An allegiance based faith

October 12, 2007 on 7:58 pm | In Faith |

I’ve been thinking a bit about faith formation recently, with particular reference to The Parable of the Sower. I’m wondering - to what extent is a dogmatic allegiance to “being a Christian” or “belonging to a church” actually legitimate faith? How do we know which of the quadrants in the parable that we’re sitting in? Is that even the point of Jesus’ story in the first place?

It seems to me that a black-and-white faith which puts people in boxes and condemns them to hell, isn’t a particularly productive platform for someone who claims to have a Christ-like worldview. Interestingly enough, being black-and-white is one of the hallmarks of adolescent logic. It opens up some interesting questions surrounding what faith is, what faith isn’t, who has it, who doesn’t have it, who thinks they have it, and the range of other permutations combining those options.

Have a read of the articles linked below. They sparked the original thought process.

http://www.slate.com/id/2175640/?gt1=10538

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2007/10/04/christianity/?source=whitelist

14 Comments

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  1. Hey Paul…

    I see some of this question reminds me of one of my favourite questions:

    Is nationalism good patriotism, or bad humanity?

    If the guy who got pinned by his arm in colorado had loved his arm too much, he would never have chopped it off… and he would have died.

    When does alliegance to the arm subvert allegiance to the body?

    When does our loyalty to church and faith become spite to our humanity?

    I reckon Jesus came for all humanity, and that’s enough to make the point for me. If I ever have to make the choice, I will always cut the church to save the world.

    Comment by Tim — October 15, 2007 #

  2. Strangely enough, on the odd occasion when I stand up to the church on behalf of the world, I don’t find myself terribly popular.

    How could this be?

    Comment by Tim — October 15, 2007 #

  3. Tim, church bashing can be as easy to do as defending it. The real challenge is to not make a choice based on allegiance at all - whether to the church or to the world, but to instead be willing to look for the truth in any situation. Given a choice between cutting the church and cutting the world, I’d like to think I might put my knife away.

    Comment by Geoff — October 15, 2007 #

  4. Yes but if you’re hanging by your arm in the mountains hours away from help and you drop the knife, you don’t end up nice, you end up dead.

    While some situations may provide a comfortable nice, gentlemanly middle ground, others do not. You don’t find out what a teabag really tastes like until you put it in hot water.

    The reality is that the church’s purpose on earth is to reach the world… and any so called church that starts to try and judge the world instead of serving it, on any consistant level, is no longer really “church” at all… its just another elitist social club.

    Sometimes evil prevails when good men do nothing, and doing nothing simply because you were trying to be ‘nice’ is still doing nothing.

    I also recal a certain story where Jesus may or may not have kicked over some tables. I don’t think what I’m trying to say is particularly new or unprecedented.

    Comment by Tim — October 16, 2007 #

  5. Plus, why would you even add that kind of rhetoric to a hypothetical Geoff? Basically you just told me that given a choice between apples and oranges, where there are only apples and oranges, you would choose a pineaple.

    Actually I think its that kind of flimsy illogic that makes us imagine we can walk a nice peaceful line between truth and lie, just so no one gets upset. It’s a bit like saying your against capital punishment on principle… as long as everyone’s okay with that, and not including those bali guys because that might be embarrassing.

    The meek will inherit the earth, but the piss-weak will just be buried in it.

    Comment by Tim — October 16, 2007 #

  6. P.S sorry to get a bit feisty on here Paul… it was Geoff… he made me do it.

    plus I do actually agree with what Geoff says about looking for the truth in a situation… which essentailly comes down to basing your actions on specific values rather than on individual organisations…

    but sometimes values still lead us to have to make difficult choices about the way we respond to organisations, institutions and groups who are requesting our allegiance and conformity.

    So let me rephrase my original statement. If the church asks me to mistreat, judge, or discriminate against general humanity, then I will stand by my values rather than being conformed to the church. If this becomes a matter of critical conjecture between the church and myself, I will (I hope) continue to stand up for what I believe. Should the occasion come where I am asked to choose between my church and my values, which I aim to base on my understanding of what is Godly and just, then I hope I will again choose to continue to stand by my values and not be conformed.

    I’m more than happy to engage in dialogue about what those values are… but without a rationale that adequately mandates a shift in values, I also will not shift.

    This is in fact what I meant, when I said if I had to choose between the world and the church I would cut the church. Commitment to values should stand above commitment to an institution.

