rmwilliamsll
19th March 2004, 06:30 PM
by way of introduction i offer:
-------------------------------------------
So what�s the big deal?
So what if once again I don�t fit? A round peg ought not to try so hard to be square.
It just confirms that sinking feeling that I really don�t belong anywhere.
The problem is that I am not cut out of a whole piece of cloth like most people seem to be. They are liberal or conservative across the board, from the marrow of their bones to the edges of their skin. Me, I�m like frankenstein�s monster, sewn and stitched together from numerous books and endless late night talks with people from all over. Most people take a system and run with it for their entire lives; if they change, it is a complete changeover to a new system. The cost of looking at each piece, to be often in internal limbo, and the high cost of inner inconsistency is too high a one for most of us to invest in. except apparently me. I was too religious for a secular university, too scientific for a seminary, too smart to sharpen lawnmowers, to dumb to stick it out in grad school. And now too intellectual to be a church member. It was one thing to tell me that I didn�t have the outer call to go into the church as a teacher but I�m never heard of the bar lowered to membership before. I must really be upsetting people. Sad thing is I don�t know how or with what.
Some would say just go to a liberal church, with their high tolerance principle they will tolerant a mixed bag conservative far more that a conservative church will tolerant another conservative with liberal leanings. Again back to first principles, all that matters in a church is true biblical preaching. The liberal church is not biblical. Liberals raise reason too high so it reigns over faith, while apparently conservatives can fear reason so it overrides their faith�
about church membership
clarify the issues about the local church.
distinction between the visible and invisible church.
the image of the church universal invisible through the ages, across all human cultures is that of the body of christ, or sometimes as the bride of christ. images first of solidarity and then a lead in for the discussion of the gifts of the spirit to the church.
so why join a local visible church? clearly commanded, forsake not the gathering together as some are apt to do. and the confession's neglect not the means of grace and outside of the church there is no normal salvation. so christians are not generally saved to be lone individuals but saved into a local community. why? what is this fellowship of the saints? why bother? i can read my bible, study just fine by myself, besides i can move a lot faster without having to slow down for other people who haven't spent the time learning the issues? it has to be more than just a way to control behavior, to root out heresy, to enforce community standards. it may certainly involve those things but if limited to these then the church is join another voluntary organization with normal group dynamics etc. but the images of body and bride are much higher, much more evocative than a book club discussion group. something else must be obtainable.
take another direction. as human beings, most of us need to belong, need to be part of something bigger than ourselves. certainly this need is highjacked by evil groups with their own agendas to remake human nature and to reshape the world with their organization's power. i expect more from the church then this however. i also recognize that shared goals, shared work make for lighter loads, more joyous working conditions, and getting much more accomplished.
so maybe this is the entry point for the discussion of the gifts given to the local church in order to accomplish it's task. the church has a job, a mission to do, and the local church is the immediate context for the doing of this work.
so that the image of the body is one of unity in diversity, one of purposefulness of an organization amidst the multiplicity of individual goals. so that would go a long ways to explaining why under normal circumstances christians are calling into a local body. because the exercise of various gifts feed off one another, no one is complete individually but all together have an adequate talent pool. interesting idea. one size really does fit all.
I am conscious of being two different kinds of things, hooked and tied together. Mind/soul/spirit and body. Something physical and something else, the body seems clear enough, it is the mind/soul/spirit that gives me the most difficulty. I am somehow conscious of looking outward from myself, through my eyes; the thing inside (behind those eyes, inside that looks out) appears to consist of two distinctly different types of consciousness. I call them intellect/reason/mind versus emotion/feelings. I do not know where the words come from that I think, I do not know where the anger I far too often express comes from. I am only conscious of images that give this dichotomy body. The most common image I use is of a stormy sea, with the waves breaking high into the air. My emotions are the sea, my intellect the air above it, I am suspended just above the water, often the sea engulfs me and I am filled full of emotion, but most of the time I am in the intellectual sphere, in the air, I can see the water, often feel it but am anchored in the air. I know both parts: emotion and intellect together are me, my mind. But I am also conscious of the power of that lower part, and choose to live primarily above it, in the relative safety of a more intellectual life.
