I recently read in a book an account by the writer of his last year of college in which he needed one more religion class for his major. So he approached a professor to suggest an independent study project. The professor initially balked, but then said “OK” and assigned a 50-page paper on “The Idea of the Good in the Teachings of Jesus.” So for three months he learned something about Jesus that his Southern Baptist upbringing and training never even suggested. The Jesus in the gospels is not in the same world as our churches (including both the SBC and the LRC).
This just underscored something that I believe is so key to discovering the core of so many of the LRC’s problems. (And, I should add, the problems in a whole lot of churches.) We really do not base our theology on the teachings of Jesus and on the direct accounts of his words, actions, and life. We base it on the commentary required to help people who were not there in Galilee and Jerusalem with Jesus. Who were not already knowledgeable of the underpinnings of the Jewish faith in the unique God. And we do not take the care to be sure that we are simply using that commentary to understand the core in the gospels.
(I will admit that, while there was something wrong with the focus and posts of one past participant here, he was right to point to the gospels as the starting point.)
For me, I’m beginning to see that, while I would never say that the church is not important, it is not the focus of the New Testament. The gospels almost do not speak of it. They speak of our lives. Of how we live. And Acts does not so much talk about the church as it does describe the spread of the gospel to people who gathered together as the church. And the people in Acts are not focused on the church, but on their lives and their relationships with God and with each other.
They were busy teaching everyone to obey all that Jesus commanded. And if the record we have is representative, little of it had to do with the church. And of those very few mentions by Jesus, at least one is a spiritual/administrative unpleasantry in the form of discipline of a seriously wayward member.
How many times does the NT focus on the church as some kind of special end-all theological centerpiece? Compare that to how many times and for how much of the text there is discussion of the living of those who would be followers of Christ. The church is not unimportant. But it is not the centerpiece of the post-ascension kingdom. It is the people living as originally created that is the centerpiece. Yes, they are the church.
But, like so many other of Lee’s errors, by repackaging it, he diminishes the real importance. Grace isn’t something observable. It is just Christ. Mercy isn’t realized as such, it is just Christ. You don’t need mercy. You just need Christ. Turn away from your needs and just seek Christ. Forget that pathetic prayer about your daily bread. So what if it was Jesus that said to pray it. After the crucifixion and resurrection, it is just law, so you can forget it. He didn’t really mean for us to pray those kinds of prayers. He just gave them something to tide them over until he would be in them.
Yes, the church is the body of Christ. And it is the Bride of Christ. But this is all metaphor. And the church is not some thing. It is not some place. It is not some building.
It is the Christians. So the Christians are the body of Christ. The Christians are the Bride of Christ. We are the ones who walk on the earth today. Who speak to people. Who demonstrate the love for neighbor and enemy.
Here’s a test for what kind of Christian you are. I won’t bother trying to score you. Those that get it will understand and those that don’t won’t.
For each of the following, what is the first thing you think of, what is the first action you think should be taken, and what part do you think the church has in it:
- If I say “abortion”
- If I say “liturgy”
- If I say “gay marriage”
- If I say “tradition”
- If I suggest that a particular preacher has privately endorsed Obama
- If I mention a creed
- If I say “ecumenical”
- If I say “just war”
- If I suggest that America is not a Christian nation (and never has been)
- If I suggest that the RCC is not simply the whore of Babylon
- If I think that a lack of understanding of propitiary atonement is irrelevant to salvation
- If I say that works are not only OK, but important and even mandatory
(Don't bother trying to figure what I think about these. You can't tell.)
Oh, I could go on into more irrelevant things, and into things some think are even more important. The funny thing is that even the more irrelevant things are thought to be important by some.
But the question is not what you think about some of these in theological terms. Instead it is what you do with them in the context of human interaction and the living of a life of a Christ follower.
And I know that most of this is not fodder for discussions within the main forum. But I believe that this is part of the fundamental error of Lee’s teachings and the LRC. It is that almost everything is backwards in terms of importance. Or emphasized in the wrong aspects.
Like abiding is not about basking and taking in. It is about participating in a process that includes both taking in of a supply and the use of that supply to do things.
I welcome small comments here in the blogosphere. If you really want to discuss some of this, find the right place in the main forum and set up a thread.