As I said in my last post, I am taking a basic theology class in seminary right now, and almost every week we have some case study about how to deal with varying theological problems and heresies that might appear in our churches. As this class progresses, I am seeing a pattern in my responses:
- The more mature and committed to the Christian faith, the more we can deal directly with the theological nuances of the topic-at-hand. Thus, having theological debates with pastors, Sunday school teachers, church leaders, and inquisitive parishioners could be a fruitful practice.
- The more distant and combative people are in relation to the Christian faith, the more it is incumbent upon the Christian community to diligently examine themselves and bestow all the more love and grace upon the distant party. Winning with words seldom happens, but losing with words is a likely outcome. We should not combat spoken heresy with lived heresy, but with lived orthodoxy. And the orthodox practice is to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
What do you think? Does such an approach hold water?
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Matt – agreed completely. The more “distant” people believe they are or appear from God and the life of discipleship, the more gentle the “in” people ought to be. I think it’s important to remember that there are (duh) sheep of Jesus’ that “do not belong to this fold”. These are people (youth!) who certainly don’t see themselves as Christian, faithful, holy or whatever. The largest grace and love we can give is the gentle, tender gift of words that aren’t bible bullets, God-in-the-box theology or simple assumptions of how God is/is not alive in their slice of the world.
and yes – having theological “wrestlings” with SS teachers etc DOES matter
Sometimes that’s the only place where it does!