A recent discussion centred on the question: “Why go to church?”

To begin, I think that we need to consider what sense of ‘why’ we’re meaning.  For instance, I believe that ‘why’ can be broken down into at least two categories: the ‘why’ of motivation’ and the ‘why’ of purpose (or goal). So I am motivated to eat because I’m hungry (or I have a particular hunger: Thai food!).  Yet my purpose in eating is to experience delightful tastes, be healthy and, ultimately, stay alive.

When people respond to the question “Why go to church?” using Bible verses I think that this mostly represents the ‘why’ of purpose. Now I think that this is valuable, but I think that we often omit the ‘why’ of motivation even though we all have certain motives for such actions, whether we are aware of them or not.

So keeping that distinction in mind we may say that going to church in to learn more about God and further one’s relationship with God represents motivation. On the other hand, in the sense that going to church is a means of loving God, making disciples, etc, this I see to represent purpose. Now what about the notion that are to go to church simply in order to be obedient, because the Bible indicates that we should? Take, for instance, Hebrews 10:24-25.

“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, and encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

I have come to believe that God is real and is trustworthy, and so I value what is written in the Bible (stated differently, as a Christian I believe that the Bible is authoritative in the matters at which its texts aim). Yet I often find myself at odds with other Christians who would take these verses more or less as a “command” to attend church—about purpose rather than motivation (or both). To help clarify matters, what follows is my take on this part of Hebrews.

What I take from Hebrews 10:24-5 is that something about coming together is beneficial or, normatively, should be beneficial (more on this later). But the comment about gathering is completely embedded in a lengthy argument about Jesus having achieved completion of the priestly role. In essence, the author’s larger picture seems the fact that the ongoing performance of the Hebrew high priest’s duties is now obsolete, thanks to the superlative achievement of Jesus.

Reading from 8:1 (which is the beginning of this section of the letter) I am struck by the detailed argument wherein the author equates Jesus with the new and ultimate high priest, citing the OT’s most powerful description of the “new” covenant (Jer 31:31-4). The author goes on to highlight the high priest’s role relative to the physical structure of the temple, noting that Jesus effectively entered the Holy of Holies (to which only the high priest had access) with “his own blood,” such that the high priestly role is forever disbanded because it is complete!

The power (and meaning) that I see in this argument is that none of the letter’s recipients should fail to understand that the old ways of doing things are both fulfilled and surpassed in the life and death of Jesus. Note too: the awesome (and dreadful) privilege of the high priest was also that which separated this one man from all other people—no one else could be that close to God. No longer so! Indeed, all people now have the possibility to come directly before God with both confidence and gladness.

In the flow of this argument 8:25 represents a minor note, albeit an important one that cannot be overlooked.

My hunch (having not yet done enough research to be entirely satisfied on the point) is that here the author is pushing back against the sort of “ultimate freedom” that some Christians were wont to assume as the result of Jesus exceeding / fulfilling the law and covenant (the Corinthian church offers good examples). In other words, because we have this freedom we may dispense with the old ways and understandings, including gathering together. Not so, as the epistle’s author points out. But notice also how quick the author is to pass back to the main points of the argument, in 8:26, regarding sin.

Here and following the “sin” in which we are not to persist concerns profaning the very “blood of the covenant,” where profane means taking Jesus’ life and death unholy to be commonplace and have no particular religious significance. In other words, to be aware of this surpassingly wonderful “new” covenant and yet to disregard its impact / forgo it in favour of the old covenant amounts to a “sin” of disbelief: of refusing to accept what, for the letter’s readers, would have been the irrefutable argument that the new covenant has been achieved (and must be observed).

So what is the upshot of this? What do I think that Christians should do, as a result?

I think it means that freedom in Christ (and the ‘newness’ of the new covenant) does not change everything! In fact, Christians (just as the Hebrew recipients of this letter) should be delighted to gather together to worship because we can. In other words, there are now no limitations on the possibility of accessing God! Christians should thus understand that worship of God no longer takes place on the periphery or in the common places (as it would have been in the temple) but as being in the most intimate presence of God.

This indeed is worthy motivation for gathering together, just as prompting each other to love and good deeds (and indeed, understanding God better) is a worthy purpose!

