All At the Table?
As I mentioned in the last post, I have been re-evaluating some of my positions and thinking. Not a bad thing to do from time to time. Not an easy or necessarily enjoyable thing to do, but one that is needed in order to grow.
Faith, theology, and philosophy are topics on which I dwell most of my waking hours. I realize that this is not the case for most people. But these topics have a great deal to do with my work as well as being topics I enjoy (this does not mean that I always enjoy my work!). And it is from those times of musing and pondering that I write.
Perhaps one of the common threads I have found in my writing and thinking revolves around identification. Very often I have written about people claiming to be this or that (and in this case the term Christian), but noticing that in so claiming they identify those who are not this or that in an effort to expose their fraudulence. "If they were a real Christian, they wouldn't have any doubts." Things like that.
It is this kind of thinking from which I wish to extract myself. I do not wish to be so identified. Yet does that also mean in my desire to not be identified with a particular group I am, by default, implying or stating that they are, in fact, the ones who are wrong? What a conundrum!
It is a conundrum, especially for Christians because there are so many groups claiming to be the true exemplars of the faith. And we rail and rant about this or that point of theology or doctrine. We argue about how to read the Bible and how to best interpret it. We, in our collective Christian past, have killed people for disagreeing, not unlike the struggles Islam faces today. And, as Islam will have to do, there came a point where we learned to agree to disagree, throwing only words not rocks or bullets at one another.
But, as a side bar, it took the meeting of diverse Christians to hammer out what would constitute Christian faith - the basics. Jesus being the Christ as a foundational, fundamental idea. Without that, one is not Christian. I hesitate to say that there is any more agreement beyond this (does one have to post the 10 Commandments to be Christian?), but there are basics. Outside of that, one can begin to state that this or that group is not Christian (and that revolves, too, around the utilization of the Bible. Extra-Biblical material would push the limits of definition, because the defining and operating theology comes from material other than that which is commonly accepted among Christian denominations).
As such, Christians can still disagree with one another, yet come together and say that this or that does not reflect our collective faith. For example, arguing that Jesus wants us to nuke our enemies is a hard idea to sell. And groups that might exercise their ideology to be violent murderers in the name of the faith would bring a reprimand from Catholics to Church of Christ denominations. A killer in the name of Christ is, I would believe, more of a killer than a Christian, if Christian at all. Though they might think they were true Christians.
But enough Christians don't feel that way so that the majority voice would be against their actions. I suppose until Muslims make the same true of their faith, there will continue to be those who lump all Muslims together in the same category as the suicide bombers and the IS extremists. Until the moderates lay claim to Islam, Islam will be defined by the extremists. Christianity had to do that very thing, and hopefully Muslims will as well.
Yet what this does seem to lead to is the idea that there can be no table for everyone. There have to be some commonalities that bind before progress can be found or made. Is that realization in and of itself the basis for division? Here is my struggle.
Faith, theology, and philosophy are topics on which I dwell most of my waking hours. I realize that this is not the case for most people. But these topics have a great deal to do with my work as well as being topics I enjoy (this does not mean that I always enjoy my work!). And it is from those times of musing and pondering that I write.
Perhaps one of the common threads I have found in my writing and thinking revolves around identification. Very often I have written about people claiming to be this or that (and in this case the term Christian), but noticing that in so claiming they identify those who are not this or that in an effort to expose their fraudulence. "If they were a real Christian, they wouldn't have any doubts." Things like that.
It is this kind of thinking from which I wish to extract myself. I do not wish to be so identified. Yet does that also mean in my desire to not be identified with a particular group I am, by default, implying or stating that they are, in fact, the ones who are wrong? What a conundrum!
It is a conundrum, especially for Christians because there are so many groups claiming to be the true exemplars of the faith. And we rail and rant about this or that point of theology or doctrine. We argue about how to read the Bible and how to best interpret it. We, in our collective Christian past, have killed people for disagreeing, not unlike the struggles Islam faces today. And, as Islam will have to do, there came a point where we learned to agree to disagree, throwing only words not rocks or bullets at one another.
But, as a side bar, it took the meeting of diverse Christians to hammer out what would constitute Christian faith - the basics. Jesus being the Christ as a foundational, fundamental idea. Without that, one is not Christian. I hesitate to say that there is any more agreement beyond this (does one have to post the 10 Commandments to be Christian?), but there are basics. Outside of that, one can begin to state that this or that group is not Christian (and that revolves, too, around the utilization of the Bible. Extra-Biblical material would push the limits of definition, because the defining and operating theology comes from material other than that which is commonly accepted among Christian denominations).
As such, Christians can still disagree with one another, yet come together and say that this or that does not reflect our collective faith. For example, arguing that Jesus wants us to nuke our enemies is a hard idea to sell. And groups that might exercise their ideology to be violent murderers in the name of the faith would bring a reprimand from Catholics to Church of Christ denominations. A killer in the name of Christ is, I would believe, more of a killer than a Christian, if Christian at all. Though they might think they were true Christians.
But enough Christians don't feel that way so that the majority voice would be against their actions. I suppose until Muslims make the same true of their faith, there will continue to be those who lump all Muslims together in the same category as the suicide bombers and the IS extremists. Until the moderates lay claim to Islam, Islam will be defined by the extremists. Christianity had to do that very thing, and hopefully Muslims will as well.
Yet what this does seem to lead to is the idea that there can be no table for everyone. There have to be some commonalities that bind before progress can be found or made. Is that realization in and of itself the basis for division? Here is my struggle.
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