I DON'T BELIEVE THAT!

Creeds

I often hear people saying that the reason they cannot hold on to Christianity comes from their inability to believe in all the magic stuff - the supernatural stuff...

I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to either saying things like this or nodding my head knowingly when someone else says it. But for some reason, it has never occurred to me to ask what exactly I am talking about. What "stuff" are we having trouble with? And why?

I have simply made the assumption that people are talking about where science and religious history part ways: seven days to create the universe, Adam and Eve, the flood, parting the red sea, virgin birth, angels, resurrection of the dead... those sort of extravagant times when God causes the impossible to become reality.

I realize that thousands of years and far better minds than mine have fought these arguments and argued even wilder realities from how many levels of hell right through to angels on the head of a pin.

Without fact checking every verse of the Gospels I have to say that it seems to me that Jesus never, ever, said we had to believe certain facts, miracles, or proofs in order to follow his way. Not only that, but it seems to me he had campfire discussions with Nichodemus and upper room demonstrations with Thomas that made it clear that even the opposite is true. I don't care what you believe, I care what you do. That could almost have been the motto of the early church.

So what happened?

How did:
Do you follow Jesus - meaning do you live like Jesus lived
Become:
Do you believe this teaching?

In the traditional historical way of thinking it was the "church" that developed the "creed" As the organization got more power, and the people solidified who was in and who was outside of the church - certain statements of belief, the earliest being the Apostle's Creed and later the Nicene Creed became sort of gate-keeper documents. Believe this and you are like us... So basically you are talking about these points as a minimum you "must" believe:

 - There is one God who created everything
- There is one son of God, Jesus, who was born by a virgin named Mary
- Jesus suffered, was crucified, died, descended into hell, and rose from the dead three days later
- Jesus went up to heaven, alive, and is coming back to judge us.
- There is a holy spirit that is active in the world in between. 

I don't know - even that is more basic than where we are now. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of people out there who think that you are not a real Christian unless you believe certain things.

Fundamentalism

At the turn of the 20th century, there was a movement that traces its roots back to Wesley and the Great Awakening but basically culminated in the publication of a book called "The Fundamentals" which was distributed throughout North America for free and was sent to over 3 million clergy and laypeople. It made the case that there were certain fundamental things - there were a lot, but these are the key ones:

• The inerrancy of the Bible
• The literal nature of the biblical accounts, especially regarding Christ's miracles and the Creation account in Genesis
• The virgin birth of Christ
• The bodily resurrection and physical return of Christ
• The substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross

Okay, but seriously - why? Again the case is being made that what matters most is that you ascribe to certain beliefs, certain "truths" that in and of themselves do not matter...

I can believe the Bible is completely true, every magic thing Jesus did was true, and that Jesus died on the cross to forgive my sins - and I can also abuse my wife, own slaves, torture children and in fact kill a whole lot of people without contradicting those beliefs. How can that possibly be the truth?

But this is the thing we have forever lost sight of - the letter of the law is almost not important at all compared to the spirit of the law. If you want a biblical proof text to back me up, how about that whole time when Jesus said, if you were my followers you would have treated the widows and orphans better. 

There it is in a nutshell - following Jesus is taking care of all the widows and orphans. 

It makes me wonder what would happen if we totally lost the rulebook and started a church that just did what Jesus did....