Affinity, not Dogma

What is the purpose of your faith community? Why do you go to church? What is the point?

Some people attend church because they are seeking the right rules to follow. This is the genius and the paradox of Protestant Christianity in America. There is a new denomination for every unusual belief you might have. Do you think rules about the Sabbath should still be followed? Then join the SDAs. Do you believe the Bible is inerrant and should – or even can — be read completely literally? Join the Southern Baptists. Are you really into predestination? Find a good old-fashioned Calvinist Reformed church.

But what if we’re missing the point? What if we’re not supposed to be splintering off based on our various beliefs? Such divisions can’t possibly be what Christ wants, right? It cannot be Christ’s intent that we splinter into quarrelling factions. We should be one body of Christ. But how can one body of Christ have so many different opinions?

I’m not writing this post to go into the many reasons why God doesn’t just write the one right way in clouds in the sky so we all know what we’re supposed to do. I am writing this post to point out that, since there isn’t some kind of obvious rule book to follow, it must mean that we are called together for greater seeking, greater diversity of opinions and life experiences and richer sharing through loving disclosure of that diversity.

What if church could shift from rules and dogmas toward affinity with Christ-centered norms? I’ve had the privilege to belong to two kinds of churches. I grew up Seventh Day Adventist where believing the right things was deemed paramount to surviving the coming apocalypse. The Beast would appear and demand that we all worship on Sunday and only Sabbath keepers would be ultimately saved. At the other end of the spectrum, I also attended a very loving United Church of Christ congregation for 20 years and currently attend an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America congregation, both of which allow and even encourage healthy disagreement.

The rigidity of the SDA faith pushed me out of Christianity entirely for a long time. When you realize that there are multiple ways to interpret scripture or experience Christ that are not a part of that rigid faith, you tend to abandon the entire thing. Meanwhile, in my UCC congregation, we welcomed all denominations, Buddhists even atheists in to be part of our rituals and discussions. The ELCA has many beautiful social statements that lean toward an open and progressive faith while respecting other who have a more conservative interpretation. The goal isn’t to force people to think like us, the goal is to create a community that loves God and wants to follow them through the example and experience of Christ.

Open mindedness leads to individual spiritual growth; exploration enriches your experience of God. The church is the place where you can be loved and supported by others in that exploration, trusting in God’s grace not dogma. Certainly, there are shared norms and values. I don’t think anyone who isn’t at least a little Christ-curious should be seeking community in a Christian church. I’m not being exclusivist in saying that. That is, I’m not creating a rule that keeps them out of the church, I’m suggesting that if you’re not interested in following Christ there are many other spiritual communities worth joining. I’m all for non-theists to continue to be Buddhists if that is working for them. But I think wanting to follow Christ should be the main norm. This is neatly outlined in Jesus’s two commandments: love God and love neighbor.

Doesn’t loving God and loving neighbor require honest seeking and disagreement? Imagine a group of physicists who insisted on certain hypotheses to be a part of a research team. Wouldn’t that stunt any new advancements? Wouldn’t that create more resentment, less collaboration and less creativity? The church is no different. Healthy dissent promotes flourishing of belief. If I love God, I can recognize that God is way beyond any single understanding of God. If I love God, I will trust in God’s grace to lead others, even others who disagree with me. If I love neighbor, I will listen empathetically even when we disagree because the Christ inside of them could jump out to teach you something when you least expect it. Loving God and neighbor allows us to hold many ideas in our hearts at the same time. We can follow different paths in our lives and God is right there with us. Where we find unity in church is in being part of a group of believers who are pursuing their best connection to God.

The Bible demonstrates this for us. There are many places where the Bible contradicts itself. Many passages even show doubt in God. Christ cried out on the cross, “my God, why have you forsaken me?” Doubt, a change of opinion and ambiguity are a part of how we wrestle with God. The Bible makes it clear that there isn’t one exact way because the Bible seems to change its mind from writer to writer. The church should be a place where we support each other in wrestling with God and that requires open discussion and debate on spiritual matters, just like the writers of the Bible were comfortable doing.

