One-Dimensional Faith

Few things are more rigid than the way one understands Holy Scripture. Liberal, conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist, or atheist: all have one thing in common, viz., an unbending understanding of scripture. Each is different from the other; and all are equally unyielding.

So, what happens when two or more people (or two or more churches or book clubs, or eight deer hunters sitting around a camp fire after a few beers) approach a topic with differing—even contradictory—understandings of life and faith, and both ground their understandings in scripture?

Or, what happens when two or more people (or two or more… well, see above) read the same scripture and come up with differing—even contradictory—understandings of “what the Bible clearly says?”

Martin Luther comes to mind. Reading through the epistle to the Romans he encountered what, to him, seemed obvious truth; but which contradicted what the church had instructed him to believe. But there it was in black and white. I had a very similar experience, oddly enough, while reading that same epistle to the Romans. Since then I frequently have said, “If you don’t want to be changed, stay away from the Bible!” I can assure you: what you’ve been told it says may not be what it really says.

When we approach Scripture with true openness and integrity, we may discover error, not in the Scriptures themselves, but in the way the established authorities have interpreted (or misinterpreted) it. Luther interpreted Romans as saying that salvation is not earned by good deeds, nor can it be purchased with money (the church was offering “indulgences”, which could be purchased as a means of salvation.) but is received as a free gift of God’s grace (unmerited favor) through faith in Jesus Christ. Finally, he challenged the authority of the church (and worse, the Pope) by giving the Bible priority over the church as the only source of divinely revealed knowledge. Hence his formula: Sola Scriptura (by scripture alone), Sola Fide (by faith alone), Sola Gratia (by grace alone).

His growing confrontation over indulgences came to a head in Wittenberg, where he summarized his grievances against the church in “95 Theses” and nailed them to the door of the church.

When he refused to recant, he was excommunicated by the Pope and declared an outlaw by Roman Emperor Charles V. Luther stuck to his convictions but endured moments he described as pure terror over the possibility that he might, indeed, be wrong. Such is the nature of true faith.

That’s what happens most frequently when people espouse opposing views of scripture: somebody gets labeled a heretic and gets kicked out and sometimes even kicked around.

That’s what happened to Jesus of Nazareth, too. In Luke 4 Jesus taught in his home Synagogue at Nazareth. The text was Isaiah 61:1-2:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.
² He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.

The people in the synagogue that day had always assumed they were the poor, the brokenhearted, etc., and that it was to them that good news would be proclaimed and comfort would be given. It was to them that freedom (from Roman oppression) would accrue.

In his interpretation following the reading, Jesus implied instead that they were the ones who were called to proclaim good news to the poor, to comfort the brokenhearted, to announce release to the captives, etc.

The people were so upset that they ran him out of town, almost killing him in the process.

Again, that’s what happens most frequently when people espouse opposing views of scripture: somebody gets labeled a heretic and gets kicked out and sometimes even kicked around.

The impetus for such antagonism is usually a “new” understanding of scripture that challenges some favored status established by the “old” doctrine. In Luther’s case, the challenge was to the authority of a hierarchy that had come to enjoy the benefits of power at the expense of the less powerful.

In the story in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ new teaching challenged the establishment’s expectation that the awaited “Messiah” would come for their benefit. Jesus turned that doctrine around and suggested that it was they who were called to minister Messianic deliverance to others.

Religious faith can be a strong pillar of people’s character and something to help guide their decisions, or it can be a smokescreen to mask more self-justifying motives. We have become a nation of people who demand our own right to religious expression, but who are amazingly intolerant of others’ religious rights. Religion has become a tool—or sometimes a weapon—that is wielded in order to accrue benefit (primarily the assurance of being “right”) to the one who wields it.

Sometimes religious references are used as a pass code to gain entry and/or status within specific groups or sub-groups.

It also is used as a dividing tool, which separates true believers (us, of course) from everyone else. It’s one thing to share—to testify about one’s faith. As Christians we’re called to do that. But we’re not called to inflict our faith on others.

What disturbs me today is that some “witness” actually is counterproductive, driving more people away from the faith than attracting them to it.

That’s the way it looks through the “Flawed Glass” that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim