Systems Are Not Intimate
*This particular post is not intended to be exhaustive or dogmatic. Rather, it is written in a spirit of external processing, and it is intended to invite good honest, dialogue. If you have some thoughts – for or against – I would love to hear them. Let’s be kind and courteous in our comments. Let’s contribute to the thinking, rather than trying to destroy. Thank you.
Years ago it was suggested that I be ordained. The ordination was primarily a test about my beliefs. The council wanted me to write a systematic, propositional, paper, and then hang out with a bunch of pastors who would ask me questions about the paper. This time spent with those who would question me was called a “defense.”
Basically ordination was a small group of theologically astute individuals quizzing me to see if my theology aligned closely enough with their particular viewpoints.
I agreed on one condition. As I understood (and still understand) the purpose of ordination, it is a time for the Church to affirm the call that one has on his or her life to vocational ministry. With this understanding, I though just knowing what I was able to write and defend fell short of the intent of ordination. So I made a request.
I asked that the church appoint a team of three men and three women to me and my family for one year to investigate me. I asked that they be in my home, talk to my closest friends, ask my kids what kind of Dad I am, interview my wife, spend time with me, and examine my heart. If they were willing to do this, then I would write the paper. However, I told them that after such an examination they may not need me to write anything because they will have a firm grasp on what I really believe – they would know what I know. If I was to be affirmed for vocational ministry, I wanted my life to be affirmed, not just my thoughts on God.
I was asked three times to be ordained. My response was always the same. Each time I was turned down. It seemed the council, in the case of ordination, was more interested in a paper and a defense than a life.
The attitude behind this is what is concerning. Many want the “right” answers, and by comparison could care less about the person and the life giving the answers. You may think this is not true, but have ever wondered why, if the church has the “right” answers, so many leave?
It is rare that I speak with someone who has walked away from the church because they disagree theologically. Nine out of ten times it is because of the way someone was treated, legalism, or the biggest reason “hypocrisy.” People constantly speak about a person who spoke one way and acted another way.
Why are there so many people who hide their life’s crap from the Church – who is supposed to be a conduit of grace? Why do so many hide behind being the “good kid”? Because intuitive in many who have been around the religious culture for a while is the knowledge that if we look the part, speak the part, and can spout the right words we are considered to be fine. Few want to venture beyond that anyway. Because if you do then the same may be demanded of you.
For years we have built much of our “belief” or “faith” from static propositional statements. We seek to defend our system through logic and/or reason. Much of our belief, then, is a simple mental ascent to a system. When we are able to articulate the “why” and the “what” of this system well enough then one might say, “that person knows what she believes.” This way of thinking and believing is what many are taught.
Then one day there is an encounter with another person who knows more and is more certain of his belief. They clash in a war of reason and logic, and the stronger argument prevails.
This is the kind of thing we see quite often when a young person goes off to a state university and is challenged in their collection of propositional beliefs. When A + B is shown to not necessarily equal C it can be quite earth shattering – especially when the foundation of belief has been built upon C as the singular answer to A + B.
Maybe the problem is not the state universities, but more so the way we have approached belief. When our belief is reduced to static propositions we lose much. When our belief is in a system we lose more. God is not a propositional statement or a dogma. He is a being. You are a being. Beings are those who engage in a relationship of knowing and being known – this is anything but logical.
It is knowing that speaks of intimacy.
It is ripping open your insides and letting God and others have a look. It is being real about your foibles, brokenness, wounds, sinfulness, and rejoicing in God’s grace, mercy, healing, and hope. Intimacy is when we stop pretending to be that or that and live out of who we truly are. It is living more fully in the identity that God has given to you. It is diving headfirst with wild, reckless abandon into God’s all consuming love, and drowning in it.
Intimacy is much more daunting and scary than calculated systematic thinking. Perhaps this is why we have fallen to the latter, it is just easier to stay there. Maybe this is the wide road.