Reason/intellect is the tool we are/have to do this controlling. The bridling of passion, the channeling, the sublimation, of emotion is part of the job for reason. Its other purpose is planning, forecasting the future and providing for it. I prefer to live in my world dominated by books, by reason, by intellectual discourse. I don�t like music; don�t understand art, suspicious of passions of all types but the driving passions to put it all together, to understand, to grok it all. Just a preference based on my perception of myself as an emotional being liable to get in trouble without reason�s careful continuous control.
So given these image of self, what is saving faith and the roles of intellect versus emotion?
Saving faith is not mere intellectual assent, but a wholehearted trust in God. You say you know Jesus is the Son of God; you do well, for even the daemons know his name and tremble. So ask an easier question first, how do I know I love my wife and my kids? Is love just this mushy feeling that I want to be with her? This general feeling that somehow I would rather have the kids around to watch them investigate the world? To prefer their company to that of another? If we introspect the answer, if we look inside for what is love, we are misdirecting the question. We need to look outwardly, at what our actions are, for they betray our real feelings, the real us. We are too easily deceived by our inner nature. Deceiving our actions is much harder for they take so much effort over a long sustained time. What we really believe, what we really care for will come out in the long run as a desire to see the object of affection taken care of. I know I love my wife, not because I am faithful to her, but because in the long run, day after day I am concerned with her welfare, I care about her. The faithfulness is a secondary effect that I would not wish to hurt her with unfaithfulness. Like pretty is pretty does, love is seen as outward appearance of consistency with that love. I do the love I feel.
I believe the American church is infected with a disease that can only be called easy believism. Some how the church has come to believe in a magical incantation of words that bind salvation to us. The appeal of this easy believism is to the emotions. To get people into heaven we cast an appeal to their hearts to utter the currently in vogue mantra to open the door of heaven. I don�t believe it. I understand that the power of sin is throughout our beings. I don�t believe that my intellect is any less tainted by sin than my emotional matrix, but I have tools in the reason/intellectual sphere to control sin�s effects. My emotions do not seem to have a set of controlling tools, they just are, they just bubble up. I can modify them when I can see them, but I bet it is the emotions that I am unaware of, that work under conscious level that are the most important, as well as the most potentially damaging. As a result of this thinking I base my appeal of scriptures, of God�s word primarily to the intellect.
But that doesn�t answer the question of how I know my faith is truly saving faith and not mere intellectual assent? Because of the outward way I work out my salvation with fear and trembling. My feelings of love and trust in God cause me to desire to please Him. I asked to join the church for one reason: outside of the church there is no ordinary means of salvation, neglect not the means of salvation. I intellectually know the confessions points but until I act upon them, until I do the things that demonstrate the inner man, I myself do not know what I really believe. I am not by nature very friendly, I deeply dislike hugging, and I am uncomfortable with any conversation that doesn�t begin with a quote from my latest reading. I do not desire church membership to be around people, I really am uncomfortable most of the time in company, but God said neglect not the means of grace�Hey gang, do what you�ve been told to do. If you believe then the behavior will be modified to fit what you believe.
Trust in God as revealed in Jesus His messiah, begins for me in intellectual exploration of what the two books of God: scripture and nature reveal to us about God. But it doesn�t end there; it extends downward into that vast sea of emotion, into that cauldron of lava that we call our emotional selves. It anchors itself into changed emotions that are not natural to us, emotions to love, to trust, and to rely upon God not just for provision of our physical bodies but also for hope that He will continue to fix the problems that are us. That He will show me where my ideas are wrong, and cause the motivation to explore, to investigate, to love the world He has put me into. This is not because I uttered some magical words to invite Him into my life, it is solely because He changed a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, something inside loves Him and desires to please Him. Just as I know I love my wife because I try to harness and control the anger that I express towards her, tells me that I am unsatisfied with me because she suffers. I change me to conform to her expectations. Just as I change my reasoning, that most precious to me, to conform to what I believe the scriptures teach, because I love Him I try to keep His commandments.
So how do I as an arid, overly read, pretentious, hope to be intellectual know I have a saving faith? By works, I do the things that I know are consistent with God�s expectations of me, not because they will save me, but because of the gratitude inside for what He gave me. First, life itself, second hope of life to come like Jesus arose from the grave, but mostly the hope that He will work within me to do His good pleasure to recreate me as a pleasing creature in His sight. It is the long-term desire to love God that betrays the inner man as saved, I do things to please God; just as I do things that I do not want to do to please my wife. But for me each step starts with buying a new book�
My only criterion for a church is biblical preaching. That is why going to a liberal church is simply out of the question. It would be easier for a liberal church to tolerant a religious fundamentalist/conservative that apparently a conservative with a scientific attitude has in a traditional church. But I find this a poor solution because of their attitude towards the Bible. It is no understatement that the words of the confession, �outside of the church there is no ordinary salvation� echoed in my mind due to the preaching I heard there.
