We're all heretics now...

Jason Clark has recently had three  (1, 2 & 3) excellent posts on his blog about heresy. 

This echoed a thought I had whilst thinking about the trinity - that to some extent we are all heretics. By that I mean if there is a plumb line called truth it is a line that is not static but that quivers from side to side – or maybe the line doesn’t move but our perception does.  Since none of possess the complete truth but live out our lives in relationship to The Truth – Jesus – it means that we are always in danger in our thinking in swinging too far one way one or another and be indeed to recentre our thinking and actions.

The question for then is not so much the questions we ask or struggle with but when have we gone too far in our thinking such that we loose something of the bigger/greater Truth.

One of the things that I really appreciated about reading some of the church fathers was the number who fell into heresy – in other words their thinking took them to a place where they had
an answer but had lost other answers as a result.  As far as I can tell when this happened it didn’t lead to a burning at the stake or ostracism but instead a process of communion where the
other Fathers would write letters, preach sermons and hold conversations where they would seek to highlight why this was a heresy – what was in danger of being lost that would make our faith poorer as a result.

Community challenge?

For me that brings home again how much we need to have open conversations with our theology and resulting practice – to be open as a community to each other to the prompting challenge of the Holy Spirit amongst ourselves, to peer review and to seek to learn from each other. 

I often do training events where we talk about the effects of implementing, sometimes very complex, accounting practice.  I find that at some point someone will put their hand up and say
“Excuse me, this is probably a pretty dumb question…” and then go on to ask one that is far from anything but dumb – like the little boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes on – we need each other to ask the questions that bubble up within us. 

It also makes me aware that we need to be aware of our history as a Christian community which has experienced 2,000+ years of this shared correction amongst each other  - many of the heretical positions I can move in to are not that particularly new and many of the course corrections that happen within the life of the church are people realising that they have moved into a heretical position and therefore compensate for it. 

For example, the emerging emphasis that Christianity is more than about getting souls into heaven, getting a better cloud or even more harp time before the celestial throne is in many ways a reaction to and the correction of the reappearance of a form of heresy - Gnosticism - in Christianity – that we are trapped by our human bodies and need to escape them and he world.

Of course in making the correction that instead of  focusing on souls escaping we need to focus on bodies/resurrection/material presence/life lived now etc we are in no doubt just as likely to overcompensate and find ourselves in need once again of making a correction back the other way.  So once we were about saving souls with the bodily/material secondary, now we may become body obsessed - seeing our mission as about saving bodies/material  [with souls becoming secondary].  Back and forth we'll bounce off the centre, like some form of crazy Newtonian cradle.

Practicing together?

This is not about some super spiritual heresy police but ordinary everyday Christians like you and I thinking well what does to believe this mean for me living out by faith?  What are the implications for the other doctrines I believe? Are we gaining more than we are loosing by holding this view? etc

So with that in mind I would like to invite you to share any of the questions that you might be thinking of around the christian faith, doctrines, and practices.  Not so much that we can come up with the correct answer (although we might together be able to share and increase our understanding) but so we can practice as a community thinking through issues together and helping each other see both what we gain and loose as a faith community as a result.

Comments

[lyn]

I'll comment now, having had you comment on my blog about fitting in! I really appreciated reading this last night. You explained (as have Jason's posts) heresy in a very easy to understand way. I have no q's to ask, but I think that it is important for Christians who are going way off line, to be brought back to the middle, as you put it, by others. I think sometimes heresy can be used wrongly by people just to state something they disagree with - which isn't necessarily heretic - they just disagree (does that make sense?).

[David]

I like what David Finch says; that the best way to determine the 'truth' of the text is within a community.

I think you elaborate on that point really well. That only in open and honest communication, can we truly wrestle with, question, and determine what the text, or prophetic word means for us on a local and even global level.

Which brings me back to questioning church hierarchy. If the 'boss' hears from God, why wrestle? But if we function as a priesthood of all believers (which doesn't mean no leadership structure) then all have a right to say, question, and wrestle with something without the fear of being shut down our 're-educated'. In fact, they are adding to, rather than distracting from...

Shalom!

[Paul]

hi lyn, thanks very much for your thoughts. Yes, what you say does make sense, too often we use the label heretic for something that is no more heretical than our own position and it is just a convenient point scorer - like being labeled worldly etc.

Then again at times i think we all drift too far one or t'other and we need to be open to and welcome correction from others - i know i certainly do and hope when you spot me drifting way off into the land of navel fluff or something you'll please tell me!!

[Paul]

David, thank you. That is an excellent point you make - and quite right too, at least in this context of avoiding walking blindly as a community into one heretical position or t'other. We need to actively think together as a community and learn ways of sharing and helping rather than be seen to have one authoritative source that all must obey - doing faith my way and my way only seems a recipe for disaster...

[Rich]

I like the way you described Heresy. No one intentionally strays from
the line (as you mentioned) of truth. I think our minds and thoughts sometimes just take us on these wonderful and exciting journey's of
discovering God and like a nature walk gone wrong we end up lost and don't know how we got there or where even there is. I'm starting to finally believe that things like interpreting the bible, doctrine, and theology is best worked out in community (in the broad sense of the word). We can't just rely on our own experience or learning but we should take the opportunity to learn from those that have walked the
paths before us as well as those walking with us now. I like your thought about the tendency to over correct. I've wondered about that in my own life. We do (at least I do) have a tendency to move from one
extreme to another.

Here's a question - It may have been already covered so don't feel like you have to reply if it has.

Is Heresy (or Heretics for that matter) good or bad? What makes it good or bad? How has history, tradition, etc...made Heretics look
(Favorably? Unfavorably?). Do we encourage or discourage people to be
Heretics? Are we to afraid to be called Heretics? and if so what does that mean for the church?

[Paul]

rich, thanks, great Qs. I think if it is ok with you that i'd like to use them as a basis for a post to get others views?