The church is not where we go to reinforce our narrow opinions of God. The totality of all human belief of God throughout all time cannot begin to scratch the surface of who God really is. Thinking you have the one right idea about the infinite, ultimate Ground of Being should seem insane to anyone. It’s no wonder people leave those kinds of churches behind. The cognitive dissonance is stunning. How could one narrow view really represent God in God’s entirety?

The church should be the safe place you go for dialogue and learning. Open discussion and debate are what it means to be in a faith community. Creating opportunities for members to learn from each other’s disagreements is real faith formation. Encouraging a life-long embrace of doubt and wisdom-seeking should be our goal. The church should first and foremost be a nurturing place of mutual respect amongst people who might frequently disagree about the right way to follow Christ. But we are all there to follow Christ as best we can.

Of course, I must recognize and confess my own dogmatic points of view that have brought me to stump here on the purpose of church in our lives. First, I am a universalist. As a universalist, I don’t think your ultimate purpose, salvation and life in God hinges on what facts you believe. Instead, I think we should prioritize what helps us experience God in the fullest right now and supports our community’s work to show Christ’s love. Right now, not a later heaven. If you believe in eternal conscious torment by a God who needs you to believe certain things, worship on certain days and only take communion in certain ways, then I can understand why you feel an urgency to promote your particularized faith. I just happen to believe the love of God is much larger than that. Second, I believe that following Christ is our ultimate purpose in life and if a particular Bible verse seems to disagree with the direction Christ sends us toward, Christ takes precedence. I mean, much the Bible was written by geocentric flat-earthers, surely we are meant to grow beyond the Bible in our lives in Christ. God didn’t stop speaking to us in 90 A.D.

What about the creeds and liturgy? You can say I’m being a hypocrite, but I like the creeds, confessions, hymns and liturgy of the Christian church. I don’t see them as being dogma, I see them more as an invitation to exploring mystery. I see them as something important that helps us build a community of the Christ-faithful. By the way, most of them are extra-biblical. Many New Testament writers would be surprised by what we say in our creeds. Do I have to go silent during the “virgin Mary,” part of the Apostle’s Creed? Nope, not at all. Only a dogmatic literalist would have any issues with the creeds in that way. Opening my faith to wider exploration has brought me a richness I never had before. The “virgin Mary,” part might mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people in various times. It might mean a young girl, it might symbolically point to Christ’s uniqueness, it might even mean a literal virgin. I’m fine bouncing around those poles and I’m fine with whatever the person in the next pew believes about it. The important thing is that we’ve come together as a community to experience faith through certain practices to encourage each other to continue to wonder about God’s mystery and seek Christ.

Richard Rohr talks about a “tricycle,” of faith. Your front wheel is your own personal experience. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that it is our personal experience that drives our own belief systems. If you grew up in the American South, you would probably have a different belief system than if you grew up in the French countryside. The other two wheels are the Bible and the community of faith. All three wheels support each other so you don’t fall over. You could misuse any of the wheels and fall over if you’re not careful, but if you pay attention to all three, you’ll be just fine. The wheels must roll nicely and in harmony. Your reading of scripture must align with your personal experience of Christ. Your community should promote a balanced scriptural study and application, but also encourage critical thinking and questioning of biblical interpretations. And we should focus on living in accordance with Christ’s values rather than strict adherence to doctrines.

What does that look like? It looks like support for your brothers and sisters as they follow Christ in their unique spiritual journey. We all have different talents, different careers, different families and a long list of different life experiences. Why wouldn’t we have different faith journeys with Christ? We here to support those varying faith journeys, not control them. Church should be about cultivating this shared sense of living in Christ among members. It should shift our focus from rules and dogma to an affinity of seekers living a Christ-centered life.