Do-It-Yourself Heresy

I had a number of ideas about what I could title this post. Working titles included "The UnHoly Trinity", "You, Me and Heresy", "Personal Divinity", and "The Selfish Theologian". I ended up with the above because I think it gets across what I'm trying to say without being either too vague or too blunt. I've started reading a very interesting new book - "Retro Christianity" by Michael J.Svigel - which has helped crystallise a number of ideas I've been sort of having for a while.

I write this post as what we call an evangelical Christian. I'd use other labels as well, but for the purpose of this post I'm focusing on being an evangelical, the theological/church movement known as evangelicalism, and so on. Briefly, the identifying marks of evangelicalism are:

1. The need for personal conversion (or being "born again")
2. A high regard for biblical authority
3. An emphasis on teachings that proclaim the saving death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ
4. Actively expressing, sharing and living out the Gospel.

These identifying marks are, technically, "conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism and activism". I would note here that there are other and more nuanced key parts of evangelicalism, but for the purposes of this post its helpful to start here. Don't get me wrong - at the very outset of this post I want to stress I completely agree with those four things and don't want to change them. I'm definitely a Christian, and I use the label evangelical (even though I don't want to be associated with some of the negative connotations, and try to use my blog to articulate the fact that following Jesus is not meant to automatically mean homophobic, chauvinistic, hypocritical religion). I don't want to stop doing and being those four things in my faith, in my church, and in my relationships.

I mentioned in my opening paragraph that I nearly called this post "The UnHoly Trinity". And thats what I want to briefly consider here. Firstly, The Holy Trinity is a central Christian Doctrine, one of the lynchpins of Orthodoxy, and a very necessary Doctrine. I've blogged about it before, on why we need it, and three posts on what it means to say "Trinity: God Is" (post 1, post 2, post 3). The Trinity is the Doctrine that enables Christians to say "I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, the Godhead Three in One". However, I believe that a lot of Christians today (and evangelicals in particular), and those who don't believe but do their not-believing/critiquing of Christianity in the West, don't 'get' The Trinity, and often get involved in the other one. I think that the three things that many evangelicals place as authoritative are their church (or stream/denomination), their bible, and themselves. 

It is easy to think that the church/stream we are in is the best. Often, we do because that is why we are there! But that is a position of arrogance. It is easy to forget that many churches that many of us go to today did not exist 20 years ago - and the majority of churches we go to did not exists 2-300 years ago. Yet people have been following Jesus for FAR longer than that. For nearly 2000 years. Is it really likely that we, in our little bit of Jesus' wild and wonderful church, have got it exactly right? I'm not calling for a return to Rome, or charge to Constantinople, or even a crawl back to Canterbury, but I am stressing the need to listen to those who have gone before us. ALL those followers of Jesus who have affirmed the Creeds, who have dug deep into Scripture - even if we disagree with them. We need to be connected. Just as the New Testament makes little sense without the Old, so will our 'modern' faith without reflection and appreciation of what has gone before. I say again, I'm not calling for a return to Rome - but that we might consider what has gone before us.

I love the Bible. I believe it is the inerrant word of God. I think it is applicable and authoritative in every part of human life. But the Bible isn't God. I've blogged before on bibliolatry - its worth asking ourselves that question. Notice, in my 'unholy trinity' I wrote their bible. And one's own interpretation of it. And the limitation of having only one version. Or listening to interpretations from only one slant. Much of the modern debates in the Church - for instance that around Christianity and Homosexuality - could be dealt with more easily if we only looked back at how Christians have interpreted and applied and obeyed the Bible before us. When we let Scripture speak - as the prime witness to the Trinitarian God of reality - then we release it from the individual prison we each put around God's word. If we really believed the Bible had authority, and spoke, and was relevant, the Church would become unstoppable.

The final part of this trinity is the most important. And it is simple. I, Thomas John Creedy, am not the only Christian to have ever lived. I, Thomas John Creedy, am not infallible. I'm not Jesus. And neither are you. No human is Jesus. Though, of course, Jesus is transforming his followers into his likeness. What I'm saying is a lesson I'm slowly learning. Humility. I don't know everything. I know slightly more than some people and a lot less than some people. Overall, we need to have the humility to listen to those who have done the work, and who have really tried hard to work things out. For instance, my wife Amy has done a music degree, and is really gifted at leading musical worship. I could, as a 'theologian' wear my little hat and tell her how to do it. But she's done the work. She knows what works. I need to excercise the humility of listening when working on music and musical worship in conversation with her. (On that note, she will be posting something about that here soon!). We need to listen to those in authority over us, those whose words survive in sermons and books, and those around us with more experience of the things of Jesus.

I've looked at three things that we can let ruin our relationship with Jesus, squash our religion, and hamper our holiness. And I want to close by directing you to the thing that I think gets us out of DIY Heresy. The thing that gets us back in touch with the past - and yet ultimately fixed with eyes on the future - is not a thing. Its a person. Its a person of the Trinity. Its Jesus.

Jesus is the mark of authentic Christian faith. Jesus is the one who gives us the right to be born again. Jesus is the one who the Bible is about - he is the very Word of God, the Son of the Father and the sender of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is at the heart of teaching about his death and resurrection - he was the only one who could die the way he did and live the way he does. Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, the perfect model for expressing and sharing the Good News of Grace, the perfect example of how to live out God's Kingdom in the power of the Holy Spirit. The simplest, oldest, most basic Christian confession - what some see as a proto-creed - is simple;

"Jesus is Lord"

The implications are massive. To utter it out loud, live and proclaim it is to be part of the Church, God's people on Earth. It is the antidote to DIY Heresy. It is a statement in three words of so much amazing truth.

Think about it.

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