[OBW]

I know that I have previously said some of these things. But they are lost in various threads. Plus I have added some to it. I do not expect comments here. If something is actually worthy of discussion, please start a thread and do it there, not here.

New considerations as we wander further from our LRC home base:

I’ll start with the one that is still most troubling to me. The RCC. There are clearly errors going on there. But I’m not sure that the most egregious ones are actually understood correctly by most of us. Yes, they pray to “Saints” and to Mary. But even in the case of Mary, I believe that you will find that their understanding is that they somehow missed the “no other mediator” thing and think they need help getting Jesus’ attention. They have not made Saint, or even Mary, out to be deity. Just mediators. And while they really need to pray to God, they are intending that their prayer get to God, not just to this “Saint” or to Mary. When they confess their sins in that little box, there are telling their sins one to another. It is incorrect to think that this absolves them, or that the penance they do afterward does either. But it is their (erroneous) hope that their prayer is getting to God. Or is it completely erroneous. I’m not as certain as I used to be.

All the excessive imagery and the overt focus on Mary and the Saints rather than Jesus is surely a problem. And there are probably a lot of regular folks down in the trenches that understand that Mary and Saint stuff more as a kind of idolatry, even if the official position on it all is different.

But isn’t that sort of like the Arminianism I grew up with in the Assemblies of God (which sprang mostly from the Methodists in the early 1900s). I thought it meant you just had to do any random, small bad thing, including thinking bad about someone and you were off the saved list and going straight to Hell. Of course in the real doctrine it was not so easy to fall off. But a whole lot of us thought it anyway. But not all. I recall my mother saying years after we left that she understood it as not such a black/white simple thing. And she was no theologian. Didn’t even go to college. Well, one semester in about her late 40s.

And to morph from the RCC — all that stuff about works. It seems that they just believe in works salvation. Or is it that they just don’t teach a line-in-the-sand, single point in time conversion, but rather a training that helps you learn and eventually believe. And obey. Are your RCC, Anglican, or Lutheran, etc., friends simply not saved because they didn’t come to that salvation through a sort of crisis point of decision to believe or not believe and can now quote day and time for you?

Not really that bad. Now if they could just get rid of the statues, and confessional, and rosaries, and Mary. Well not get rid of her, just put her in her rightful place. No. I won’t be going there any time soon. But I’m not as certain that they are merely the whore of Babylon in which it is an accident if you managed to become a true Christian.

So what about the Lutherans and Anglicans? Is their liturgy just too stuffy to really be of Christ? Are the reformed/Presbyterians and Methodists not far behind?

And what about this transubstantiation, or consubstantiation, or one cup or lots of little cups, or a bowl that you dip the bread in? Are the teachings so wrong that they are apostate? Is the form the important thing? Or is it the remembrance? Is it the forced stop from the rest of life, including Christian teaching, and refocus on Jesus and his sacrifice?

Do we have a piano? And/or organ? Acoustic guitars? Other instruments, including electronic and percussion? Or do we just sing a capella? Does it really matter?

Are we affiliated with other similar churches? Officially? Unofficially? Or are we just a single congregation, small or large? Do we baptize believers only, or also “the whole household” and therefore each new one added to the household? (I honestly believe that the former is preferred. But it also is the way I have always been taught since childhood.)

Is scripture the ultimate authority? And if we believe that, whose interpretation is correct? And since we do not all agree, does that undermine the authority of scripture?

Or is it only on the things that are central to the faith that we make such strong demands?

Is it possible that we do need to read and understand scripture in community. In a place where diverse thoughts can be explored and considered, and although we may not entirely agree, we can assent to accept a reading. Does this suggest that the RCC is actually sort of right to say that it is the church that is the ultimate authority because it is the church that decides what it is that scripture says? Or does the fact that they limit the “church” to the magisterium defeat that claim? But does any claim that we all get to “vote” just as preposterous?

Is a regular church service that invites people in, speaks the Word, speaks from the Word, invites participation and contemplation in communion and prayer, and then sends the people out deficient because it is too regimented? (This is sort of a description of some liturgies for worship.) Is it automatically deficient because of its “oldness”? Or is the only “oldness” to be found in people no matter their mode of worship? Is it deficient because it is “traditional”? Is it deficient because it is “religious”?

And when reading scripture, is it reasonable to allow any single lens to rule all of it? Whether that lens is God’s economy (dispensing), charismatic gifts, doing good, Calvinism, ground, or even the church as the body of Christ.

Are any descriptions of God and of his relationship with man all encompassing? Is grace everything? Does being born of spirit rule everything? Is the end of the law simply no more law and therefore freedom? Or is it the end of doing what is righteous about the law simply because we are told to do it but rather because we now have a life inside us that provides the power to do it? Is everything about abiding? Is everything about shepherds? Or leaven? Or vines and branches?

The LRC had a limited number of pet overlays — ground, dispensing, turning to your spirit (that's nearly all of it). Was this emphasis the reason that the broad scope of the full gospel was missed, and the emphasis came to be on meetings? And the leadership began to rule with a more authoritative hand than any of the “clergy” that they claimed was the scourge of the Christian existence?

Do any of those overlays describe everything about us or God? Is God simply love? Or is he also power and justice, etc.? Can an overlay that describes one aspect of our relationship with God be taken everywhere in scripture and cause those verses to be reinterpreted through that lens? Or does that destroy or mask other aspects of our relationship?

These are many of the questions that I have been grappling with. I actually think that I don’t like some of the answers. Not because I think they are bad. But because they are so different from my upbringing. My 18 years of Arminian Pentecostalism, followed by many years of Calvinist, fundamental, evangelicalism, 14.5 years of which was in the LRC. And now in a Bible church that has mixed in some of the liturgical practices as we have one of the best mostly volunteer worship bands in the area (imho) and continue to have pretty sound DTS quality teaching. And as I read and learn from McLaren and some other Emergents, along with the standard old-line writers.

And when I consider the LRC and the teachings of Lee, I find one of the most extreme systems, and one that is almost totally intolerant of all others. A collection of teachings that is more dogmatic than most of the ones it complains about. And a collection of teachings that do not include everything that was taught. Why? Possibly because an overlay of God’s economy was allowed to dismiss obedience. To dismiss the works side of the equation. To only see the abiding and spirituality. To wait around for God to do it all.

I’m not sure that I can keep the two arenas separate. And I’m not sure that I can keep my desire for moving forward out of the look back into the LRC.

And if you take exception to some of these comments, know that as I wrote them, I still have reservations about many of them. But I also have reason to believe that they are more right than I dared to hint.

Enough for now.