It's not always been like we think it has.
I just finished my 4th seminary semester, which means I've hit the halfway mark. I usually wait a bit to write my end-of-semester reflection, but this time I just want to get it out of the way--which is basically how I've felt about the whole semester.
I had a hefty course load and all classes involved my least favorite subject. Here's my course list. Can you guess my least favorite subject?
-Historical Theology (100 CE to 1700 CE)
-Methodist History and Doctrine (1700 CE to Present)
-American Religious History (1600 CE to Present)
-Old Testament: Prophets and Writings (700 BCE to 100 BCE)
History is so hard for me. If I have to read about Antinomianism or Pelagianism one more time, I will seriously need a leave of absence from school.
Do you remember the first time you went to an unfamiliar church, and during the Lord's Prayer you stumbled over a few words because that congregation recited it differently from your own congregation? And you thought to yourself, "Why are they saying the Lord's Prayer wrong? Isn't there just one Lord's Prayer?" And then, for the first time, it occurs to you that there are actually different versions of the prayer. Until that moment, you couldn't have even considered the possibility, but once faced with it, you realize, "Oh, I assumed something only because I had not been confronted with anything different."
Okay, now apply that idea to all of Christian history. That is what my semester has been like!
My previous semesters were pretty heavy with Biblical Studies. These classes showed me that I was reading the Bible through my doctrine--essentially the things I had learned to be "true" about Christianity. My doctrine was like a filter that all my reading of Scripture went through. For example, when I read the word "salvation," I assumed it meant what I had been taught it meant, making sense of it within the bounds of what I knew. Biblical studies gets you out of that type of thinking real quick! Now this semester.... I actually learned where all of that doctrine (that filter) comes from.
The Christianity we have today isn't the same Christianity throughout history. And I don't just mean the "style" of it; I mean the general beliefs and doctrine of it. Christianity has undergone reform after reform. As Christians, we sometimes get caught in a trap: We think that our beliefs are the same as the very earliest followers' beliefs and all Christians after that.
Doctrines--like the two natures of Jesus, the Trinity, the sacraments, and salvation by "faith alone"--were born out of anxiety and conflict. And this all happened before modernity. When someone started to feel anxious about a current doctrine, he went to the Bible, saw something different than the previous people, reformed the doctrine, and claimed his version was the one true faith. Of course in a situation like this, conflict ensues. Someone wins, someone loses. The loser was kicked out of the church, or even worse, executed. This seems insane to us because of our modern ethical system, but just like theology, Christian ethics looked very different throughout time too. Everything is context based. Hummm... our own system of ethics is still context based, don't be fooled.
But really... do any of these beliefs matter? We live in a post-modern age. We value perspective-taking. We realize there cannot be just one way to understand anything any more. We debate politics, not whether there is "one true religion." Modernity ushered in personal freedom and choice. Our churches are no longer wedded to our governments (thank goodness for people like Thomas Jefferson). And even though some predicted God would cause the world to explode if we unhitched the church from the state, the reality is that when we live to the ideal of religious freedom, we actually protect each other instead of fight each other. And the reality is that most of us practice "popular religion," instead of "institutional religion" anyway--we believe and practice what makes sense to us, based on our life circumstances, and give little authority to our tradition.
But to me, my beliefs--and yes, doctrine--do indeed matter... big time. Thanks to some great professors this semester, I've learned to appreciate my Christian and Methodist tradition. I've learned that doctrine and tradition--that is, the interpretations of those who have gone before me--inform my faith. If faith is 'trusting in a gracious God' (notice even that's a doctrine on faith), then I hope to know about what/who I am trusting in. But I also hope I will never ever confuse my understanding of God with the actual God. Because.... they are not the same. And that's a good thing.
I had a hefty course load and all classes involved my least favorite subject. Here's my course list. Can you guess my least favorite subject?
-Historical Theology (100 CE to 1700 CE)
-Methodist History and Doctrine (1700 CE to Present)
-American Religious History (1600 CE to Present)
-Old Testament: Prophets and Writings (700 BCE to 100 BCE)
History is so hard for me. If I have to read about Antinomianism or Pelagianism one more time, I will seriously need a leave of absence from school.
Do you remember the first time you went to an unfamiliar church, and during the Lord's Prayer you stumbled over a few words because that congregation recited it differently from your own congregation? And you thought to yourself, "Why are they saying the Lord's Prayer wrong? Isn't there just one Lord's Prayer?" And then, for the first time, it occurs to you that there are actually different versions of the prayer. Until that moment, you couldn't have even considered the possibility, but once faced with it, you realize, "Oh, I assumed something only because I had not been confronted with anything different."
Okay, now apply that idea to all of Christian history. That is what my semester has been like!
My previous semesters were pretty heavy with Biblical Studies. These classes showed me that I was reading the Bible through my doctrine--essentially the things I had learned to be "true" about Christianity. My doctrine was like a filter that all my reading of Scripture went through. For example, when I read the word "salvation," I assumed it meant what I had been taught it meant, making sense of it within the bounds of what I knew. Biblical studies gets you out of that type of thinking real quick! Now this semester.... I actually learned where all of that doctrine (that filter) comes from.
The Christianity we have today isn't the same Christianity throughout history. And I don't just mean the "style" of it; I mean the general beliefs and doctrine of it. Christianity has undergone reform after reform. As Christians, we sometimes get caught in a trap: We think that our beliefs are the same as the very earliest followers' beliefs and all Christians after that.
Doctrines--like the two natures of Jesus, the Trinity, the sacraments, and salvation by "faith alone"--were born out of anxiety and conflict. And this all happened before modernity. When someone started to feel anxious about a current doctrine, he went to the Bible, saw something different than the previous people, reformed the doctrine, and claimed his version was the one true faith. Of course in a situation like this, conflict ensues. Someone wins, someone loses. The loser was kicked out of the church, or even worse, executed. This seems insane to us because of our modern ethical system, but just like theology, Christian ethics looked very different throughout time too. Everything is context based. Hummm... our own system of ethics is still context based, don't be fooled.
But really... do any of these beliefs matter? We live in a post-modern age. We value perspective-taking. We realize there cannot be just one way to understand anything any more. We debate politics, not whether there is "one true religion." Modernity ushered in personal freedom and choice. Our churches are no longer wedded to our governments (thank goodness for people like Thomas Jefferson). And even though some predicted God would cause the world to explode if we unhitched the church from the state, the reality is that when we live to the ideal of religious freedom, we actually protect each other instead of fight each other. And the reality is that most of us practice "popular religion," instead of "institutional religion" anyway--we believe and practice what makes sense to us, based on our life circumstances, and give little authority to our tradition.
But to me, my beliefs--and yes, doctrine--do indeed matter... big time. Thanks to some great professors this semester, I've learned to appreciate my Christian and Methodist tradition. I've learned that doctrine and tradition--that is, the interpretations of those who have gone before me--inform my faith. If faith is 'trusting in a gracious God' (notice even that's a doctrine on faith), then I hope to know about what/who I am trusting in. But I also hope I will never ever confuse my understanding of God with the actual God. Because.... they are not the same. And that's a good thing.
I think you may have just written your constructive theology paper!
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