Faith Venture

There are a couple of influential researchers and thinkers whom I respect. They capped their careers with interesting comments. These are Karl Barth, scholar and theologian, and Carl Jung, psychiatrist.

There was some point when I started noticing people rather than things, so I started studying psychology instead of engineering. I read a lot, but mostly I read (I think) everything that Carl Jung wrote. He was deep. Now I caution you, be careful reading “Jungians,” or followers of Jung. Many people took up part of his ideas and ran with them in some really weird directions.

But Jung was curious about the emotional/psychological afflictions of his patients and set out to explore the inner life. After a long career of research and writing, he was asked if he believed in God. The quote I saw from him was, “Believe? No, I don’t believe. I know.”

Karl Barth also was a scholar and writer. I have not read everything he wrote. Just some. But I also liked the comment he made toward the end of his career after writing thousands of pages of the results of his scholarship. Someone asked him to sum up his work, and he replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” (You know, the little song we teach children.)

Those two comments have had a lasting influence on me. A life with God begins with knowing God. And realizing His love. And then just living as He guides. And to me, that’s freedom.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Give up? My answer to a famous old argument among some theologians is–who cares? What did that argument–or most any other theological/philosophical argument–do to help me live a better life closer to God.

I guess I’m just curious. And interested. I’ve read many, many books by famous and not-so-famous philosophers and theologians. Taught the Bible for over 35 years. The conclusion of a life of research is that we often miss the point.

In the pastoral letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus, Paul warns several times about those who love to argue over words. He was right. Those arguments over words (perhaps coupled with the cultures that grew up around them) led to hundreds of years of bitter fighting with much loss of life in Christian Europe.

What’s the point? Look at Paul’s description of a model church. Outside of a few fundamental beliefs–Jesus was real, Jesus was resurrected, the Spirit lives, and God’s grace saves us–Paul mostly wrote about or described people who lived a life with God and for God.

There has been a strain of Christianity since around 340 AD that holds that to be a Christian means to adhere to a doctrine. You just publicly state that you agree with the doctrine and you’re a Christian. Some people still believe that today.

I don’t agree. I think to be a Christian means that we’re living a life with God where Jesus shows us the way. It’s not theology. It’s life where God is real.

This line of thinking is as old as Christianity itself. It has been written more and more often in the United States since the early to mid 60s. Here are some lyrics from a song written by Paul Stookey of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary entitled Hymn that captures some of the idea:

I visited some houses where they said that You were living
And they talked a lot about You
And they spoke about Your giving.
They passed a basket with some envelopes;
I just had time to write a note
And all it said was “I believe in You.”

Passing conversations where they mentioned Your existence
And the fact that You had been replaced by Your assistants.
The discussion was theology,
And when they smiled and turned to me
All that I could say was “I believe in You.”

Elaine Pagels writes in her book, “Revelations,” that original readers of the Revelation of John of Patmos saw the evil one, the whore of Babylon, as Rome. There were periodic eras over the first three centuries of the Christian church where the Romans specifically persecuted Christians. Each time followers pulled out that book to gain solace about the eventual victory of Christ over Rome.

Then in the early 4th Century (early 300s), Constantine took the image of Christ the conqueror from the book and made it his standard behind which to battle his rivals for the throne of Rome. Pagels does not mention the influence of his mother, who had converted to Christianity some years earlier.

When Constantine won, he made Christianity the official religion of the Empire and gave special status to local leaders called bishops. Then the battle for possession of that office began in earnest. As did the battle for an official interpretation of what it meant to be a Christian. She maintains that leaders of that era, especially Athanasius, re-interpreted the good vs. evil depiction in Revelation as the battle between different adherents within the movement. Official vs. heretic, if you will.

But the idea I’ve been pondering for several days, now, concerns what it means to be Christian. Constantine recognized that if he was to establish a “universal” Church for the empire, that is, “catholic” Church, there needed to be a definition. He convened a council at Nicaea which developed the Nicene Creed still used by churches.

She then paints the development of the church as the victory of those who believed that Christians were ones who accepted the Creed (essentially followers of the Gospel of John and the Revelation of John) over those who believed that Christians should be doers of the Word (essentially those who favored the other Gospels and Paul).

Pagels might be a little simplistic in the analysis, but still today we have many Christians who believe that adherence to dogma takes precedence over experiencing Jesus and doing the Word.

Me, whenever I’m presented with an either/or situation, I ask why not both..or neither. In this case, I’m a proponent of both. The Nicene Creed and Apostle’s Creed help to keep faith grounded. It prevents going down dead-end rabbit holes of false faith–perhaps like trying to blend New Age philosophies into Christianity. But the subsequent 1800 years of history has shown that blind adherence to a dogma leads to war, strife, inhumanity.

I like the quote I used as a title–“Be Ye doers of the Word, not hearers only.” Our challenge is to walk with Jesus as we live a life pleasing to God.