As surely expected the Uniting Church in Australia has passed resolution 108 which really just confirms resolution 84 about the ordination of gay clergy. Now since I'm kind of going to a Uniting church I thought I'd chuck in my two cents. Firstly, I'm a bit perplexed by the Confessing Charter put out by EMU and the Reforming Alliance which I'm guessing will become the Assembly of Confessing Congregations (or perhaps they could form a fourth group? he he). Issues of sexuality aside I find it interesting that almost everything in the charter is something that, I think, most Mainline or Liberal (MoL) Xns would agree with. The charter amongst other things calls for the church to determine doctrine according to the teachings of scripture and to be orthodox for example. I'd say most MoL Xns think they are doing this certainly some evangelicals don't concur with their conclusions, but it doesn't mean they haven't used the same process.
This is interesting because I think one of the things that has changed from over the last few generations is the way that Xns are happy to play with and be flexible with theology. It seems that older Protestants (particularly anyone of a more evangelical persuasion) used to play around with Liturgy and worship and agree on theology. Now whilst we still play around with Liturgy we are playing more with theology. We are happy to let our theology be somewhat fluid acknowledging that we have different ideas and that can be ok. This is one of the reasons why people find it so hard to pin down the emerging church, and one of the reasons why when someone is touted as a theological spokesperson for the emerging church most of the emerging church will not feel like that person is a spokesperson for them.
So for mainline or emerging churches what are we to do? Whilst thinking about this I stumbled across an old post I read whilst lurking on another church's e-group, I've adapted and added to that below. To come up with a Postmodern Church Creed of sorts...
As a church we aim to follow Christ but we take no position on anything, but leave all positions up to the individual members of the church. Individuals are free to be liberal, fundamentalist, evolutionists, creationists, sexually liberal, or conservative. We continue to love one another, and to fellowship, despite the differences of opinion. For reasons of practicality we may have to come to a consensus on some issues like what time church starts. We may even have a consensus about other more esoteric issues. But, these are not authoritative positions they are just a consensus or perhaps, at worst, a majority voted position.
This is not an embracing of pluralism or relative truth it is simply acknowledging that God is our authority and that God does not give us a new set of instructions every time a new dilemma presents itslef. Instead we have a history of God interacting with the world (the Bible), we have the spirit and we have a our collective experiences of God. Putting all this together can give messy and not unanimous results. We need to embrace this. Disagreeing is fine breaking union with each other is something far more drastic all together.
This is interesting because I think one of the things that has changed from over the last few generations is the way that Xns are happy to play with and be flexible with theology. It seems that older Protestants (particularly anyone of a more evangelical persuasion) used to play around with Liturgy and worship and agree on theology. Now whilst we still play around with Liturgy we are playing more with theology. We are happy to let our theology be somewhat fluid acknowledging that we have different ideas and that can be ok. This is one of the reasons why people find it so hard to pin down the emerging church, and one of the reasons why when someone is touted as a theological spokesperson for the emerging church most of the emerging church will not feel like that person is a spokesperson for them.
So for mainline or emerging churches what are we to do? Whilst thinking about this I stumbled across an old post I read whilst lurking on another church's e-group, I've adapted and added to that below. To come up with a Postmodern Church Creed of sorts...
As a church we aim to follow Christ but we take no position on anything, but leave all positions up to the individual members of the church. Individuals are free to be liberal, fundamentalist, evolutionists, creationists, sexually liberal, or conservative. We continue to love one another, and to fellowship, despite the differences of opinion. For reasons of practicality we may have to come to a consensus on some issues like what time church starts. We may even have a consensus about other more esoteric issues. But, these are not authoritative positions they are just a consensus or perhaps, at worst, a majority voted position.
This is not an embracing of pluralism or relative truth it is simply acknowledging that God is our authority and that God does not give us a new set of instructions every time a new dilemma presents itslef. Instead we have a history of God interacting with the world (the Bible), we have the spirit and we have a our collective experiences of God. Putting all this together can give messy and not unanimous results. We need to embrace this. Disagreeing is fine breaking union with each other is something far more drastic all together.
3 comments:
This is unfortunately a criticism from someone that doesn't have a better answer - but I struggle to reconcile saying that we "take no position on anything" with the methodology of Christ, and the early church. Should we really never have a collective agreement on theology just because people might end up in different places. It just seems to me that to accept that we can't ever agree on anything other than the vague direction of following Christ is a fairly defeatist approach.
But I'm not sure that I have better answers. I just don't really like this one.
Hello Geoff,
Fair enough, the post was a bit of an off the top of my head stab at resolving a complex issue. When I said "take no position on anything" I think I was probably saying something more like the church doesn't say "this is God's definitive view on X". For me it's about acknowledging that we put our own spin on how read the Bible or understand God. So, anything we say collectively has weight because it’s something that we all agree on or that even a majority of us agree on, and it’s worth having stands on those things and acting on them. It’s also valid for an individual to act according to there conscious on something that all other Xns disagree with. What’s important for either case is to admit that we are not the authority on what God thinks we try our very best to understand what God is on about and take a stand and act as a result.
Does that clear things up?
Thanks for commenting - and teen girl squad rocks!
Yeah, sorry Chris - I pretty much took the quote out of its context. And there's no doubt that churches (and especially church-goers) can fall into the "this is what we say so that comes directly from God". I think that the approach in your comment pretty much hits it on the head.
Keep up the good work - I'm loving being challenged by what you have to say - especially when my "learned instinct" is to disagree
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