I was encouraged at finding a good church with opportunities to service inside of it. For I am conscious of things I want to share, things inside I want to discuss with like-minded people. I don�t have an outlet for this activity and it is important to me. That is why I volunteered to work on the church�s home page. I would love a need driven learning curve to sharpen my mind, to drive my creativity, to give me an outlet to write.
But your rejection stops all these thoughts. Turns everything inward once again. God knows how important these issues are to me. Why did He reject me? I don�t know. Perhaps it is because my ideas of God are wrong. So I will pursue liberal theology again, reading Bishop Sprong lately helps this wound heal, maybe it is my expectations that God would miraculously intervene, would put me into a place to express myself that might be in error.
My first desire was never to apply again for church membership, even maybe never again to enter a church. To solve the problem of the pain by denying the issues that caused it. I drove for 4 days this week through the northern mountains, with the expressed desire to settle the issue so that I could resume some resemblance of a normal life. For the inability to solve the issue is tearing up my marriage and making me impossible to live with. But like my often stated goal to fast, which never seems to extend more than a couple of days, my initial scream that if you don�t want me than I don�t need you is immature and self defeating. So how do I handle the situation?
I am going to withdraw inside again. Pull in the feelers that were bruised. Study, sell off my books, rebuild my house and build a nice kitchen, which above all else is my wife�s fondest desire. I cannot go back to the church, for the one thing of importance; the preaching is tainted now by my feelings of rejection. They act as a screen between God and me so that I cannot hear the voice of God when I see uncertainty and rejection in the face of His spokesman. They will forever color any relationship possible there. An unfortunate result indeed. It is sad that I have been condemned always to a life of looking into the window from the outside. Never belonging, never wholeheartedly accepted by those we share the deepest things with. But I guess I better get used to it.
i offer this as a way to work through the issues and as a plead for help on the greater issues involved.
-------------------------------------------
So what�s the big deal?
So what if once again I don�t fit? A round peg ought not to try so hard to be square.
It just confirms that sinking feeling that I really don�t belong anywhere.
The problem is that I am not cut out of a whole piece of cloth like most people seem to be. They are liberal or conservative across the board, from the marrow of their bones to the edges of their skin. Me, I�m like frankenstein�s monster, sewn and stitched together from numerous books and endless late night talks with people from all over. Most people take a system and run with it for their entire lives; if they change, it is a complete changeover to a new system. The cost of looking at each piece, to be often in internal limbo, and the high cost of inner inconsistency is too high a one for most of us to invest in. except apparently me. I was too religious for a secular university, too scientific for a seminary, too smart to sharpen lawnmowers, to dumb to stick it out in grad school. And now too intellectual to be a church member. It was one thing to tell me that I didn�t have the outer call to go into the church as a teacher but I�m never heard of the bar lowered to membership before. I must really be upsetting people. Sad thing is I don�t know how or with what.
Some would say just go to a liberal church, with their high tolerance principle they will tolerant a mixed bag conservative far more that a conservative church will tolerant another conservative with liberal leanings. Again back to first principles, all that matters in a church is true biblical preaching. The liberal church is not biblical. Liberals raise reason too high so it reigns over faith, while apparently conservatives can fear reason so it overrides their faith�
about church membership
clarify the issues about the local church.
distinction between the visible and invisible church.
the image of the church universal invisible through the ages, across all human cultures is that of the body of christ, or sometimes as the bride of christ. images first of solidarity and then a lead in for the discussion of the gifts of the spirit to the church.
so why join a local visible church? clearly commanded, forsake not the gathering together as some are apt to do. and the confession's neglect not the means of grace and outside of the church there is no normal salvation. so christians are not generally saved to be lone individuals but saved into a local community. why? what is this fellowship of the saints? why bother? i can read my bible, study just fine by myself, besides i can move a lot faster without having to slow down for other people who haven't spent the time learning the issues? it has to be more than just a way to control behavior, to root out heresy, to enforce community standards. it may certainly involve those things but if limited to these then the church is join another voluntary organization with normal group dynamics etc. but the images of body and bride are much higher, much more evocative than a book club discussion group. something else must be obtainable.
