Evangelicalism as Boats

From the moment the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, Christianity has been on the move. The gates of Hell cannot prevail against us! We’ve never stopped moving, and we won’t stop until Jesus returns. We’re constantly growing and changing. God is always doing something new and it is such a journey to see Him work and follow this wild, untamable Spirit. Imagine what Peter must have thought when God told him on the rooftop to eat foods he knew were forbidden in the Law. I’ve kept the law! I’ve remained Kosher and YOU commanded all my life! Yeah, well Peter, I’ve made those things clean. I’m doing something new, so stop arguing with me and go eat!

If you’ve spent any amount of time walking with the Lord, you already know that He is always on the move! Always doing something new! Always full of surprises.

Unfortunately, Conservative Evangelicalism has stopped moving. They’ve buried their feet in the sand, drawn their lines, and refuse to rethink where they’ve planted their feet or the lines they’ve drawn. I don’t believe its bad to have boundaries or refuse to go lax on the beliefs you hold dear. The problem is a refusal to rethink or reexamine presuppositions. Conservatives have presuppositions on a lot of things: The Bible, God, Morality, Politics, and Culture. Its not that nobody else has presuppositions. We all have them. The difference is that most people are willing to think through and reexamine those commonly held beliefs. Inerrancy, for example, is not a biblical argument. Its a philosophical one, based on the premise that when God speaks, it cannot be a lie. If that is true, and the Bible is God’s word, then the Bible is perfect and contains no contradictions. The only issue with that is the first page where Genesis 1 tells an entirely different creation story than Genesis 2. I do not believe that these two passages contradict themselves in purpose, but they literally do not fit together cohesively. But that doesn’t matter, because the presupposition can’t be challenged. And if you can’t challenge the presupposition without being ostracized from your community, you’re going to get stuck with nowhere to go. I’m not going to offer a solution here. I think the Bible tells us exactly what it is. I do know that the solution will never be found in refusing to ask questions or challenging tradition.

I see Evangelicalism as three boats: The Conservative Boat, The Progressive Boat, and the Liberal Boat.

The Conservative boat has thrown down its anchor and is “standing on a firm foundation” Meanwhile, its 2015 and they’re still trying to figure out if God likes guitars in worship services. If you can’t even get past something that simple, I’m not sure the anchor sunk all the way to the bottom. While the landscape is changing and the fish are moving up stream, this group threw down the boat anchor and refuse to set sail. They’re in the same old spot, offering the same old solutions.

The Liberal Boat got traded in for a speed boat. They don’t own an anchor (or lifejackets) and they are cruising through the lake without a care in the world. They’re rippling the waves without considering the other boaters out there who are trying to fish and jet ski. But if they see someone doing something old school, they don’t mind stopping their party to offer up their opinions to others who never asked for it. They’re having a good time. There really aren’t any rules at all on their boat.

Then there’s the Progressive Boat. They’ve pulled up their anchor, let the mast out, and going where the winds lead them. But when they get to a new spot, they don’t mind throwing out their anchor and hanging out for a while. They look over at the Conservative Boat and wish they’d realize how freeing it is to let the anchor up. They look over at the Liberal Boat and wish they’d invest in an anchor and a few life jackets.

I’ve been on the Conservative Boat my entire life, and unfortunately, its time to jump ship before that suckers sinks. I’m swimming over to the Progressive Boat, because at least their going somewhere. I’m ready to be apart of a community that embraces diversity, that doesn’t hide from differing opinions, that asks tough questions and doesn’t ask you to check your ability to think and reason at the door.

Even if the Bible was perfect (and I believe that it is perfect in purpose and intent), the people reading it are very much flawed. We’re never going to get everything in the Bible right. And that’s okay. Our interpretations don’t have to all be the same. We can disagree on some things without getting rid of all our boundaries. We can appreciate diverse opinions through the unity we find in the grace of the Gospel.

I’m tired of being anchored down in the same old dimly lit cove I’ve always been wading in. I’m ready to pull up the anchor, let the mast out, and set sail on the glorious adventures which the Spirit will lead me.

I appreciate the boat I was brought up on. It has taught me many valuable lessons. It has taught me who Jesus is and how to love God. But I think it’s time to follow the Spirit as He does something new. I think God is telling us something similar to what He told Peter! It’s okay to eat meat. It’s okay to pull up the anchor and journey out into the sun.

The Dangers of Systematic Theology

Systematic Theology can be a great thing, but it can also be a very dangerous thing. And I’ve come to see that the dangers heavily outweigh the benefits. We try so hard to force God to fit into our theological systems. We attempt to force the Bible to consistently make sense when it (nor God) ever asked us to do that. Here are a few examples. The Bible says that God never changes. The Bible also says countless times that God changed his mind. Because we are so bent towards systematic theology, we have to make it work. It can’t not make sense, or the system falls apart. So we force it to work. We twist the scripture until the conclusions reached look nothing like the original text. The excuses for why scripture says God changed his mind are endless.

We end up making the Bible say something it doesn’t say. And that is dangerous my friends. We takes sentences from all over the bible, compile them in a list, and slap the word “biblical” on it. We essentially use our human reasoning skills to create truth, and then try to force our own reasoning on everyone else. Another example is the ongoing debate of calvinism and armenianism. If God chooses those unto salvation, but also desires all men to be saved, then we have to fix it. We have to make all the passages fit into our theological systems, instead of letting the texts speak for themselves. So instead of believing that God chooses who is saved and also desires that all men be saved, we twist some of the passages to fit our preconceived reasoning. If God chooses only some, then He can’t really desire that all people be saved. If he really desires all men to be saved, then He can’t choose. It doesn’t fit logically into a theological system.

Or take the concepts of biblical manhood and womanhood. We grab scripture from all over the Bible, make a neat list, fit the verses together with human logic, and force that logic on everyone else by claiming that if we don’t live how you logically think we should, then you aren’t living biblically.

Here’s the truth. God doesn’t fit into our system. Who are we that we could understand God? We fortunately can understand who God is by looking at Jesus Christ, God revealed to us in the flesh. Without Christ, we truly are hopeless in every area. We try to make sense of God. We try to force the Bible to fit a logical system. And I just have to ask why? What is logical about a God we cannot see creating a heaven and a earth? What is logical about a virgin giving birth to God? God has made the wisdom of the world foolishness. Its time that we embrace the illogical, while simultaneously using the logic and mind that God has given us. It’s not wrong to think. It’s beautiful that God would allow us to have a thought process. But it is wrong to force our system on God and others. Without sliding into post-modern relativism, it’s important to say that there are definite truths that God has clearly given us in His word. And we need to embrace that, and encourage others to embrace it as well, but don’t force your systematic theology on other people.

Let’s take the Word of God for what it is. We are so afraid of being seen as foolish, but let us journey down that path with the mysterious God who shows Himself to us in Christ. Let us embrace that God can both never change and change His mind. Lets embrace the God who can predetermine salvation and desire all to be saved. Let’s embrace the individuality that God has bestowed upon us without forcing our brothers and sisters into our personal molds of biblical manhood and womanhood. Again, there is a time and place to be systematic. Systematic theology has proven to be beneficial throughout history. And while we learn and study and come to conclusions, let us not hold so firmly to our own reasoning. Let us hold our systems with an open-hand, knowing that there is one incomprehensible God who exits in three persons and is actually comprehendible.