ver. : 13 March 2008
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You've heard that taunt from children, haven't you? And said it yourself a few times? (It's okay; you can admit it. Noone hears you through this Web page.) Well, one of the most serious problems with having a vigorous experience of God or a strong commitment to follow Christ is that it is so overpoweringly important. The all-too-human corollary is : 'my experiences or my spiritual practices or my commitment or my doctrine give me a better connection with God than you who haven't had them'. (Quite literally: "holier than thou". It's a sure sign that you're not.) But is this how to follow God? :
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Pulling rank has proven to be a special problem with renewed Christians in a dead congregation. The renewed ones see ways that the church can be better, at least as they see it, and then set out to 'encourage' the 'corpses' to go along, as forcefully as they can get away with. Satan likes it when you do his dirty work for him by playing the power game. To radically depend on the Holy Spirit, however, means (among other things) not forcing other people to do things. If you bear active witness to Christ's love, the corpses will stir because the Holy Spirit will stir them through that witness, not you or your fabulous spiritual experiences, testimonies, practices, gifts, training, position, abilities, or anything else about you. This is a matter of patient love, not timidity or silence.
It's great to have spiritual experiences, right doctrine,
and knowledge! But they're not a measuring stick of a person.
And even if they were, Jesus would have us refuse to make any
measurements with it.
back to top
Working to bring people together is a duty for nearly all of us. But some of us just seem to have a knack for pulling people apart. By :
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The tighter the group is, the worse it can get. In many churches, this is what church life is like -- just ask the steady stream of once-active Christians who walk away in disgust. These people have been burned by the world, so they turn to the church as their burn unit, but instead of being healed they get torched with a flamethrower.
Jesus gave us a better way. He taught us to love one another with God's love. Paul laid out the vision when he wrote about spiritual gifts : they are to be used to build up each other and all of us as a whole. Paul also wrote about peacemaking and having a ministry of reconciliation. The Christian faith is full of struggle and even conflict, but also healing and strengthening, conflict resolution, nourishment and growth. Have you gotten the message?
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"Despise noone, and carp not at anything;
for there is noone who does not have their hour, and
there is no thing that does not have its place." |
Found in a church bulletin :
The conference on peacemaking scheduled for today has been
canceled due to scheduling a conflict.
In a dissertation in 1981, Tormod Engelsviken bared a key issue about charismatic and Pentecostal practices. While he was writing about Lutheran charismatics, it applied to all :
"Although the ... interpreters of the charismatic experience take pains to avoid the charge of dividing Christians into groups or classes with regard to their experience of the Spirit, it seems to be inherent in *any* theology that views the Charismatic experience as a desirable goal for *all* Christians ... Whether the fullness of the Spirit is understood as a gradual process or an instantaneous event ... may make a difference with regard to the possibility of observing the distinctions between Christians, but does not change the fundamental reality of two (or more) classes of Christians."
-- *The Gift Of the Spirit* (Aquinas Institute, Dubuque IA) p.260.
Well, yes and no.
On the one hand is the fact that most Pentecostalist church members, and a large minority of mainline-Protestant and Catholic charismatics, act as if people are not 'really' or 'fully' saved unless they have had some sort of experience of being filled with (or overcome by) the Holy Spirit. Those without the experiences are often called "HTRs" (hard to receive). Instead of thinking that the Spirit may be acting in some other way, it is assumed that the HTR is blocking or even fighting the Spirit because they're not behaving in the expected fashion. The HTR's expression of Christian faith is then slighted as not being Spirit-led. This belief cannot be explained away or disclaimed. It is done every day by people who think they don't operate that way, and who say out front that they don't do it, and who even speak against it. It is a fact that can be seen and measured, and has real-world consequences. Like it or not, by definition it sets up an 'us/them', 'greater/lesser', 'superior/inferior' split within the Church. Any such split flies in the face of the New Testament, which bluntly states that among ourselves there are to be no such distinctions. One cannot obey Christ and support social castes. Period.