take another direction. as human beings, most of us need to belong, need to be part of something bigger than ourselves. certainly this need is highjacked by evil groups with their own agendas to remake human nature and to reshape the world with their organization's power. i expect more from the church then this however. i also recognize that shared goals, shared work make for lighter loads, more joyous working conditions, and getting much more accomplished.
so maybe this is the entry point for the discussion of the gifts given to the local church in order to accomplish it's task. the church has a job, a mission to do, and the local church is the immediate context for the doing of this work.
so that the image of the body is one of unity in diversity, one of purposefulness of an organization amidst the multiplicity of individual goals. so that would go a long ways to explaining why under normal circumstances christians are calling into a local body. because the exercise of various gifts feed off one another, no one is complete individually but all together have an adequate talent pool. interesting idea. one size really does fit all.
I am conscious of being two different kinds of things, hooked and tied together. Mind/soul/spirit and body. Something physical and something else, the body seems clear enough, it is the mind/soul/spirit that gives me the most difficulty. I am somehow conscious of looking outward from myself, through my eyes; the thing inside (behind those eyes, inside that looks out) appears to consist of two distinctly different types of consciousness. I call them intellect/reason/mind versus emotion/feelings. I do not know where the words come from that I think, I do not know where the anger I far too often express comes from. I am only conscious of images that give this dichotomy body. The most common image I use is of a stormy sea, with the waves breaking high into the air. My emotions are the sea, my intellect the air above it, I am suspended just above the water, often the sea engulfs me and I am filled full of emotion, but most of the time I am in the intellectual sphere, in the air, I can see the water, often feel it but am anchored in the air. I know both parts: emotion and intellect together are me, my mind. But I am also conscious of the power of that lower part, and choose to live primarily above it, in the relative safety of a more intellectual life.
Reason/intellect is the tool we are/have to do this controlling. The bridling of passion, the channeling, the sublimation, of emotion is part of the job for reason. Its other purpose is planning, forecasting the future and providing for it. I prefer to live in my world dominated by books, by reason, by intellectual discourse. I don�t like music; don�t understand art, suspicious of passions of all types but the driving passions to put it all together, to understand, to grok it all. Just a preference based on my perception of myself as an emotional being liable to get in trouble without reason�s careful continuous control.
So given these image of self, what is saving faith and the roles of intellect versus emotion?
Saving faith is not mere intellectual assent, but a wholehearted trust in God. You say you know Jesus is the Son of God; you do well, for even the daemons know his name and tremble. So ask an easier question first, how do I know I love my wife and my kids? Is love just this mushy feeling that I want to be with her? This general feeling that somehow I would rather have the kids around to watch them investigate the world? To prefer their company to that of another? If we introspect the answer, if we look inside for what is love, we are misdirecting the question. We need to look outwardly, at what our actions are, for they betray our real feelings, the real us. We are too easily deceived by our inner nature. Deceiving our actions is much harder for they take so much effort over a long sustained time. What we really believe, what we really care for will come out in the long run as a desire to see the object of affection taken care of. I know I love my wife, not because I am faithful to her, but because in the long run, day after day I am concerned with her welfare, I care about her. The faithfulness is a secondary effect that I would not wish to hurt her with unfaithfulness. Like pretty is pretty does, love is seen as outward appearance of consistency with that love. I do the love I feel.
I believe the American church is infected with a disease that can only be called easy believism. Some how the church has come to believe in a magical incantation of words that bind salvation to us. The appeal of this easy believism is to the emotions. To get people into heaven we cast an appeal to their hearts to utter the currently in vogue mantra to open the door of heaven. I don�t believe it. I understand that the power of sin is throughout our beings. I don�t believe that my intellect is any less tainted by sin than my emotional matrix, but I have tools in the reason/intellectual sphere to control sin�s effects. My emotions do not seem to have a set of controlling tools, they just are, they just bubble up. I can modify them when I can see them, but I bet it is the emotions that I am unaware of, that work under conscious level that are the most important, as well as the most potentially damaging. As a result of this thinking I base my appeal of scriptures, of God�s word primarily to the intellect.