Next though, I think that the larger question of how (and how much) church gathering actually moves us closer to our main goal—whether any particular gathering of Christians actually is beneficial—should always remain at issue. What is that main goal? To my mind, the biblical text is clear in spelling out one orientation that reigns over all others. Love God entirely. Then love yourself rightly, in order that you might love your fellows likewise.

As I understand it then, the Christian’s main goal is to be in a love relationship with God, based on truth, which then transforms how I view and understand myself (I love myself rightly) and thereby how I relate to all other people (I love them in the way and degree that I love myself). This, from my perspective, offers the best vantage point from which to discuss the matter of Christian gathering (and so to assess how—and even whether—participating in any particular Christian gathering meets this goal).

Every Christian needs a second opinion on their faith.

More to the point, my argument is that in order for their Christianity to be healthy and vibrant Christians need to cultivate the inclination to evaluate and re-evaluate the components of their faith (and potentially, their faith itself) from a variety of perspectives.

In other words, I am arguing that every Christian’s primary objective—just as every human being’s primary objective—is to be a truth seeker. As such, Christians are to make use of every available resource that is suitably adapted toward / fit for the purpose of truth-seeking. In this way we maximize our chances of not only of finding the most truth we can (and also the best, or most truthful truth), but we empower ourselves to become as practised and shrewd as possible when it comes to discerning truthfulness generally.

But why mention this? Surely Christians seek truth all the time!

On one level, yes: Christians do claim to be truth-seekers. Yet as I have demonstrated in nearly a dozen blog posts, the ways in which Christians interact with each other and outsiders when it concerns this truth (and indeed, the very nature and content of this truth—how they construe this truth) can be deeply problematic.

So let’s refocus: perhaps we need a more exact notion of “truth.” For instance, I certainly validate (and value) the necessity of mathematical truths such as 2+2=4, physical truths such as the weight-bearing capacity of a tree branch, and abstract / logical truths such as A and -A forming a totality. But let’s keep in mind the context of our discussion, for these are not primarily the “sorts” of truth that the biblical text is aiming at.

Instead, the Bible is primarily offering truths about who God is (divine nature), who human beings are (human nature), and the relationship between the two. For just as human beings are essentially relational in nature, so is the God of the Bible. Further, while relational beings need a variety of truths to survive, they cannot thrive without relational truth: truth that puts us in right relationship with the beings that matter most to us.

In terms of rightly relating with ourselves and others, being a truth-seeker then means being informed by and oriented toward love, as that which is both the greatest outworking of truth and its key source.

Quite literally then, in my view broad swathes of evangelical Christianity has got “off course” when it comes to loving their neighbours (as my examples with boundary-focused churches). But more so, this has happened because they got off course when it comes to loving themselves. And as both of these stem from / are informed by the Christian’s love relationship with God, I wager that that relationship too is similarly “off course.”

These disjointed / disconnected relationships manifests in the very phenomenon that my recent posts have described. So Christians adopt a generally defensive posture because the Bible “prepares them” to assume it, and so orient themselves more negatively to non-Christians as a result. Thus they find themselves wary of non-Christians and ready to dispute (or perhaps simply disengage) and would even claim to be patterning themselves on Jesus’ example when doing so.

As I have argued, we are not Jesus (and cannot know as he knew or see as he saw), nor does the Holy Spirit make us like Jesus in these ways. Moreover, many Christians have adopted a degree of confidence regarding their beliefs that preclude them from accepting critical feedback from non-Christians (and indeed, sometimes other Christians)! But where such mismatched expectations / over-confidence leads Christians more to dispute (or disengage) than to dialogue, they cannot possibly learn from outsiders.

The result is a strange mix of fear and superiority, insularity and arrogance, which both anticipates and requires opposition. And such orientations (and the negative approaches that foster them and that they perpetuate, such as being boundary-focused) drive a wedge between non-Christians and the validity of the biblical message: they are more an obstacle to healthy and vibrant Christianity than an invitation.

In other words, we disfigure Christianity and then present it to others as a thing of beauty.

Can we blame non-Christians if they are not fooled? [1. This raises the question: What to make of those who do accept a marred presentation of God and Christianity as beautiful? While this deserves a full response my view in brief is that “dysfunction attracts dysfunction,” so that churches where members devalue themselves and others will attract those already inclined to do likewise. Hence the reality that as with families, so with churches: ways of being and seeing are easy to adopt and difficult (if impossible) to critique and change.]

