Deconstructing Doctrines

Deconstruction

Many of you realize that I used to be a member of The Salvation Army. I was not only a member (soldier), but also an officer (clergy). I grew up in The Salvation Army. Some people balk at the idea of The Salvation Army being a Christian denomination, but I thought that was and is one of the Army's strengths:  It is not always recognized as a religious denomination. In that way, they can practically help those in need.

Myself as a Salvation Army officer at my parents' retirement

Unfortunately, The Salvation Army and I had to part ways. Due to my divorce and my outspokenness for LGBT inclusion, I could never be an officer again. I even had to fight to be accepted as a member of my local congregation. This was just another example for me of no longer being welcome.

There is some bitterness there:  That part of your life is suddenly gone and you are rejected simply because of what you believe. It leaves a hole that needs to be filled.

What I had discovered was that there is no safe space within The Salvation Army to explore one's faith and to even question and doubt what one believes. I have come to learn that doubt is an integral part of our faith's journey. There is this wonderful quote by Anne Lamott in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.

Expressing and living with doubt is a difficult thing to do. Most humans like to live in a dualistic world:  Right and Wrong. Left and Right. Conservative and Liberal. What if there is more than one correct answer, or even no right answer?

Could we live in that tension of not knowing for certain?

To me, that is faith.

Because of this:  I am giving myself the freedom I was denied to do so as a soldier and certainly as an officer:  I will question and examine the 11 Doctrines of Faith that they maintain. I don't know how this will end up, but this journey is for me.

You may ask, "Timothy, if you belong to another church now, why not just leave this behind?" This is me leaving it behind. It is for me to examine what I thought I believed and never questioned.

The Doctrines

The Salvation Army has 11 Doctrines of Faith that they have not changed since they were first written in 1878. They do revisit the interpretation of these doctrines, writing a "Handbook of Doctrine," periodically.

All members of The Salvation Army affirm that they believes these doctrines. This does produce a wonderful sense of uniformity and conformity. If you believe the same as the other person, there is a tremendous sense of harmony. I knew going from one congregation to the next that I believed the same as most everyone there.

The problem comes in when someone begins to question and have doubts.

I won't be going over all 11 doctrines in this post. That would make for a very long post indeed! Instead, I will go over the very first doctrine.

Doctrine One

We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God and that they only constitute the divine rule of Christian faith and practice.

This doctrine establishes the foundation for the beliefs of The Salvation Army. At face value, this seems really innocuous.  Its in the interpretation that one begins to have problems.

The Salvation Army uses only the Protestant Old and New Testament Scriptures as the basis of their beliefs, ignoring and sometimes demeaning the other books of the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles as being less than inspired.

But what is "inspiration?" To me, it meant that God is the Muse of the authors of the Bible. However, it typically means among more conservative elements that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, which means without error or being able to cause error. I have seen heated arguments over the nuances between these two words.

I have known many Christians who call the Bible the "Word of God," when Scripture never refers to itself in this way. For these Christians, the Bible becomes more than religious writings. It becomes God itself.

There is only one true Word of God:  Jesus.

As the Orthodox priest, Brad Jersak, likes to say:

It is sufficient to say that the Bible is full of errors and contradictions. Matthew's Gospel states that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, but Luke's Gospel states that he was born when Quirinius was governor of Syria.  Which is it? It can't be both. Herod died about 4 BC and Quirinius wasn't governor of Syria until about 6 AD, a time difference of 10 years. Mark and John don't even care about the birth of Jesus. It wasn't important in their narratives.

For goodness' sake! Mark doesn't even record a resurrection of Jesus, just an empty tomb! (Some scribe decided to add several verses to Mark's Gospel, including snake handling.)

Despite this, there is no archeological evidence for a worldwide flood. Any Young Earth Creationist who tries to bring "evidence" to this, is roundly criticized because their "evidence" never stands up to scrutiny.

There is no evidence of a mass exodus of slaves from Egypt. There is no evidence of Jericho being destroyed at the time of Joshua. There is no evidence of Esther actually being a queen to Xerxes in Persian documents.

The Bible is certainly not inerrant. Any attempts to somehow explain these inconsistencies in the Bible is just sophistry.

If one's faith is built upon the concept that the Bible is without error, one's faith quickly crumbles when presented with the actual facts, if one is willing to actually confront those facts.

What I realized, though, was that I had actually been taught this in my conservative Christian College of Asbury. It had shook the foundations of my faith then. What I did was simply ignore it and went on. I think many Christians do this. It is so hard to change your worldview once it has been set.

The Bible itself is not what we sometimes make it out to be. For example, Moses certainly didn't write the first 5 books of the Bible. If anything, they were compiled by various scholars during the Babylonian exile, which is why one has 2 creation stories and 2 flood stories in Genesis

Paul did not write all of his letters. At the most, he wrote 7 (Galatians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Corinthians). The others differ radically in theological concept and were most likely written in tribute to Paul, which was a very common practice in the Ancient World.

What do I do then?

Some people, when confronted with this either reject the Bible altogether or ignore the evidence. I didn't want to do either.

If the Bible is neither inerrant nor infallible, what then? I certainly don't believe any longer that "they alone constitute the divine rule of Christian faith and practice." The worship and faith of Christians isn't limited to what is described in the Bible.

What do I believe then? My doctrine would be:

I believe that the Bible was early humans' attempt at understanding and interacting with the Divine.

When I view it that way, then I understand more about why God was portrayed differently in different portions of the Bible.  "God hates foreigners" in Ezra.  "God loves foreigners" in Ruth. "There is no difference between men and women" in Galatians. "Women are lesser than men" in 1 Timothy.

It also helps me come to terms with my own faith. Faith is dynamic. Faith changes with life circumstances. Faith encompasses doubt, joy, uncertainty, and fulfillment.

I am fairly confident that my faith will once again morph as my life progresses. That is a good thing. It means that I am growing spiritually.

My hope and prayer is that you will also not be afraid to explore your doubts and questions and that you will have the courage to question what you believe.