On Church and Religion

Just like Education in the USA, Church is entering a new era. Old paradigms are shifting, opening up chasms which eventually will give birth to new paradigms. However, the paradigm change for Church is one that seems to engage the whole world.

As I am addressing Church and Religion, I need to address a loaded word: “Heresy.”

At first I thought this word should not even exist. But then I realized this word did not always have the negative meaning it has since the early middle-ages.

“The Greek word hairesis means choice – or things chosen. In this sense it was applied to the doctrines of philosophical schools. Already in I Cor. 11:19 and Gal. 5:20 Paul uses the term in a negative sense to mean a divisive faction.”

We can find in the works of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35-107), even before the days of the conciliar definitions of Christian faith, heresy to mean theological error.

Eventually, Tertullian, a church father identifies the root of heresy as the willful choice of philosophical opinion over revealed Christian truth.” (The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, pg.249)

Revealed to whom, and who was the one revealing it? The Bible is not a perfect revelation as some claim. First the texts were chosen by just a few Early Church leaders, deciding which text was appropriate to be in this book, while other texts were discarded. The texts were written, even though inspired by God, by human hand. No matter how holy an inspiration, if it comes through a human, the human ego will get somewhat in the way. The Bible also went to quite a few translations and even the most competent translators will water the language somewhat down. Hence, as important, and as beloved as our Bible is, this source of revelation may in some instances be imperfect.

Over time and lately through scholarship the word heresy has become a more questionable and disputable idea. Around the Middle-ages, however, people who expressed different ideas about God than the Church allowed, were burned, hanged or mutilated all in the name of God. Many were excommunicated. In the process many unique gifts were smothered and extinguished.

Excommunications are hardly anymore dealt. The last heresy trial was in 1847. Surprisingly, the Church of England in the UK is contemplating the resurrection of heresy trials in our time.

In our country (USA) the mist of heresy still hangs in the rafters materializing itself every so often in our current churches as expected blind loyalty to a denomination (some more so than others) and a subtle and sometimes not so subtle verbal bashing between the various faith groups. (Denominations seems to be particular to the USA).

When I changed from the Presbyterian Church to the Disciples of Christ Church, a former professor called me an apostate. Apostasy is the deliberate disavowal of belief in Christ made by a formerly believing Christian. How could such a thing be true if both the Presbyterian denomination and the Disciples of Christ are Christian denominations? We deal with only minor differences in each denomination, mostly so minute, that a lay person couldn't figure out what the difference is, nor are they important in the larger scheme.

In this professor's statement the subtle fog of heresy was still at work.

Good thing you can't get convicted, tried and hanged anymore or I wouldn't be writing this blog.

By an accusation of heresy we, whoever we are, claim to have the sole truth. I have visited many churches of various denominations and no matter how much they claim to be different they are not different enough to warrant separation or sustain a hostile attitude toward another denomination. Of course they do things differently, may it be communion or baptism or other liturgies. With some I may not agree, but calling something that differs from my truth, heresy is absurd. (If we think small, the differences become mountains, in the larger picture, however, they are not that important.)

My truth it is...which also implies that I do not know the Whole Truth, and no one else does either.

Not one person on this earth has seen God face to face, or had revealed all of God's truth! There have been partial insights (the Bible only reveals partial insights just by the fact that documents have been left out). We also only have partial ability to interpret the Biblical texts. The texts need to be read with inspiration, not everyone at all times reads the Bible with inspiration, not even pastors. If this wasn't so, we wouldn't be torturing our brains of what the texts in the Bible mean. We only have fragments of the truth. Having only access to partial truth, no one can claim to be the only one who knows God or know what God desires for us. Instead we need to come together, each one of us with their partial truth in order to come closer to the Whole Truth. We all have a particular puzzle piece that belongs to the gigantic Human and Cosmic puzzle, the Divine mystery.

Gaining understanding of the Whole Truth can only be accomplished if we strive for unity and not engage in separation. To be exact, I believe that we gain much more understanding if we work together. The Whole Truth we may only be able to comprehend when we are unified with Christ, in GOD. Striving for more understanding  will require the ability to examine ourselves in combination with the willingness to admit that we by ourselves cannot know everything.

That could prove to be a challenge since there seems to be a deadly fear of syncretism (merging of denominations and faiths).

Yet, denominations could easily stay as a denomination in themselves, and at the same time come together in conversation, prayer and contemplation on the larger picture with all the others. Now some of these conversations are already happening and some denominations are more active in this process than others. The Catholic Church, Nondenominational churches and some Baptist churches have in the past tried to come together with other mainline churches but were only partially successful. One of the more successful churches was and is the UCC. There are 6 streams in the UCC that can be traced which all  managed to merge into one denomination and the conversation is ongoing.
It was the Disciples of Christ founders idea (Stone and Campbell) to call all Churches Christian Churches, and put in small letters below what kind. (such as Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist etc.) They were ahead of their time and their idea failed. I think the Disciples of Christ need to make this attempt again. One can only hope that all denominations would eventually join this effort.

One group of religious was always on the brink of being persecuted, those were the Mystics. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avilla and many others of old and present, have had to fight for their stay.

Often they had to evade the charge of heresy. Now a days mystic insights are being disregarded in various ways, including that they cannot be "substantiated" with Biblical texts. And yet we read in Scripture
Jn. 14:12"Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
 It is my question, could Christ reveal all of God and of heaven in one lifetime? Of course! But would we have been ready? I do not believe that any claims of the mystics undermine the Biblical texts, but they are rather a form of expansion. Would we ever have stopped teaching science or math or any other subjects at the level of the 10^th century? No! We continued to study, we continued to explore and learn. Why are we set on stopping on what we have learned 2000 years ago, as the only revelation that God has given us? God continues to reveal God self continuously.

Can we leave the negative connotations of the word heresy behind and reclaim its original meaning so that we could become a large, benevolent Christian Community which offers various paths and options to follow Christ? Jesus was not a dictator who forced uniformity on his followers. Different people need to do things in different ways to get to where they need to go.

Our divisions and bashing between the denominations have caused many people to stay away from churches.

It is the Holy Spirit who guides us all, every individual, every church in its various gifts and abilities to come together and acknowledge God's power amongst us. It is the Holy Spirit alone, who can move our churches in the direction to make them adequate for a new era. We must stand aside and let the changes happen even if they scare us.

It happens through mysticism whether, Christian, Jewish or Islamic, that differences can be transcended. The mystic union with God is very similar in all paths. The mystics know each other on a soul level and God's Truth (whatever they receive of it) through Divine revelation. This is not heresy but an amazing invitation to realize God created us all, that we are all One in God's creation and that God is not passive but continuously revealing. Not only differences in Christianity but differences amongst various faiths have potential to become transcended. All the various paths lead to the center, God.

Exercises

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Envision a group of ministers or people each from a different denomination (if you are an Interfaith  person), envision also rabbis, and other clergy of various faith., There is a big puzzle on the floor or the wall. Each person puts his/her piece into the puzzle. They may not quite know where to put it. You may even think their piece shouldn't be there or doesn't fit. Then envision the fire of the Holy Spirit touching the puzzle and re-arange the pieces into something that makes sense. What insight did you get? Journal.

Read following Biblical Scripture:

1 Cor.12:12-22. 


© 2012 Angelika Mitchell