Monthly Archives: September 2011
Judge a book by its cover
His parents were so worried about him. No one else in the family had been through this and no one knew how to support them through it. They had done everything “by the book,” they tried every idea that looked promising, and even a few things that were kind of far out. It made no difference. Their son’s fourth birthday had come and gone without him speaking a word. He’d never spoken a word in his entire life, not even baby ones! At first they comforted themselves that he was on his own path and would learn to talk in time but four years was becoming a real stretch. He seemed relatively normal in other ways but he couldn’t speak and showed no interest in reading. It was becoming obvious that their son was not developing normally and folks were beginning to notice. You can only hide something like that for so long. Their despair was rising. Read the rest of this entry
The Ban on Critical Thinking
The problem with a contest is that it producers losers! Ten people race but only one can win; one person gloats about his supremacy while nine people glower in shame and clutch for excuses. There are more losers than winners. This is okay if you are a winner since it proves what you already knew about yourself (and about the others) and you can bask in the glory of being awesome. It’s not so great for the losers. Read the rest of this entry
When Faith Meets Sex
Somewhere along her trail she began to see that people struggle with enormous hurts and those hurts aren’t just from the past – they’re from the present and they continue into the future. Nothing gets better if nothing changes. She became aware of the huge sex industry in Thailand and had the courage to do something about it. She knows she can’t solve the problems on her own but she also knows that nothing will ever improve if everyone sits back and feels helpless. Changing the world is a big task – too big to contemplate. So why bother trying? The reality is too daunting.
Escaping the Death Sentence.
She’d had an uneasy feeling about this guy from the moment he set his leery eyes on her. He didn’t look straight at her but she felt sure he was watching her the whole time. He was up to something – who could guess what. She didn’t have time to mess with ‘sick’ guys so she tried to shut him out of her mind. Read the rest of this entry
When I’m Weak I’m Strong or Something.
It was a typical Christian Private School making the same poor decisions many such schools make. The teachers were underpaid and obliged to describe their work as ministry. In a real sense it was but what the school meant was that the teachers should have “faith” and accept pay below reasonable market rates.
It’s complicated but if you won’t pay they won’t stay. Some wonderful teachers passed briefly through the school. Those who stayed had Read the rest of this entry
Tough Questions on the Path of Faith.
Faith demands that those who follow it behave with distinction in meeting its demands. Yet the way of faith seems designed to bring its followers into conflict with the realities of life in almost everything we do. Looking back over church history it is obvious that the people of faith have real problems keeping their act together in many areas. Partly this is because we insist on Read the rest of this entry
Legalism, Ritual, Conformity and Control.
Legalism, ritual, conformity and control on one side and simple faith in relationship with God on the other. We know which side is the winner but we struggle with how to make it work. The questions that they struggled with so badly Read the rest of this entry
Resolution of Faith vs Ritual
Religious ritual and faith are locked in a deathly struggle. Are they mutually exclusive? Can strong faith exist in rigid ritualism? This was the battle for the early believers. They discovered it is one thing to have a resolution that sounds good but what you do with it determines what it is worth.
In Acts 15 we read of the resolution about ritualism and faith that the group reached. It allowed for recognition of relationship with God to be enough on its own. There was no requirement on anyone to follow certain rituals in order to be acceptable.
They went the next step and sent a letter which read something like this:
From: The apostles and elders, your brothers
To: the believers who don’t have the right heritage in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia
Greetings,
We have heard that some people who didn’t have our authorization came to you and said things that disturbed you. So we are sending some guys we do authorize to tell you this is what we say. God agrees with us that we shouldn’t place a lot of burdens on you so we are only insisting on three things: that you make a total break with idolatry, you don’t eat blood, and you don’t get involved in sexual immorality. You’d be really smart to not do these things.
Farewell.
Image by tackyspoons via Flickr
All well and done? Sort of. It gave freedom and encouragement to those who didn’t follow the rituals and they were excited to get the news. They overlooked the short-falls of the letter from their religious “friends” and got on with the fun of learning and spreading the knowledge of God. Without a lot of petty rules and score-keeping they were able to focus their energy on what really mattered.
Meantime in Jerusalem nothing changed. The ritual practices continued and folks who joined them were expected to follow those rituals. Some newcomers resisted and wouldn’t do everything and so a two class system was developed – the true believers and the “other believers.” Ritualism adds power to the grip of religion. Some of this sounds a bit familiar? It is. The struggle between religious ritual and relationship with God has continued to rage. At issue is the understanding of what God requires of us and what other people expect. The ability to distinguish between these two things gets blurred and with it our understanding of what really matters. Then it becomes easy to begin pushing the wrong bandwagon. The tangible familiar thing becomes most important while the relationship gets quietly forgotten. We focus our judgment on the visible.
Btw, the recipients of that letter showed amazing grace. They had been disturbed and harassed in a serious way. The guys in Jerusalem had been sending people to “police the state of affairs” in Antioch – that’s why Barnabas (who changed sides) was sent there, you can be sure there were others. The letter was short on apology and minimalist on confession. They didn’t take responsibility for their actions, nor for their excessive delay in curbing these messengers. They shifted the blame for their actions – “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you . . .” – as if God had been somehow involved in burdening these people and then changed his mind. If they had listened to God in the first place none of this needed to happen. If they truly believed in what they were writing, how come there’s no recognition that their own practices have been “over the top” and no indication of the changes they were going to put in place to put their own house in order? This letter wasn’t good and the action of these leaders was less than convincing. They had failed to work through what their decision meant for themselves and what changes they needed to make to what they did. Realistically, the church in Jerusalem had been sucked into the religious ethos of that place and their focus on ritual cemented that fact. They failed to understand that this resolution was a two-way deal. It was not enough to back off requirements for others; they also needed to re-think their own actions. There’s no doubt that there were many sincere believers in Jerusalem but it is also obvious that they were seriously confused about how to express that belief. Once the slippery stone of setting rules and practices for each other to follow is in place it is only a small fall into the stream of legalistically requiring those practices to prove you have faith. The means quickly becomes the end and sadly the end is a prison cell. We lose the trail of life and end up locked in empty rituals.
There’s a better path. The recipients showed grace and forgiveness. They took encouragement from the implication that they were not wrong, they were excited to be free from the burden of exacting ritual and of the mean, critical spirit that comes with that package. They acted with total grace towards the messengers from Jerusalem and sent them back in peace. Then they got on with the exciting job of helping others find a meaningful relationship with God.
Related articles
- Rituals and Faith in Religion (citesimon.com)
Rituals and Faith in Religion
There is a continual tension between ritual and the requirements of religion. How do we decide what is necessary, avoid guilt and condemnation for our choices, and how do we really connect with God?
“It’s obvious what the answer has to be! How could anyone be so stupid? Their argument is so flawed!”
“Yeah, and the one who worries me is Peter. He’s been so flaky on this all along.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more! I was there when he Read the rest of this entry
Inadequacy, guilt and religious solutions
Religious people seem to enjoy setting a bunch of rules for other folks to follow. Apparently something is only acceptable if it involves inconvenience wrapped up in a cover of archaic rituals. It doesn’t take long until a simple concept like knowing God Read the rest of this entry