    Does that make me valueist? Do I then judge others who don’t share my values? maybe… I’m not sure

    Comment by Tim — October 16, 2007 #

  7. Tim, I think I misread your analogy. I hadn’t worked out that “cutting the church” was analogous to the “cutting the arm”. Which was my mistake. All I was trying to say is that I don’t think that kicking the church because it’s so broken is a great resolution. Very John Lennon: “give peace a chance” style answer.

    But I’d appreciate it if you veered away from implying that I’m “piss-weak” because I disagree with you. That hardly fosters an environment for respectful discussion.

    Comment by Geoff — October 17, 2007 #

  8. I’m sorry Geoff. I guess the rhetoric that played out was reminiscent of some very disempowering teachings I encountered once upon a time in a galaxy far far away… and it pushed some buttons.

    I had an interesting chat with Paul last night… and it seems he and I have had a few similar experiences (although his sound far more intense!) in that regard. I have experienced situations where I had to either be assertive, or choose to live against my values… and I was told that I was a sinner and that I wasn’t submitting to authority when I chose the conviction of my values over the directive from the church.

    So when anyone tries to squash the voice of dissent, I get quite frustrated… because to me it’s the top of the slippery side into creating an ‘infalible’ leadership structure. Dissent is a reality of life and is always present. There’s no point crushing it, in fact its utterly dangerous to do so.

    It intruges me that you can comfortably tolerate someone being anti-richmond because you understand that there are different teams… and that you are evem comfortable in saying your team played a crap game if you feel they did… but when it comes to church, the same kind of reflective comments seem (unless I’m misunderstanding things) to really upset you.

    I’m sure I’ve missed something… or maybe a few things… because I really don’t understand how it works… and I’m like homer with the electric donut. Everytime it happens I get shocked again and it pushes my buttons. You’d think I’d learn.

    Comment by Tim — October 18, 2007 #

  9. Tim, all I said (or at least was trying to say) can be encapsulated in two statements.

    1. Don’t automatically choose to bash the church out of preference over the world but make a choice based on understanding rather than allegiance.

    2. Statement 1 doesn’t make it OK for you to call me piss-weak.

    I’m comfortable with both those statements, and I don’t think that they are necessarily there to “squash dissent”, nor do they lead into a slippery slide towards creating an infallible leadership structure. At least I don’t think they do.

    I’m a lot more upset about the slight on my character than I am on your “reflective comments”. I’d like to think that I’ve offered “reflective comments”, and that maybe you could take a trip down from the moral high ground. That’s all

    Comment by Geoff — October 18, 2007 #

  10. I’m sorry, Piss Weak was uncalled for.

    In reference to your statement #1… I think that goes without saying, and I’m not sure why you feel the need to tell me not to “automatically choose to bash the church” I don’t believe I bash the church at all. We are both equally guilty of taking the high moral ground on this issue.

    What I do do, is speak frankly about my issues with the church, just as freely as I speak about the things I value about the church. For me to do anything less would feel dishonest.

    What I find most confusing is that I made a comment about my values on Paul’s blog, and you felt the need to tell me that my values are wrong and need changing. Apart from being clear evidence that you aren’t piss weak, its also a tiny bit intense… hence why it pushed my buttons. If I had commented on your blog, it might have been a little different.

    Comment by Tim — October 23, 2007 #

  11. p.s. paul is there a reason why your wordpress removes line breaks?

    Comment by Tim — October 23, 2007 #

  12. No idea about the line breaks. It doesn’t bother me enough to try to change it though.

    As for challenging Geoff on his own blog… I do it all the time and he’s never deleted any of my sledges - many of which have been deliberately crafted to stir him up. You effectively just called him piss-weak again Tim.

    Fortunately for you, Geoff doesn’t share my willingness to smite those who get up my nose… so you’ll probably get away with it.

    Comment by Paul — October 23, 2007 #

  13. Tim, I hadn’t meant to say “your values are wrong and need changing”. I don’t think that’s how my comments read, but I can see that I wasn’t as clear a I’d like. All I saw was a very black and white answer of “If I ever have to make the choice, I will always cut the church to save the world”, and tried to suggest that I didn’t see the situation as being as clear cut as that. I’ll have a go at making sure I’m not saying “you’re wrong change” when I’m trying to say “I disagree”.

    Comment by Geoff — October 23, 2007 #

  14. I’ve had enough of this guys. If you want to keep it up, take it somewhere else.

    Comment by Paul — October 23, 2007 #

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