Approaches to theology

[Fervent]

What would you say of all of these people and their handed down traditions of thinking of man; are the beneficiary to the cause and purpose to the kingdom of God in any way by chance? Would there be or are there any dangers with the use of them?

One thing, traditions are not(necessarily) a bad thing. When Jesus rebuked the pharisaic traditions its not rites, prayers, meditations, devotionals, or celebrations that were being rebuked but a second law that was created as a "hedge" against the law under the guise of preventing violations of the law. The error was not learning and appreciating the insights of those who came before as honoring traditions it was an attempt to displace the word of God with an insurance policy.

 

[GallagherM]

I agree with you; but for the most part friend. There is absolute freedom in Christ Jesus. There unfortunately people who are out there whom are stuck in religious bondage without having the knowing of the freedom of Christ Jesus and it breaks my heart personally to know that their are people out there who are stuck in it without knowing the truth, and when they do realize what their organization does and leave it; then go to another church and still aren't being taught the word of God; and to be encouraged to go and look at the word and read it and learn about it ask questions to God, and ask questions about anything that someone may teach you and just search and find the truth out that are founded in the bible when reading and studying in context, it is sad when that type of encouragement is not out there for them.

Many people leave the faith or stop having faith.

You guys might not see it; nor know about it; but it exist.

 

[Fervent]

I agree with you; but for the most part friend. There is absolute freedom in Christ Jesus. There unfortunately people who are out there whom are stuck in religious bondage without having the knowing of the freedom of Christ Jesus and it breaks my heart personally to know that their are people out there who are stuck in it without knowing the truth, and when they do realize what their organization does and leave it; then go to another church and still aren't being taught the word of God; and to be encouraged to go and look at the word and read it and learn about it ask questions to God, and ask questions about anything that someone may teach you and just search and find the truth out that are founded in the bible when reading and studying in context, it is sad when that type of encouragement is not out there for them.

Many people leave the faith or stop having faith.

Yeah, that's one of my frustrations with a lot of churches I've been involved with. So often they're so concerned with those under their tutelage being able to recite "correct doctrine" that they discourage any sort of exploration and challenging of the established doctrines and instead of teaching parishoners how to read the Bible for themselves spoon feed interpretations of passages. This sort of fracturing seems to be especially prevalent among protestant churches which increasingly draw finer lines in the sand of what tolerable division is. Ultimately, though, the freedom comes not from arguing or persuading with fine words but the continual declaration of the gospel.

 

[hedrick]

Dude, I have to say you’ve had some of the worst luck of anyone I know when it comes to finding a church. The one guy who put his heads on people, who would fall into contortions, who preached about the need for more money, is a dangerous charlatan. And as for the hellfire and damnation guy, there are too many uneducated cowboy preachers out there who think they are Jonathan Edwards and forget that Christ said “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” and “Feed my sheep,” not frighten them to death.

But I think there's a reason for that. The churches he's described seem reasonably far from that shared tradition to which you subscribe. They would all say that they are rejecting the "traditions of men" and following Scripture. The problem with rejecting tradition is that the churches that do so typically pick a few passages of Scripture, often interpreted in an idiosyncratic manner, and base a whole church on them. This results in a weird and unbalanced version of Christianity. Like it or not, the major traditions at least represent practice of many centuries in many areas, and thus tend to be based on a broader experience with both Scripture and the results of various types of practice.

 

[hedrick]

Yeah, that's one of my frustrations with a lot of churches I've been involved with. So often they're so concerned with those under their tutelage being able to recite "correct doctrine" that they discourage any sort of exploration and challenging of the established doctrines and instead of teaching parishoners how to read the Bible for themselves spoon feed interpretations of passages. This sort of fracturing seems to be especially prevalent among protestant churches which increasingly draw finer lines in the sand of what tolerable division is. Ultimately, though, the freedom comes not from arguing or persuading with fine words but the continual declaration of the gospel.

There needs to be a balance between working within a community and its tradition, and critically examining those traditions in light of both Scripture and experience. Working within a tradition doesn't mean you're committed to retaining every detail of its theology, nor that you reject people who want to move it in a different direction.

Developments among Protestants over the last century or so have shown several different trends. Mainline versions of the traditional denominations have been getting closer together. Part of this is that modern Biblical study crosses denominational boundaries, with Catholics and Protestants of many kinds generally working together. Conservative versions have also been getting closer together based on a kind of generic evangelical theology. But there's also been a continuing spinoff both of non-traditional groups with idiosyncratic ideas, and traditionalists that want to preserve every detail of their specific tradition unchanged.

But there's another problem that affects what you've seen: We're doing a lousy job of Christian Education. It's very hard to get ordinary members to learn enough that they can make intelligent judgements about Scripture and theology. Either we give them generic feel-good summaries of Scripture, isolated Bible stories, or we give them lots of doctrines to memorize. My church tends towards the first two. It sounds like you've run into the last. The PCUSA is trying a new curriculum, for all ages including adults. It focuses on teaching core principles. I'm going to be trying with middle school kids. It will be interesting to see whether it works. If it does it will be an improvement. But it is still missing the intellectual background to make your own judgements about what the Biblical authors are really doing (even in the high school version of the curriculum, which is what we'll be using since there isn't a middle school version).

 

[The Liturgist]

But I think there's a reason for that. The churches he's described seem reasonably far from that shared tradition to which you subscribe. They would all say that they are rejecting the "traditions of men" and following Scripture. The problem with rejecting tradition is that the churches that do so typically pick a few passages of Scripture, often interpreted in an idiosyncratic manner, and base a whole church on them. This results in a weird and unbalanced version of Christianity. Like it or not, the major traditions at least represent practice of many centuries in many areas, and thus tend to be based on a broader experience with both Scripture and the results of various types of practice.

I could not agree more.

 

[Fervent]

But there's another problem that affects what you've seen: We're doing a lousy job of Christian Education. It's very hard to get ordinary members to learn enough that they can make intelligent judgements about Scripture and theology. Either we give them generic feel-good summaries of Scripture, isolated Bible stories, or we give them lots of doctrines to memorize. My church tends towards the first two. It sounds like you've run into the last. The PCUSA is trying a new curriculum, for all ages including adults. It focuses on teaching core principles. I'm going to be trying with middle school kids. It will be interesting to see whether it works. If it does it will be an improvement. But it is still missing the intellectual background to make your own judgements about what the Biblical authors are really doing (even in the high school version of the curriculum, which is what we'll be using since there isn't a middle school version).

I'm not sure this education failure is limited to Christianity, and is at least partially the fault of how general education is handled. Rather than being taught general critical thinking principles, having fallacies identified and explained so they may be avoided, being introduced to critical historical methods and other exercises that encourage analysis students are subjected to a steady diet of worksheets that hold their hands and teach them to think in a linear fashion. Allowing secular authorities to replace the church in educating the masses was a fairly large failure, IMO.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

My approach is let the scriptures tell me what to believe.

 

[Fervent]

My approach is let the scriptures tell me what to believe.

That's admirable, but not very informative. What practical steps do you take to remove the influence of preachers, teachers, your upbringing, historic doctrines, your own opinions, translators theological positions, etc?