I know, it's been weeks of silly, light hearted posts. Sometimes I'd pretend like I was being serious, but it was a rouse. Sadly, school starts up this week (for CCU anyway), which means as of tomorrow I am officially a COLLEGE PROFESSOR and can no longer be silly and frivolous. I will now be using unnecessarily big words, I will only talk about theology and the German theologians you've never heard of, and I will be wearing a LOT of tweed.
Just kidding. :)
But seriously, today's post is a bit more serious than usual. Because I am a theologian, and thus I have a responsibility to address something when it starts to bother me. Maybe I'm using the word "responsibility" fairly loosely, but whatevs.
If you're on facebook, or the internet at all, you've probably seen that video Jesus > Religion. It's the hottest video since last week's hot video about Tebowing. Or something.
I had to watch it and think about it for awhile before I could really form an opinion. What the speaker is saying is interesting, and he's extremely talented, which ropes me in and makes me want to believe him. And I think that some of his points are valid, some are intriguing, and some really need to be talked about. But as a whole, I came to the conclusion that I didn't agree. I felt like his overall message was missing something.
I used to very loudly exclaim that I was a "Christ-follower" NOT a "Christian." I was all about telling people I loved Jesus, but I wasn't religious. Because I felt the church had done a lot of shady things and I was fresh out of college so I liked being all anarchist and whatnot. Plus, you know, I have an English degree, so I'm all about raging against the machine (wait...that's a band...that I like...whatever) and protesting and such. I wanted to live my life free of the "restraints" of what I saw as the Big Bad Religion.
Then, for reasons too complicated to explain, I went to seminary.
In case you're not aware, seminary is where they train PASTORS. Yup. Like, work in a church pastors. And other such religious people.
That's when I started going a little crazy dying my hair and getting whale tattoos and whatnot to make sure that EVERYONE knew I WAS NOT RELIGIOUS. I even wrote a whole paper about how I don't like church. For my professor who was a pastor. (I got an A. Take that.)
The thing is, I'm still not what one would call a "follower" of social norms. I like social norms. Without them we're all of a sudden living in
Kevin Costner's The Postman and I have to start wearing fringe. I am not actually an anarchist, either, I just like to tell people I am. But what I learned in my time at seminary is the difference between what I was calling "religion" and what the Bible tells us about.
My friend
Denise is pretty good with Old Testament things and is very smart, and so she usually finds good articles before I do. (Also because she's not a slacker like me.) So she posted
this to facebook, which is a response to the Jesus > Religion video. I read it, and for the most part, I agree with it. (I never fully agree with anything. It's my leftover anarchistness. But also, I really don't agree with ALL of that article. Such as his understanding of sola fide, which I can get into a long discussion about later.)
That's about when I decided to write you an unreasonably long post about the video. So you can go blame Denise or that other blogger.
When we say that we hate religion, or when we say that Jesus came to "abolish religion," what we're doing is reading the Bible 100% through our cultural lense. We're looking at what religion is today, or simply our own perception of what religion is, and we're making a judgment about religion for over 2,000 years. We're also saying that we, regardless of our degrees, IQ, or occupation, are much smarter than 2,000 years of theologians who spent their life researching what we have made a judgment about in 10 minutes.
I am not that smart. And no offense, but I doubt you are either.
When I was in my Theological Methods class, we discussed the Creeds. Specifically the
Nicene Creed and the
Apostle's Creed. These creeds have been passed down for millenia, and have been substantial in shaping the Church and the practices and beliefs of the Christian life. They are very important (so go read them at least). But one student argued, "They are not the Bible. We should not place so much importance on them."
I understand where this student was coming from. Our #1 source for theology should be the Bible, because that's God's revelation of himself to us. However, it's really hard to understand the Bible. Firstly, because we are reading translations, so some words are different and may not fully convey what the original text said. Second, because the Bible was written a long, long, long time ago in a different country. These people hadn't even heard of FRIENDS or LOST or any of those shows I accidentally base my life on! I know, I'm sad for them, too. But they were coming from a totally different place, and we tend to forget that they weren't exactly like us. Thirdly, God is complicated, y'all. I know, because I took a whole class just called "Doctrine of God" and it was REALLY HARD. And I left pretty sure I didn't even remember how to spell God. Which is sad, cause it's three letters.
Luckily, God didn't JUST give us the Bible. He also gave us the ability to read, study, research, and learn. He then gave some people A LOT of those things, and they spent literal YEARS doing that. (I. Would. Die.) They sat in libraries, studying, reading, learning. Talking to each other. Arguing. Some even DIED over this stuff.
What I get really mad about is how lazy we've become. We are a culture over-saturated in information, with the ability to read ANYTHING WE WANT. So we read Harry Potter. (Don't worry. I love Harry Potter. You can, too.) We watch tv, and we read 10 paragraph articles on the internet. Because bullet points are, obviously, the best way to learn. (Sarcasm...) We ignore all those people who came before us. Those men and women who, from numerous cultures and time periods and difficulties and churches, spent their whole lives trying to figure this stuff out and then wrote it down so we could read and argue and learn, too.
My favorite paragraph in this article, (
this one...seriously, go read it, and then ask me about sola fide so we can talk about it, and anything else you want) is the very last one. He says, "So, please don't get your theology from the internet." Which is true. Please don't get your theology from me, either. Get it from Martin Luther, who hated what the church had become and decided to DO something about it. Get it from Karl Barth or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who both lived in Germany during Hitler's reign. Bonhoeffer died in a concentration camp for his beliefs, so he's got some serious stuff to say. Get your theology from Augustine, who struggled through a serious bad boy past to become one of the most influential theologians of all time.
I know you don't have tons of time to read up on all this. I also know that Karl Barth wrote a 13 volume systematic theology, so it's not light reading. But I also know that there are pastors out there with masters or even doctorates in this stuff. There are others, too, who have studied and know a bunch. And I know that the good ones (like me, hehe) would die of happiness to sit down and talk with you about ANY of this.
If you don't know where to start, or if you just want good recommendations on books, PLEASE ask me. I have a decent starting point of knowledge, and I'm friends with about 20 people who have doctorates in this, so I can find out whatever you need. And if you're totally intimidated by any of this, don't be. Because what Jesus wanted was for his people (that's all of us, btw) to come together and be a body. Not just individual people walking around doing their own thing. Some of us are fingers, some are ears, some are livers. We weren't meant to do this on our own.
In short...nope...long, that was really, really long...that's what I learned in seminary. I had some bad experiences with church. I knew people who had REALLY BAD experiences in church. I also have a personality that screams "I WANNA BE UNIQUE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!" so I get not wanting to identify as "organized religion." But what I learned was that life like that is small and, no offense, ignorant. So be part of the body. Embrace the Church. Love Jesus AND religion.