I've been thinking about what I wrote (in the response "Copout...not really") and I don't think I was entirely honest.
As all of you know who slog through my blogs, I wrestle with the concept of "necessary beliefs" a lot. I am constantly remarking on another thing that I used to think was "basic" which I have now found a reason to grant flexibility on. I think it's honest to state that my intellectual position is as I stated (that "believing in Jesus means believing what Jesus wants you to believe"), but I think that I still habitually and longingly look for absolutes on which I can hang my hat. I really, really want to know exactly what the limits of "minimum theology" are, for reasons that aren't totally clear to me. Sometimes I want to figure out if somebody is "in" or "out." Sometimes I want to just have some sort of foundation on which I can build everything else. Sometimes there are other reasons that I may or may not understand.
I also was rather cavalier about this subject in that I didn't discuss what I believe are some more hard-nosed realities of community. I don't think that a Christian community should be without beliefs; in fact, I believe that any such community should have many highly valued beliefs. But I don't think that the community should think of themselves as "right." Instead, the community should believe that these beliefs - whatever they are - are the ones appointed by God for this little group of people, at this point in time.
This is a terrifying perspective on truth. It removes from us any certainty that "that other group over there" will have Godly theology. What if they decide to believe some hideous, Satanic thing? How do we control them and protect their members from this annihilating heresy? They will think that they are serving God "in their particular context," but in fact they will be rebelling against him in the most terrible ways!
To answer that question, we have to point it at ourselves. How do we ensure that we will not in the future believe some despicable heresy? Worse yet, how do we know that we are not believing one today?
The only answer I have here is faith. I have faith in the action of God to move in the lives his people, to cultivate the theologies and practices that he wants them to have. Inherent in that faith is the understanding that some will turn their backs on him, and put his name on terrible things that are not from him.
If there are people who reject God despite his own best efforts, who are we to believe that we can construct some theological edifice which will do any better? If God is rejected, then our best attempts at theology will be twisted to evil ends no matter what we do.
So, do we just check out? Absolutely not! We are called to action by God, called to move into the lives of the people around us, to contextualize God for them. God is the great Common Context in all contexts, and we are to be part of that context in each other's lives.
But we are part of more contexts than just our little community. We are part of a worldwide context, a city wide context, a catholic (universal) Christian context, an early 21st century American context. We are obligated to contextualize God for people in all of those contexts. In some contexts, we will have a lot of impact; in some we are only one pebble in the avalanche. But we are called to utilize the power we have been given and we will be held accountable for whether we used it well or not.
So, we are free to explore God in a personal, dynamic relationship with him. But we are obligated to contextualize that relationship to others. We are to live inside our own context. But our context includes the theological perspectives of others. We are free to live without fear or constraint. But we are not isolated monads; we are members of community.
So, I go back to the beginning. Believing in Jesus means believing what he wants you to believe. But part of how he reveals what he wants you to believe is through community. Community with past Christians (the Bible). Community with a local body (the local church). Community with those around us (the culture). Community with those who fervently disagree with us (the hardest). |