is so markedly different than the jaded words of pseudo enlightened erudition that pour forth from those who are proponents of unbiblical Christianity. See, Christianity is about changed lives due to coming into a personal relationship with the risen son of God. Changed lives is an imminently practical concept, not one of philosophical word games.

I've never really liked the labels "liberal" and "conservative." They have become laden with targets and pejorative connotations intended to malign opponents. I prefer to make it clearer than that - let's call it "biblical Christianity" or "unbiblical Christianity." And then let's have the guts to say that the latter is not Christianity.

People who are living their lives and coming to church looking for hope, deserve leaders who have the courage to say they either believe or they don't - so these people can draw their own conclusions from clear statements and navigate their eternity accordingly. To play word games with people's lives is a form of leadership to which I am opposed. This having gone on for some time now, is what is leading people to leave these unbiblical organizations, taking their faith and their hope to places that believe in the biblical Jesus.

So, in conclusion - I don't write any of this triumphalistically. I am very aware that the church struggles through the centuries and has risen and fallen throughout history for reasons too numerous to name. I write it because I love the church and I'm grieved when people who don't believe are pretending they do. Saddened. That's all.

To read the articles I mentioned in the first part of this post, see:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Home-Page-News-and-Views/Why-is-the-Episcopal-church-near-collapse.aspx?p=1

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html?_r=3&hp