Welcome back to our road trip, our journey of discovery investigating my theory…

“Christian theology is not particularly difficult to understand.  Its precepts and premises are fairly simple, it was given to “regular” guys to share with the world, and they did it.  Yes, of course they had a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, but then so do we. Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth and reaching out, because they are counter-intuitive, and the fact that they are counter-intuitive is exactly the point of all things being new, for our human intuition isn’t new, it’s the old thing that Jesus died to free us from.”

Yesterday was “easy day” in which we looked at things relating to Christian teachings and saw that at their root, they (Christian theology) are really very simple.  We have arrived at the place where things are made difficult and complicated, and with any luck, and good Lord willing, we’ll un-complicate to a certain extent.  This is a more difficult post to write, hopefully I won’t mess it up too much!

Yet we love to argue, follow tradition and form to avoid spiritual growth…

OK, I think that is enough of a job for one top, so let’s focus on this part…  As we move forward in our fait, we inevitably run into a brick wall.  That wall is the place where we first encounter the counter-intuive aspect of following Jesus.  In the theory, I labeled it loosely as “spiritual growth.” We may not like to set self aside to follow Jesus.  We might have goals and ambitions and pride that get in the way; what can we do?  Usually, we adjust our premises to make things OK.  Here’s an historical example of this:

Once upon a time there was an emperor in Rome named Constantine.  For various reasons, He is supposed to have made God a promise that if God would help him in a certain desperate conflict, he would become a Christian. (This is the “quick” version)  Constantine’s side was victorious and then the emperor issued a decree accepting Christianity as an approved state religion.  Eventually, it became quite trendy in society and shifted to the only approved religion: It became the Official State Religion and all others were banned.  That means that a crime against the State is a crime against the Church, and a crime against the Church is a crime against the State. Well, as you might imagine, this had far-reaching consequences for the government, and far-reaching implications for theologians.  The New Covenant has no particular imperative or priority as to government, the “State.”  Yet there they were with a royal edict to conform theology to the requirements of a theocratic government.

But they found a way to get it done!

Though the New Covenant makes us citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, with little particular emphasis on earthly government other than to keep out of trouble and respect those in charge, the Old Covenant created a theocratic State, the Kingdom of Israel.  In its 613 laws, the Old Covenant (Law of Moses) contained the entire civil code of a Nation.  So, even though the Old Covenant had been entirely fulfilled by Christ and was no longer in force, various aspects were brought into the New Covenant so that the Roman government could be harmonized with its official religion.  This was done by adjusting the premises of Christian theology, on particular the distinction between covenants.

Since then, “Christendom” has had nothing but strife.

Here’s a modern example.  In our time, various Christian groups will protest, yell and complain about various laws.  Let’s say drug laws, or the loosening of some of them for example.  It is easier for us to “stand up for our beliefs” and get a bunch of people to demonstrate in favor of passing a tougher drug law than it is to get the same number of people to reach out to drug addicts and help them change their lives to follow Jesus Christ.  Why?  There aren’t any political demonstrations in the New Testament, but there’s a great deal of reaching out in love, so why would we rather condemn someone and demand political action instead of reaching out in love to messy and broken people?

It’s a simple answer, isn’t it?  Reaching out is counter-intuitive, messy, scary.  A demonstration is a couple of hours blocked in your day timer.  How can we justify this?  By changing the premises of our simple theology so as to convince ourselves that following Christ has something to do with our being able to condemn the sins of others.

Jesus is rather famous for teaching the opposite.

Am I suggesting by this example that we abandon morality?  Of course not, far from it!  I’m saying that the highest form of morality is to love God and love your neighbor, and that condemnation is God’s job, while our job is making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Simple, yet challenging and counter to our natural human inclination. Of course there are other complications as well, like our traditions, ceremonies and all of the things our churches do because it’s the way we’ve always done it…TWWADI.

I think TWWADI is at our next stop…