Sometimes Certainty is the Greatest Sin of All

One of the more offensive beliefs espoused by western evangelicalism (and there are many) is the notion that all expressions of the Christian faith preceding it - Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Reformed, et al - were in such gross and debauched error as to render them outside the familial participation of Jesus Christ and indeed worshippers of ‘another Jesus’ altogether.  They espouse this without really considering the ramifications of what they are saying. 

If these traditional veins are indeed disconnected from the one true Vine of the church, that would mean that the assembled family of God was absent from the earth for over a thousand years.  Taking it a step further in logical progression, it would be asserting that all of the voices informing our current understanding of the nature of God and His Church are irrelevant as why would we rely on those worshipping ‘another Jesus’ for guidance of any kind?! 

So that would mean…

  1. The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement which evangelicalism holds most dear must be rejected because it originated with Luther, a devotee of liturgy, vestments, and the burning of incense. 

  1. The doctrine of original sin and man’s exclusion from the presence of God that they say necessitates the saying of magic words (I’m looking at you, ‘Sinners Prayer’) originates with St. Augustine, the most catholic Catholic who ever practiced Catholicism. Better scrap that one too. 

  1. Calling the section at the front of the church building an ‘altar’ only came about after the Romanization of Christianity after the conversion of Constantine when the church reincorporated Jewish offices and practices back into the fray (ie priests, altars, priestly robes, etc.)

Now admittedly, I would be thrilled to see all three of these beliefs discarded for the lies they are. But my point is to merely draw the reader’s attention to the inconsistencies found here. You cannot adopt the practices and formations of a preceding era as valid and then, simultaneously, denounce those who provided you with those practices as outside the faith or worshipping ‘another Jesus’. 

No. Stop it. 

There is but one Jesus who has always been understood through the prism of experience, tradition, and personal revelation. Even the 12 disciples didn’t see or understand Him the same way, bickering about these differences through much of the book of Acts. And yet we don’t encounter Peter denying Paul’s self-identification as a follower of The Way. Nor when Paul and Barnabas part ways over a major disagreement do we see them even hint that the other is worshipping ‘another Jesus’. Paul went his way and Barbanas went his…but both went ‘in Jesus’. 

What they realized, and which my prayer is we today would discovery, is that we can disagree, argue, and theorize with one another and nonetheless hold to the belief that we are SIBLINGS on a SHARED JOURNEY of awakening to all that He is. All that came before informs all that is today; the good, bad, ugly…and the beautiful. 

Let’s not forget that sometimes certainty can be the greatest sin of all. 


 

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