But that doesn�t answer the question of how I know my faith is truly saving faith and not mere intellectual assent? Because of the outward way I work out my salvation with fear and trembling. My feelings of love and trust in God cause me to desire to please Him. I asked to join the church for one reason: outside of the church there is no ordinary means of salvation, neglect not the means of salvation. I intellectually know the confessions points but until I act upon them, until I do the things that demonstrate the inner man, I myself do not know what I really believe. I am not by nature very friendly, I deeply dislike hugging, and I am uncomfortable with any conversation that doesn�t begin with a quote from my latest reading. I do not desire church membership to be around people, I really am uncomfortable most of the time in company, but God said neglect not the means of grace�Hey gang, do what you�ve been told to do. If you believe then the behavior will be modified to fit what you believe.
Trust in God as revealed in Jesus His messiah, begins for me in intellectual exploration of what the two books of God: scripture and nature reveal to us about God. But it doesn�t end there; it extends downward into that vast sea of emotion, into that cauldron of lava that we call our emotional selves. It anchors itself into changed emotions that are not natural to us, emotions to love, to trust, and to rely upon God not just for provision of our physical bodies but also for hope that He will continue to fix the problems that are us. That He will show me where my ideas are wrong, and cause the motivation to explore, to investigate, to love the world He has put me into. This is not because I uttered some magical words to invite Him into my life, it is solely because He changed a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, something inside loves Him and desires to please Him. Just as I know I love my wife because I try to harness and control the anger that I express towards her, tells me that I am unsatisfied with me because she suffers. I change me to conform to her expectations. Just as I change my reasoning, that most precious to me, to conform to what I believe the scriptures teach, because I love Him I try to keep His commandments.
So how do I as an arid, overly read, pretentious, hope to be intellectual know I have a saving faith? By works, I do the things that I know are consistent with God�s expectations of me, not because they will save me, but because of the gratitude inside for what He gave me. First, life itself, second hope of life to come like Jesus arose from the grave, but mostly the hope that He will work within me to do His good pleasure to recreate me as a pleasing creature in His sight. It is the long-term desire to love God that betrays the inner man as saved, I do things to please God; just as I do things that I do not want to do to please my wife. But for me each step starts with buying a new book�
My only criterion for a church is biblical preaching. That is why going to a liberal church is simply out of the question. It would be easier for a liberal church to tolerant a religious fundamentalist/conservative that apparently a conservative with a scientific attitude has in a traditional church. But I find this a poor solution because of their attitude towards the Bible. It is no understatement that the words of the confession, �outside of the church there is no ordinary salvation� echoed in my mind due to the preaching I heard there.
I was encouraged at finding a good church with opportunities to service inside of it. For I am conscious of things I want to share, things inside I want to discuss with like-minded people. I don�t have an outlet for this activity and it is important to me. That is why I volunteered to work on the church�s home page. I would love a need driven learning curve to sharpen my mind, to drive my creativity, to give me an outlet to write.
But your rejection stops all these thoughts. Turns everything inward once again. God knows how important these issues are to me. Why did He reject me? I don�t know. Perhaps it is because my ideas of God are wrong. So I will pursue liberal theology again, reading Bishop Sprong lately helps this wound heal, maybe it is my expectations that God would miraculously intervene, would put me into a place to express myself that might be in error.
My first desire was never to apply again for church membership, even maybe never again to enter a church. To solve the problem of the pain by denying the issues that caused it. I drove for 4 days this week through the northern mountains, with the expressed desire to settle the issue so that I could resume some resemblance of a normal life. For the inability to solve the issue is tearing up my marriage and making me impossible to live with. But like my often stated goal to fast, which never seems to extend more than a couple of days, my initial scream that if you don�t want me than I don�t need you is immature and self defeating. So how do I handle the situation?
I am going to withdraw inside again. Pull in the feelers that were bruised. Study, sell off my books, rebuild my house and build a nice kitchen, which above all else is my wife�s fondest desire. I cannot go back to the church, for the one thing of importance; the preaching is tainted now by my feelings of rejection. They act as a screen between God and me so that I cannot hear the voice of God when I see uncertainty and rejection in the face of His spokesman. They will forever color any relationship possible there. An unfortunate result indeed. It is sad that I have been condemned always to a life of looking into the window from the outside. Never belonging, never wholeheartedly accepted by those we share the deepest things with. But I guess I better get used to it.
i offer this as a way to work through the issues and as a plead for help on the greater issues involved.