My response is that Christian formation—how Christians are taught to live the Christian life—needs to change in order for truth-seeking to be properly aligned to loving God entirely, loving ourselves rightly, and loving others likewise. Yet because Christian practice is rooted in certain understandings—certain theories about God, humanity, and the relationship between the two—these understandings also will need to change in order for the changes I have proposed to be possible.

My next series of posts take up the challenge of living Christianity (and indeed, living as a human being) rightly, in light of the obstacles discussed above and previously.

Do Christians need “second opinions” about their faith?

Last post I raised this question and concluded it by connecting physical / mental healthcare and spiritual healthcare. I noted three parallels. First faith, like health, is ultimately my personal responsibility to maintain and develop. Second faith, like health, is complicated and so requires expertise to understand and interpret. Third faith, like health, is impacted by the environment.

This post I want to reframe the above question to: When do Christians need a “second opinion” about their faith, and then consider How would Christians go about getting one?

To answer these questions I want to assess two preliminary concerns: a) What is a second opinion? and b) How would I know that I need one? On the one hand this seems easy: a second opinion is another viewpoint. But clearly we want more than that. We want not only a different but an insightful viewpoint, and ideally one offered by an expert who attentively engages with the matter at hand.

Yet on the other hand, the very notion of “expertise” when it comes to Christian belief and practice is complicated. How is such expertise determined? Asked differently, what legitimates someone as an “expert” in this area? Is my pastor or minister an expert, or a professor at seminary or maybe a devout, long-term Christian? Are there perhaps degrees or areas of expertise? If so, what are they and how are they acquired? More worryingly, how do I adjudicate when experts disagree?

Let me refocus this using my three earlier points about faith: faith is ultimately my personal responsibility, it is complicated, and it is effected by my environment.

So hopefully I have shown that not only faith but the very notion of expertise is complicated. This means that assessing one’s faith more objectively (i.e., with the help of outside, expert opinions) is as inherently difficult process. As such, beyond any accusation of Christians being insular or close-minded, it is understandable when Christians abdicate some of their personal responsibility for their faith and allow their churches or Christian subcultures (e.g., their environment) to play an overly larger role in informing them.

Yet where churches and Christian subcultures then not only explain what Christianity is but what individual Christians should believe, how they should act and, more generally, how they should think (or even what they should think about), my wager is that most Christians abdicate too much of their personal responsibility and so become our over-reliant on their Christian community. The result is that such Christians will then have built-in opposition to the very process of “seeking a second opinion.” In other words, many Christians are not neutrally but negatively disposed to the notion.

This is very important to recognize from the outset, not least because it has enormous implications for my second concern: b) How would I know if I need a second opinion? The simple answer: most Christians would not know. Through being habituated to relying too heavily on Christian community for their understanding and formation Christians have essentially been trained not to seek second opinions by our most basic orientation / attachment to our communities.

Sound bad? Well, I think it actually gets worse before it gets better.

In other words, where they have abdicated too much personal responsibility and become over-reliant on Christian community, many Christians have developed habits that run counter to seeking the help that they need to fortify and / or rejuvenate their faith. Yet compounding this is the fact that such second opinions are not simply about gathering information but also about embodying formation. And this is key.

In other words the process of seeking, obtaining, and evaluating a second opinion is developing one’s own expertise on such matters by becoming more adept at living the Christian life. This is reflected in that the resources that I value most for second opinions are those that “walk me through” their thinking and the processes by which they adjudicate the matters that I bring to them—they not only inform me but train me.

So given this rather dire picture, how do we answer our preliminary questions:
1) When do Christians need a “second opinion” about their faith?
2) How would they go about getting one?

Let me propose two ways.

First, Christians need second opinions all the time, because “second opinions” are indications that we live in a complex reality but also assurances that truth itself is diverse! On many, many subjects Christians simply are not bound to one single answer but need to become conversant with many truly viable responses in order to distinguish the good from the bad and from there to adjudicate, choose, and embody the best among the good.

Second, if there is even a little accuracy to the picture that I have painted, above, then the process of getting a second opinion is not separable from the rest of our faith but is itself an integral (though missing) part of that very faith. As such, our understanding of Christian being and living must itself be expanded. Put differently, Christians do not so much need to learn how to get second opinions on their faith as to adopt a faith within which this notion is an everyday component.

