Sea & Islands Post 1

Island 1

Forest Gardens or Victorian Horticulture

Orthodox Belief & the Awkward Question

Everybody is wearing cultural glasses: the problem is that some don't know it

At the somewhat tender age of fourteen and a half I raised my hand during an altar call in a small Pentecostal church in Manchester, England. I hadn’t had a great deal of church experience before this and was struck by both the passion of the preacher, Terry Hanford, and the kindness of the congregation.

In the following few years I was handed a gospel that was well-defined by years of evangelicalism. We knew who was ‘in’ and we knew who was ‘out’. Our mission was to encourage as many people as possible to join us. The church had a list of Fundamental Truths that included things that would later be deemed less fundamental than had previously been thought. Even so, there were some areas viewed as non-negotiable when it came to both theology and practice.

It wasn’t long before I began, with others, to raise questions and although the leaders were kind, they could often only respond by reaffirming the commonly held beliefs of the denomination. I remain grateful to them for trying to respond with kindness, but recognise that they too were caught in a construct that confined them.

During the following four decades my wife, Beverley, and I have continued to ask awkward questions whilst attempting to remain actively involved in church.

Four daughters and three grandchildren later we have found a few answers but we still have many questions that I suspect would make many evangelical leaders feel uncomfortable. I am sure, however, that most of these leaders will have churches full of people asking similar questions to the ones that we continue to wrestle with. Such questions are often silenced under the pressure experienced by the need to feel accepted; very few people want to appear to be troublemakers.

Indeed, I have noticed a trend over recent years when engaging with the Christian blogosphere; it seems that some quarters find it all too easy to shout 'heretic' at even the slightest suggestion that any of the firmly held evangelical beliefs might be open to interpretation.

This is nothing new of course; the ‘H’ word has been used in all kinds of situations to silence dissenting voices, in order that those in power might feel safe in their particular sphere of influence. It is interesting to note that originally the word 'heretic' was used to describe a person who was a free-thinker; as such the opposite must surely be to have one's thinking confined. Thankfully today we are more likely to be roasted on the Internet than burnt at the stake.

It seems that some are afraid of the very idea of questioning current interpretations of orthodoxy, as if God might be offended by our need to understand.

In this regard a watching world would be forgiven for thinking that the creator of the universe is a little insecure if he requires his honour to be defended in such a way. Surely questioning is as much a part of the faith journey as any other spiritual discipline and yet you will be hard pushed to find it encouraged in certain sections of the church.

We would do well to take our lead from the incarnation; this moment when God took the unfathomable risk of becoming human. In this act we see how full commitment to the idea of ‘becoming’ can have eternal consequences.

It is surely necessary that the church, as Christ’s body, should have the same desire to ‘become’ what it needs to be in every generation and to every tribe.

The very notion that the church should look exactly the same in every context seems to ignore the incarnational motif. By definition there needs to be difference: there needs to be change.

For this to happen questions need to be asked; at times the kind of questions that risk the use of the ‘H’ word. It is my belief that in this regard the search for orthodoxy is perhaps subservient to the need for Evangelical Morphodoxy.