A thought from something I read on the deer stand this morning. It's from Donald Miller who was writing about the faith of his youth . . .
I didn't have a relationship with God; I had a relationship with a system of simple ideas, certain prejudices, and a feeling that I and the people who thought as I thought were right.
That resonated with me. It sounds something like the faith of my youth. I feel like it wasn't a relationship with God as much as a relationship with my church. Or more specifically, the church (which was naturally composed of those who agreed with my church). My faith was grounded in 5 steps or 5 acts or 3 points or whatever other formula was being taught at the time.
Speaking of which (for those who grew up COC), do you remember the old "Way of Salvation" Bibles? They were paperback with red notes at the bottom of certain pages which revealed the plan of salvation. They said "turn to pg 85 and read verse 1-2, now turn to pg 107 and read verse 46, now turn to pg 33" and so on. It took you on this back and forth journey through numerous books and verse references. Kind of like piecing together the clues from a kid's spy novel. Question. If that's the plan, than why didn't God put it in the right order to begin with? Why is one step in Romans, another in Acts, and another in John? What did the early converts do without those special "Way of Salvation" Bibles and evangelistic tracts?
You see, that's the problem with "formulas" or "plans" or "steps" or whatever you want to call them. They don't fit. They may be true and concise and easy to remember, but they don't fit. When you read the Bible you discover that it doesn't present its truth in bullet points and step-by-step plans. It presents its truth in stories and letters and parables and people's encounters with God. Why do we feel the urge to reduce all of that to a formula/plan/step when God himself didn't feel that urge? Do we fear that the Bible alone isn't enough? Are we afraid that people might leave something important out if we just let them read the Word and discover the truths on their own?
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Problem with Formulas
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3 comments:
Fear was not the issue with teaching our young in the way you described. Rather, the issue was tradition and doing what we as parents had been shown.
Reducing the knowledge to a simple formula or "steps to salvation" was simply a way of teaching. Perhaps the wrong way but the way at the time.
The problem with that method was we did not teach our children to think for themselves or find their own faith. We taught as if IT WAS THE ONLY WAY to find the truth.
Hopefully, as parents of your generation we were able to instill more than formula's by our examples not just what we taught in Church.
Neither fear or tradition is the answer to teaching our children. Hopefully, examples, family and community will play a big role in our Church's teaching methods. This generation of children are learning to think and act for themselves. They will discover their faith much sooner than yours and that is a good thing.
Wow, Russ, I have wondered a lot of this myself. Why do a lot of people feel the need to reduce the MIGHTY perfect word of God to a formula or a "map"? And I often wonder what some of today's church leaders would do, if transported back to the first century to minister to those early Christians with nothing but sandals, a robe, and a bible.
That very haunting question, "Do we fear the Bible is not enough?", I believe, haunts COCs the world over. And other congregations too. In attempts to draw closer to God the Spirit is quenched and even silenced. Without acknowledging the Spirit the Lord sent to us to dwell in us and among us, how can we ever do His will and serve him? If we are to be lead by the Spirit where is He today?
God's ways are so far beyond us. I think the formula is just our feeble attempt to grasp it. It may be rooted in a lack of faith for some people. Mostly I think that it way just an attempt to simplify the bible. The 56 books can be daunting especially for someone new to studying. These tracts may be an attempt to distill the meat if you will before someone gets scared away by the gerth of the word. A cliff notes if you will. But as you know with cliff notes you should still read the whole book to get the whole message. At the very least tracts of study should be the starting point not the end. Or there is the more sinister veiw that the formulas or tracts were designed to promote a brand of doctrine. I would like to believe the prior just to give our fathers the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless if it was the later I'm believe it was done with good intentions.
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