Deconstructing Doctrines: Doctrine 2

photo credit: profzucker House Altar wih Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters, detail with via photopin (license)

The Reaction

If you are reading this blog for the first time, be sure to check out my previous article on Doctrine One.

I had quite a reaction to my last post. Lots of it was positive. Some was negative. It's funny how the negative ones tend to stick out more than the positive ones. I was called apostate and heretic. My first reaction was to burst out laughing. Then I remember all of the pain from my initial rejection. It was salt in the wound. I know this is part of the healing process, but sometimes the pain is intolerable, especially when it comes from friends.

My response to those who call me a heretic:  We are all heretics to someone else. No matter what we do or say, our beliefs will not align with everyone else's. How we treat that person who disagrees with us says perhaps more about our character than anything else. I also realize that when you challenge what used to be a shared belief, people often take it as a personal attack on themselves. It is not.

Also, I love the Bible. I think it is fascinating. I especially love the Old Testament, having learned Hebrew in college. It's how I read and interpret the Bible that seems to be causing issues.

To those who gave me the encouraging comments:  Thank you. The positivity outweighed the negativity. I especially want to thank those who are still in The Salvation Army who appreciated my look on their doctrines.

So on to the next doctrine:

Doctrine Two

We believe that there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.

At face value, I really have nothing wrong with this doctrine. Surprise! Perhaps in its interpretation is where the conflict arises.

Let me tell you a story.

I was in 11th Grade and in my Advanced Placement History class. Right before class started, I noticed on the board a list of world religions. I calmly ticked them off as I read them:

Buddhism -- bad

Confucianism -- bad

Judaism -- bad

Christianity -- good

Hinduism -- bad

Islam -- bad

Shintoism -- bad

etc, etc, etc . . . 

What I didn't realize was that one of my fellow classmates was standing behind me. She was blunt and asked me, "So you're saying all of those religions are wrong?"

"Well, yeah."

"How can you be sure?"

Thus started a friendship that continues to this day. Eventually, I came to see her point.

If I had been born in Libya, I most likely would have grown up Muslim. If I had been born in Thailand, more than likely I would have grown up Buddhist. I cannot help where I was born. I was born in the United States and grew up Christian. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, either. It's just how life happened.

Most religions have a concept of the divine. It intersects and crosses over all cultures. In many ways, it unites us. For those who are agnostic, atheist, or non-theist, sometimes it helps to think of the universe, the unknown, etc.

The picture above is a relief of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Nefertiti and their children, worshiping God. Akhenaten did away with polytheism and established the first monotheistic religion, even before Judaism appeared. It failed miserably and died with his son, Tutankhaten, who became better known as Tutankhamen (King Tut). Unfortunately, the only way to appease this God was to have a special relationship with the Pharaoh. It was also a political move. Akhenaten stole the political power away from the priests of Amun.

The Problem

What I see as the problem is that our own individual concept of God, the universe, etc., conflicts with other people's perception of God. I once had a very pleasant conversation with another member of my last denomination, when he emphatically said, "You and I don't worship the same God." I had the impression that he thought I worshipped a god of my own design.

That was bizarre. We were both in The Salvation Army. We were both officers. What was different? Our view of God was different. Perhaps in this we see a critical issue.

Christians rail against Muslims, stating that Allah is not God (even though Arabic Christians use the word "Allah" when speaking about God). Muslims state that Christians worship 3 gods, thinking that Christians are not true monotheists. Wars have been fought over how we view and worship God.

The issue I see at hand is that we cannot look past each other's differences. Jesus expressed this in several ways.

There is a story in the Bible about Jesus' disciples complaining that other people were healing the sick and casting out demons in Jesus' name. The disciples wanted them to stop. I can imagine why. The attention was no longer on the disciples or on Jesus. It was on these other people. Jesus actually had no problem with it. He told them, "Don't stop him. No one who does powerful acts in why name can quickly turn around and curse me. Whoever isn't against us is for us." (Mark 9:39-40 CEB)

At the same time, it's not necessarily about what we believe, but we do that matters. Jesus himself said, "Not everybody who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter." (Matthew 7:21 CEB)

It's not so much orthodoxy (right thinking) that will help us, but orthopraxy (right doing). We can say that we believe all the right things, but if what we do doesn't match with what we believe, we are hypocrites.

Jesus tried to explain this when he told the story of the Good Samaritan:  Someone who believed all of the wrong things, but was still granted eternal life because he did the right thing.

Give me a Muslim any day who feeds the hungry and heals the sick than a white Christian who denounces Muslims on social media. The former is doing the will of God. The second is just blast of wind (flatulence), as Martin Luther so euphemistically said.

What then?

Is God infinitely perfect? What does that even mean? Is God a perfectionist? I don't believe so. If we are to believe the Bible's stories about the Flood and the Exodus, God regretted creating humans, as if we were a mistake.

However, if I understand that God is in all and with all, then it makes sense to me. There is a concept I love of God, which is called "panentheism." It's not "pantheism," which means God is everything. Rather, panentheism means that God is in everything and is also beyond everything.

If there are people who disagree with how you view God, so what? God calls on all of us to love each other. How about loving God by loving others? We have differences in opinion. Does that mean we need to tear each other down and fight with each other? Absolutely not.

If I could rewrite this doctrine, I would probably say,

I believe that God is in all and is beyond all. God is the Ground of Being. How I live and engage with God is how I worship.

For more information on God as the Ground of Being, see Rob Bell's excellent conversation with Peter Rollins on this subject.