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On the other hand : (1) The truth is that all the other parts of the church have set up their own superior/inferior classes. Just to name two out of many : clergy/lay, and theologically educated/theologically illiterate. Within each of these camps, the mainline/evangelical Protestant schism makes for elites, too. We've learned how to disguise these splits within our ranks. We use silken words and fair ground rules to smooth the bloody edges. But these differences still quack like the duck of caste. What are the critics of the Pentecostalist caste system doing to break up their own caste conflicts, especially that against those in their own ranks who share the same spiritual experience as the Pentecostalists? (2) If today we lived in a church (or, for that matter, a world) where there were no distinctions to divide us, many of us would burn the midnight oil to come up with something to divide us tomorrow. We create classes among us because we want them to be there. And we want them to be there because that within us which is not given over to Christ still buys into the idea that 'I' am better than 'they' are. One would think that Pentecostalists, as reborn Christians, would be able to just make up their minds not to let elitist thinking rule over them. But, alas, Pentecostalists are people, and people, whether Christian or not, think naturally in terms of us/them. Sheer willpower cannot get rid of it. It is this fact, and not their theology, that causes the problem. Their theology just gives it something to work with. |
I'm convinced that Engelsviken was missing the point. There's nothing that makes talk of 'spiritual experiences' any different at root from talk of 'spiritual growth', 'theological education', 'ordination', 'holiness', 'devotion', and so on. Any of these good things can be used to make class differences, because some people get them and not others, but they don't have to be used that way.
There is a 'moreness' to any blessing or gift
of the faith. (If there wasn't, we wouldn't call them 'blessings', would we?) However, these
'morenesses' take place within the context of a life in this
world, within believers who are also sinners to the
core. Within such a world, you can't 'more' your way into
superiority. Getting 'more' or 'better' can't change the fact
that you're still in the same dilemma as everyone else, and
only Christ can resolve it. There's not enough 'better' in all
of existence to make you or anyone else 'better
than' anyone else. And there are always some
matters you have 'less' in. Once this is clear to us, we can
still embrace the fact that it is better to know than not
to know, better to grow than not to grow, and better to
follow Christ than not to follow Christ. Becoming more
wise, more whole, more mature and more Godly really does
matter, not because it gives rank but because it is what God
wants of us. In that same way, a Christian can very well hold
that it is better to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit
(who has been there since baptism) than it is not to experience
that presence. We are free to embrace anything that's better
because such things do not determine our value as people or God's
love for us or Jesus' having saved
us or our citizenship in God's
Kingdom. All of that will still be ours whether or not
God bestows on us ability or experiences or knowledge or wealth
or certain kinds of gifts, and whether or not anyone thinks
that what we're given is 'better than' someone else's. Whatever
we are granted, it comes from Someone Else, not ourselves. Each
'moreness' can then be harnessed to serve the One who gave them
more effectively and truthfully. Blessings are from the
Kingdom, but cliques, elitism, caste and 'in groups' just
aren't a part of that Kingdom, whenever it comes and wherever
it breaks into today's world. We are to be living witnesses to
that. We are responsible to God for the loving use of what we
receive.
arise to the top
Challenge #1 : When the people around you are using questions of faith to create a 'better than' distinction, have the guts to step forward and say, 'No, that's against the gospel'. This can create anger and division -- but it is the same kind of division Jesus had to face in His own hometown synagogue. Truth can cause division, but it's the kind of division that strips away the blindfold layers over our eyes, so we can see the way forward.
Challenge #2 : If you're in a divisive situation at work or in church, think of ways of harnessing the conflict. For instance, there may be theological lessons the combatants may need to learn. Or there may be common links or roots or purposes or commitments in the factions' different practices or tastes. Or people who have the respect of all sides. Find these, and think of how to use them to strengthen commonness between them. A hint : you can't do this without listening and sharing what you've heard.
"The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions;
all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child,
that action concerns me, for that child is thereby connected to
that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body
whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action
concerns me : all mankind is of one author..."
------ John Donne, *Devotions*.
"GOSSIP: (n.) A person who will never tell a lie -- if the truth will do more damage."
------ a definition, found on-line.
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