The idea that Christians may (and indeed, often will) need a second opinion on their faith is a tricky one.

First, Christians are taught to trust other Christians and particularly Christian leaders and authority figures (such as ministers and pastors), so deliberately seeking a second opinion on my pastor’s view seems distrustful and maybe even disobedient. Second, almost all Christians are habituated to a certain perspective on their faith by virtue of belonging to a denomination. As such, a second opinion in the true sense—one that truly represents a different school of thought on a given matter—would almost necessarily have to come from outside of one’s own denomination. And these are conversations where Christians are at least unpracticed, if not downright fearful.

Third, because Christianity is not seen as something in which one intellectually and imaginatively engages (like the combination of a research project and a dramatic production) but rather something one embraces by faith, it would be nonsensical to suggest the need for a service or body that would offer anything resembling “second opinions” on matters of faith.

As such, acquiring a second opinion requires time, energy, and determination. It requires Christians to broach the boundaries of their denominations (which they are not taught how to do), to engage in conversations with an intention that they are arguably never meant to have (deliberately questioning the trained and / or learned opinion of one’s authority figures), and to assume an orientation to their faith that may seem, frankly, faithless.

Perhaps the best solution, then, is obtaining some personal expertise in such matters. Indeed, without some expertise it is impossible to question (or particularly, to find questionable) the perspectives of others. Yet here’s the snag: without some expertise I cannot know enough to evaluate the information and perspectives that I’m given, but I need such information and perspectives specifically because I am not an expert in this area.

My response to this seeming conundrum is to suggest that “second opinions” are an essential component of Christian faith.

The problem, however is that the practice of seeking a second opinion on matters of Christian faith—when it is done, to whom one would turn, what the process looks like, and how to complete it—essentially does not exist. In other words, a resource very necessary to acquiring, maintaining, and developing Christian faith and practice is largely overlooked by Christians and the church, and I wager to very negative (or even disastrous) effect.

Over the next three blog posts I aim to sketch the contours of such a practice, a) indicating why it is not only necessary but a most truthful, loving, and actually holy practice, b) suggesting how this practice is best to be carried out, and c) offering practical suggestions on how to overcome the conundrum of lacking the expertise necessary to evaluate the expert opinions that you receive.

Let’s start with two questions: a) What is a second opinion? and b) How would I know that I need one?

To answer this I want to draw my analogy for healthcare. With healthcare I typically seek a second opinion when the stakes are high enough: when the cost is high enough, the procedure is sufficiently invasive, or the outcome is risky enough. Now these thresholds will vary from person to person depending upon personal wealth, risk aversion, trust of one’s medical practitioners, and other factors.

What I want to suggest is that there is a very close parallel between the medical situation and a faith situation. So what’s going on here?

I consult a physician because some aspect of my physical or mental health is not doing well, or something seems different or worrisome. So first, I go to the doctor because I value my health and I know that I am do not always have sufficient expertise to diagnose and treat myself. Next, depending upon what the physician diagnoses and then recommends as a remedy I may, or may not, accept either the diagnosis or the recommended treatment, or both.

So what parallels am I drawing here?

First faith, like health, is one’s own. Christian faith involves a community but is ultimately personal—something that each person owns and is responsible for maintaining and developing. Second faith, like health, is complicated. In other words, it requires expertise to understand and the various perspectives on it are open to different interpretations. Third faith, like health, interacts with my environment. It impacts the environment and is impacted by the environment.

Q: WWJD?
A: Be “boundary focused”. . . ?

Two posts ago I examined the “boundary-focused” approach that many churches take towards outsiders—neighbours or newcomers—to their community. I argued that one reason they do so is in order best to estimate (and so imitate) what Jesus would have done in a similar situation, as the evangelical catch phrase “What would Jesus do?” (WWJD). I then offered a number reasons why I find this approach to be problematic.

This post examines another, rather darker reason for adopting a “boundary-focused” approach.

My explanation begins by noting how a boundary-focused approach is inherently ready to assume a defensive posture. I see two reasons for this. First, because Christianity has something valuable to defend (its identity and values). Second, because Christians have someone to defend their values and identity against.

