At TruthVoice 2006, the topic of tangible faith has been often brought to the forefront of our conversations, and several speakers have discussed their disappointments with Christianity in general and Preterism in particular. We have spoken of how Christians often “get in the way” of Christianity by their teachings and actions, and how often the rest of us are being painted with the same brush as those Christians who readily promote nothing short of hate for non-believers or those who fall short of their doctrinal mark.

One example given was the criticism coming from Christians, directed at Muslims building orphanages for homeless Children in Jordan. It seems as if many believers would rather see children either die, or perhaps live on the streets, than seeing them being helped by a Muslims organization. Arrogance, hate and self-righteousness are not hard to find in Christianity.

Thirst after Jesus, and he will satisfy you with his love.[2]

In his book The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware goes to great lengths to explain the impact sin had on mankind, and the fact that sin, both personal and original, has created a gulf between man and God, between the Creator and the Creation. “Cutoff from his Creator, separated from his fellow men, inwardly fragmented, fallen man lacked the power to heal himself…a God of personal love could not remain indifferent to man’s suffering, but it was involved in it. How far has this divine involvement been carried?”[3]

Bishop Kallistos recognized that man has been always pursued by God. “God has come to man, identifying himself with man in the most direct way.”[4] In the most unexpected way it appears, God’s pursuit of mankind has gone so far that the Creator has become one of the Created in order to finalize the quest for reconciliation of all things, on heaven and on earth. This it appears, creates problems for some believers that insist they alone possess the special ticket which allows entrance into Heaven. Be it doctrine, theology, creeds, methods of worship and authority, many Christians today present their Faith to the world as a complex, highly systematic, strict and preteristic[5] practice that bears very little resemblance of what Christ preached. This could very well be related to what Athanasius was already identifying in the fourth century as “the scope of faith” which was the ultimate method for reading the Scripture, understanding it and practicing the faith.[6]

It is therefore necessary for a believer to perceive and experience Faith with eyes that focus beyond just theoretical insight, onto something that is tangible and real, what a pragmatic would call practical. As Heschel wrote, “The beginning of faith is…not a feeling for the mystery of living or a sense of awe, wonder and amazement. The root of religion is the question what to do with the feeling for the mystery of the living, what to do with awe, wonder and amazement.”[7] If God has been indeed pursuing us as a shepherd would pursue his lost sheep, what kind of faith should we live and strive for, and what exactly are we to do with the “awe, wonder and amazement” we find within Christianity? Some Christians like our Orthodox brothers create a tangible aspect to their faith by using icons and powerful imagery in order to have something; our Catholic brothers use transubstantiation to closely associate with Christ and a rosary to be reminded of daily and regular prayer.

Ultimately however, it seems as if in each instance of reformation and with each effort to change, faith loses at the expense of dogmatism and institutionalized fellowship. As F.W. Mattox explains, “The early leaders of the Reformation in Europe had no intention of forming denominational churches. Luther told his followers to call themselves Christians – not Lutherans. Yet the followers of these great men crystallized their progress by “institutionalizing” their fellowship. Succeeding generation referred to their interpretations and defended their conclusions. But not all men were so content, for some have emerged to reevaluate the past in the light of Scripture and to stir their generations to continue the search for the ancient order. Often on worked entirely independent of and unaware of the other’s activity.”[8]

An emergent beautiful Christianity

Just as Mattox recognized, throughout each generation there are believers who choose to “emerge” and reevaluate their faith in light of the Scripture, to motivate and stir up their generations to repaint their faith into the bright colors that so quickly fade under the obscuring layers of cultural preconceptions and dogmatic paradigms. Men like John Wesley who promoted the authority of the Bible alone as sufficient for faith and practice were critical to creating an environment in which faith could be seen as a journey where all Christians are free to explore the unnumbered facets of Scripture rather than blindly bow to another’s interpretation. Later, in the Methodist world James O’Kelley began to teach a restoration of the Christian faith to its basic tenets; at the same time in New England, Abner Jones, a Baptist was also advocating abandoning all creeds and made true piety alone the test of the Christian faith.[9]

At the turn of the 1800s, Presbyterian Barton W. Stone became so distressed by Calvinism that he publicly rejected the doctrines of total depravity and absolute predestination and in 1801, at a revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky invited Methodist and Baptist preachers to preach together to many thousands of people at the same time. These preachers from so many backgrounds and denominations worked so well together, that Stone was very impressed and dedicated his life to promoting and creating unity among all Christians. Unfortunately, because of his position that sinners had the power to turn to Christ, a number of Calvinistic preachers publicly began to oppose him. Some people stood by him: Richard McNemar, John Thompson, John Dunlavy, Robert Marshall and David Purviance.[10] Eventually a new presbytery (of Springfield) was created, but a year later was dissolved because it was itself also deemed unscriptural. The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery is a powerful document that should stand next to Martin Luther’s Reformation documents. Writing on June 28^th, 1804, they signed the document beginning with the words: “Imprimis, we will, that this body will die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the body of Christ at large; for there is but one Body, and one Spirit, even as we are called in hope of our calling….we will, that our power of making laws for the government of the church, and executing them by delegated authority, forever cease; that the people may have free course to the Bible, and adopt the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”[11]

