THE DANGER OF PARTIAL TRUTH…4/25/08
by SteveThere is probably no sin more prevalent in the Christian church than that of partial truth as a false witness. God can be experienced but not explained. Words can point to God, but they cannot contain God. Our creeds tell true stories of faith, but a creed can never capture the ongoing stories. God is beyond and more than any human system of thought. How many times have Christians fallen into heresy by taking some small and partial truth and using it to beat into submission those who didn’t agree? And always it has been done in the name of God!
There are those who seem to be convinced that God is a member of their church. But God is not a Baptist, Episcopalian, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist, or any other denomination. God doesn’t prefer the King James Bible or the New Methodist Hymnal. All of these things participate in and point to who God is, but God cannot be contained or adequately described by any of them!
No nation or race can capture the whole truth of God. God is not American, English, Russian, or Chinese. God is not white, black, or yellow. God is neither male nor female. But all of these are ways of describing God in a partial way that will be the best we can do this side of eternity.
We Christians are not settlers, but pilgrims. Settleers circle their wagons and prepare to defend their turf against the enemy. But as pilgrims, Christians should be always moving, always seeking to widen our experience of who God is, always listening to new stories about how God has entered into and changed other people’s lives. As we keep moving, we keep growing.
RSS
Amen. I have never understood why some Christians cling to one version or another of the Bible. None of the English translations can claim primary source. They are all translated from Greek, Hebrew or (I believe) Aramaic.
And the originals themselves have problems themselves due to scribal error.
Right! Except for the fact that there are NO originals, only copies of copies of copies!
Oops! My bad. I shoulda written ‘existing copies,’ not ‘originals.’ Gee, wouldn’t that be a find…a primary source!
Anyone should be proud to be a Christian, to be doing their best to live a life that Jesus would recognize as inspired by his example. Although far too many people claim to be Christian while making no attempt to live as Jesus did, those that use the title as a means to alienate, degrade, and/or demonize those who don’t share their particular outlook on the world trouble me most. They make a mockery of Jesus’ lessons, and rob the very word ‘Christian’ of its value. They make me rather un-christian in my thoughts and feelings, because I know, once I look past the utter contempt and desire to cast them from the temple as Jesus did the money changers, God forgives even these, and Christ taught us so. Our traditions, our Bible hold fine examples and give excellent comentary on how to know God, and live as He would be pleased. It begins with Genesis, when God said, “let there be light”, and teaches us that God created all – every *thing*, every *one* – the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindi, the Wiccans, and countless other people of faith. Yes, and even the faithless, as God created ALL. And Jesus teaches *us*, those who claim to be Christian, that even the least of these is important, in the eyes of God. Our faith loses nothing – not one thing! – to accept others as having a different path to God. It loses it’s very foundation, by denying the examples shown us by Jesus – the same examples which brought people to call him Christ – when we do otherwise. Fear the difference you see in others, hate those you don’t comprehend, and your existence will be rather dark. Embrace the world, love everything in it, even when you don’t understand it, and you’ll find yourself a little closer to God.
Bj