On a recent Sunday I visited (it was just me; Alice was away on a work trip) a new church. On its website, it looked pretty good. Its statement of faith looked like it majored on the important Christian truths without veering off into small side-ditches.
So I went. When the pastor got up to preach, he spoke nonstop, rapid-fire, for about an hour and fifteen minutes. His content came from a Calvinist perspective–which was definitely not my theological point of view. I think the church website should have been more forthcoming about the theological tradition they operated from.
The experience reaffirmed that I come from a certain theological tradition.
These days, many people wonder why you should have a ‘theological tradition’ at all–why can’t we just be Christian? I understand the question and sympathize with it. I remember some people at the non-denominational I pastored in Vietnam not wanting any of those denominational labels. I used to like to say that our church’s statement of faith there was “narrow enough to be Christian, but broad enough to include different traditions within orthodox Christian belief.”
However, I think we should admit that we all come from somewhere, that we do indeed have a tradition, or belief system.
I think there are the ‘big three’ belief systems within Protestantism, three big camps. This is not scientific but is how I see it.
The first, already mentioned, is Calvinism, named after John Calvin, also known as the Reformed Movement. This is the biggest group. I seem to encounter it everywhere. It’s so big it’s almost unavoidable. It seems to have captured most of the market share of the religious books and media. It emphasizes God’s sovereignty and the spiritual deadness of human beings in their natural state. This necessitates (in their view) God having to make the decision about whether we, as individuals, are saved or not. God chooses who will be saved and who won’t–this is their version of predestination. I can’t accept that because I read in the scripture of God reaching out to all and wanting all to be saved. Still, Calvinists are Trinitarian and believe in the basic truth of orthodox Christianity, so I can have fellowship with them.
The second-biggest group is the charismatic movement. These include the Pentecostals, the Assembly of God denomination, and many independent churches. They emphasize spiritual gifts, especially speaking in tongues. The growth of this movement has been remarkable over the last century. I can’t say I agree with everything this movement emphasizes, but we agree on the basic truth of Christianity, so I can fellowship with them too.
The third group, which is the smallest, is my own: Wesleyan-Arminianism. I know, that’s a lot of syllables, but it reflects the theological contributions of James Arminius and John Wesley. Arminius was a Dutch pastor and professor who lived 450 years ago. About 130 years after him John Wesley, in England, picked up on Arminius’ contributions and expanded on them. This movement emphasizes the love and holiness of God, the necessity of making a personal choice for God, all the while acknowledging God’s sovereignty and the reality of sin. This biggest movement that came out of this is Methodism. I like to say that it is Methodism without the liberalism.
My own church, the Church of the Nazarene, has its roots here.
Wesleyan-Arminian theology is my home. It is the best theology on the market.
Now why would I say a thing like “the best theology on the market”? Because no theology is perfect.
Theology is different from the Bible, which comes from God and is infallible. The Bible is higher than theology because it is revelation–God revealing Himself to man. Theology is a notch lower than the Bible.
Theology comes from the two Greek words: theos (God) and logos (talk, or reasoned discourse). Literally, it means “God-talk” or “Talk about the things of God” or “A reasoned discourse about the things of God.” Human beings are the ones doing the theology, and human being can make mistakes. They can be wrong. They can have biases. Some can have an agenda. In our recent move, I’ve had to do some sifting of my books, most of which are related to pastoring. Some were very helpful. Some, not so much–I threw some out. Theology, and religious traditions, can have errors and fall short.
But that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed. Though you have to sift and test it, it can still be helpful. Theology–those things said about God by other human beings–can help us to process the overwhelming amount of truth. The Bible has about 1,100 chapters. Some things in it are hard to understand. There are also doctrines: sin, grace, forgiveness, sanctification, the sacraments and the end times. People before us have done some thinking and some writing about these things. Reading their words can be helpful.
We should find the tradition that fits (assuming it is within the bounds of true Christianity). I’ve found mine. It was not an easy road, but I eventually found it and owned it. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would choose another tradition…but sometimes they do! And that leaves me with one more thing to say.
When we have found our tradition, we should be generous with others who take another point of view. There is a story where the disciples were less than generous and Jesus corrected them (Mark 9:38-40): “Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.”
Jesus knows that His followers might see the truth through different prisms; that’s okay. But He expects us to leave room for those others. We should be as generous as we can be with the other traditions. And hopefully they will be generous toward us. After all, we are worshipping the same Lord and going to the same heaven.
Our youngest son is working on his MBA at the University of North Carolina. About a month ago I went back to North Carolina to help him move from Raleigh-Durham to Charlotte where he is doing a summer internship. Our first Sunday there we visited a Baptist Church near his apartment. On the Saturday before we attended I got on the church’s website to look at their statement of beliefs. To my surprise I couldn’t find any. Being Baptist I figured they would be Calvinistic in their theology, believe in believers baptism and the autonomy of the local church. During the service the pastor made the comment that the church doesn’t have any statements of belief because they only cause division. He said instead they have chosen to focus on their unity in Christ. That statement bothered me and struck me as somewhat dishonest. How can we have true unity in Christ when you haven’t stated who Christ is and what makes him unique? It strikes me as someone who is afraid to offend someone by stating what they believe about Christ.