Many more followed since these events transpired, and many more in our future will continue this quest to emerge from ordinary Christianity and transform our faith into the beautiful and meaningful faith which it was meant to be.

The Journey with Jesus

In the movie I Robot there is a powerful scene that always catches me by surprise no matter how many times I watch the movie. When interrogating Sonny, who is a robot and supposedly cannot dream and cannot have any feelings and independently make decisions and make a difference, Detective Spooner responds to Sonny’s claims that he dreams by saying: Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a... canvas into a beautiful masterpiece? Sonny’s simple answer is: Can you?

Of course the obvious answer is no! Not all men can write symphonies, or paint beautiful paintings, yet somehow that’s not what makes us human, and that is not what gives us worth. The wonderful thing about Christianity is that it makes us realize how much we all are worth. And the great story about humanity, which is that of a great fall, a failed effort to redeem ourselves followed by a great redemption through Christ’s blood and Christ’s presence being restored to this world is what makes us all worth exactly as much as Christ himself.

You see, as long as Christians continue to see themselves, those around them and the world in which we live as hopeless, evil and beyond redemption, they do a great disservice to the Faith, and they essentially minimize their worth, and consequently they minimize the worth of Christ’s sacrifice. Rather, it seems that when Jesus said “follow me,” he did not ask us to follow him on a trip to nowhere, a trip that is without hope or a journey in which we give directions to all around because we know doctrine and they do not. It seems to me that Jesus was a dreamer – he saw the future and he showed us his own dream of that beautiful future. The point of our faith and the nature of the Kingdom is not to get theology and doctrine in order so that we get a ticket to heaven; we often forget that Abraham believing in God was enough to be deemed to him as righteousness. Yet we find it so easy to forget Christ’s advice to become like Children in order to enter the Kingdom, and transform a beautiful, simple and uncomplicated faith into a maze of doctrinal contradictions, creedal litmus tests, associations with those whom we like and disassociations with those whom we dislike. Are we not missing the point by being entangled in something that is not much of a resemblance of Christ’s teachings?

Emerging from the Christianity of entanglement is often being judged as liberalism, anti-creedalism and heresy; it has always been judged as such, be it during Martin Luther’s Reformation, or the 1700s and 1800s movements which proclaimed the principles of undenominationalism; we see it happening with Covenant Eschatology as well, where many of us lose friends, family and even jobs as a result of our pursuit of Scriptural truth and for standing up for renewed convictions we know to be true; we see it today with some who advocate non-denominationalism and a unity among all believers, regardless of doctrinal background, eschatology or theological, political or social tendencies. All those believers throughout history have understood that Christianity is much more than doctrine and theology, and also much less than that. They understood that faith is indeed a journey with Jesus, following in his footsteps, doing those things he did, feeding the poor, loving the sinner.

Christianity today is losing ground not because of outside influences, but because of its own doing; its own failure to believe in itself, to trust Christ’s promises; I imagine a different dialogue between Sonny and Spooner which could perhaps parallel a conversation between God and humanity: Human being have dreams because you are created in My image. You can write a symphony, you can turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece, you can create death or life, you can feed or ignore the poor, you can hate or love each other, but you do have dreams and you can make your faith as weak or as powerful as you dream it.

We should stop asking “can we?” and take God’s promise of a beautiful, tangible faith and a beautiful future at face value. God has always pursued us; let us not make the pursuit vane, and let us repaint our faith into what it was meant to be.

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 1983, pp. 3.

[2] St. Isaac the Syrian.

[3] Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestood, NY, 2003, pp. 68.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Often Christianity sees its splendor as passing or past and has little to offer to a contemporary world.

[6] Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Theology, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids , Michigan, 2004, pp 104.

[7] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 1983, pp. 162.

[8] F.W. Mattox, The Eternal Kingdom: A History of the Church, Gospel Light Publishing Co., Delight, AK, 1961, pp. 311.

[9] Ibid, pp. 313.

[10] Ibid, pp. 314.

[11] Winfred E. Garrison and Alfred T. Degroot, The Disciples of Christ, St. Louis: The Bethany Press, 1948, pp. 109-110.