Early in The Underground Church* Robin Meyers writes the following:
Forgive me for “talking this talk,” but if one intends to communicate, one must begin where the listeners live and then create a new hearing. For our purposes, a religious “conservative” is someone who believes that faith is primarily a belief system mediated by an infallible Bible. The reward for believing the right things is forgiveness of sins and certain knowledge of eternal life.
A religious liberal, in contrast, is someone who believes that faith is primarily about the transformation of self and society through the wisdom of spiritual truth. Liberals emphasize inclusion, social justice, and resist all exclusive religious claims.
These differences are real, but also vastly oversimplified in an age where the media holds our attention by arranging for people on “both sides” of any issue to sit down across the table from one another and get into a fight as soon as possible. In the church it is no different. We have so long defined ourselves by who and what we are not that we have almost forgotten entirely who and what we are — a strange, peculiar, and dangerous people. (14-15)
I have often heard that “Christians are known by their love” – and everytime I hear that said, or sung, I say to myself – “Really?” That may well be the words that we say, but, sadly, my observations teach me that love is not very high on the list of things we regularly do or practice. Maybe it is time to step back and ask the question “Who are we?” which also requires answering “Whose are we?” Rather than answering liberal or conservative or orthodox or progressive we might better answer “Disciples of Jesus Christ” and then build the patterns of our life actions around the teaching words of Jesus as reported in The Gospel According to Mark, chapter 12, verses 29 – 31:
Jesus answered, “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
It seems to me that if we spend our time loving God and loving others that many of the words and actions that lead us to fear, anxiety, and confrontation will no longer place us on different sides of a deep and dark chasm of mistrust.
Then maybe the words that Tertullian used to describe the early Christians – “Look,” they say, “how they love one another” (for they themselves hate one another); “and how they are ready to die for each other” (for they themselves are readier to kill each other) – “Apology”, Chapter 39.7 (circa 200AD)** will also be appropriate to describe the church of the twenty-first century.
Amen – So let it be!
**http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_do_you_find_the_words_’See_how_these_Christians_love_one_another‘
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