Now obviously Christians believe that their identity and values—the power of the gospel and the truth of the Bible—are worth defending. But shouldn’t Christians also expect that these things will be attacked? Indeed, the Bible explains that Jesus and his message are a “stumbling block” and “foolishness” to unbelievers (1 Cor 1:22-23, 1 Pet 2:7-8), who are blind to the truth of the gospel (2 Cor 4:4) or even wilfully resist it (John 3:20-21). So Christians must be ready to defend their beliefs (1 Pet 3:15). Further, because unbelievers are enemies of God (Rom 5:10) the Bible also naturally prepares Christians to be hated or reviled on account of Jesus (Mt 5:11, Lk 6:22, Jn 7:7) and to be persecuted for serving God obediently (Mt 10:22-23, Lk 21:12).

The implication: Christians should expect non-Christians to be offended by Christianity and so to oppose God (and consequentially, to oppose them).

No doubt this happens. However, I have two concerns with this orientation. First, in my experience many Christians are so over-prepared for opposition by non-Christians that they often mistake disagreements for challenges and differences of opinion for invitations to debate. In other words, their expectations can distort external reality. Second (and here is the darker notion that I mentioned above), while it is difficult having to defend one’s faith it is even more difficult not needing to do so. In this case, my view is that Christian expectations can actually falsify external reality.

Let me break this down.

The widespread, biblical focus on defending one’s faith / being persecuted for Jesus’ sake naturally results in the understanding that Christian faith is precious and valuable (because it concerns things of ultimate and eternal importance). Thus the greatest affront to such a position is not attack but apathy: the reality that, more and more, outsiders sees Christianity not as something to be defeated or disbelieved but to be disregarded, because it is pointless and irrelevant.

Think of it like this: opposition de facto affirms that the matter at hand is important. In other words, pro-choice and pro-life advocates both agree that abortion has a truth that is worth fighting for, although they disagree on what that truth is. Disregard conveys an very different message. It amounts not to a counter-claim but to a dismissal of any claim because the matter at hand is either already decided or not worth deciding in the first place.

So it denies the claim that Christianity is important enough to defend because it disregards the ideas that it stands for (such as truth), the questions that it answers (such as the nature of human beings), and very understanding of the world that it presupposes. Yet because disregard communicates this by “refusing to engage” it actually deprives Christians of a much needed commodity: opposition. For, as in game theory, opposition partially functions to validate the importance of one’s goals (in this case, the goal of validating Christian identity and values by defending them)!

So excessive expectations of opposition may lead Christians to exaggerate the divergent opinions / disagreement of non-Christians into opposition. However, “disregard” may prompt Christians to do still more (and worse).  For if opposition functions both i) to ratify the value claims that Christians make about their beliefs and ii) to give Christians a outlet to demonstrate their obedience (because obedience both generates opposition and responds to it), then Christians not only expect opposition but they need it.  

So what do Christians do when there is no opposition?

Sometimes . . .  they fabricate it.

A common way that they do so is by viewing non-Christians according to Christian categories.  For example, when Christians say: “Non-Christians are hiding from God,” or re-interpret what non-Christians say and do as either demonstrating or concealing their need for God. Yet how can one be hiding from what one does not believe exists, and how can one need what one thinks is irrelevant?

In one way the difference between my first and second concerns amounts to movement along a continuum of false perception from slight exaggeration to, perhaps, complete fabrication. Yet in another way the detachment from reality required to misperceive personal concern (i.e., my neighbour’s concern for her child or an employee’s concern for his job) as opposition to my faith is vastly different from fabricating someone’s disregard and disengagement from the ideals and presuppositions of my faith (as with sexual monogamy or creation) into “opposition.”

Indeed, such fictionalizing is a practical example of being under the sway of an ideology or false consciousness: a (self-protective) view of the world that dictates perceptions rather than being informed by them—the claim that a reality exists when there is none.

The upshot of failing to take others “at face value” is that Christians likewise fail to grant them the dignity of being their own persons with beliefs, experiences, and understandings different from my own. It amounts to treating them like objects, when the God of the Bible quite clearly sees them (and loves them) as subjects.

Tête bicéphale: French, “having two heads” (or being oriented in two different, contradictory ways at the same time).

Last post I highlight how, faced with situations where non-Christians question or especially challenge it, the Christian faith does not simply impose additional constraints upon its followers but a new orientation: a new primary goal (truth-telling and truth-preserving) and a new understanding of ethics and feasibility. The tough part is that these run counter to the senses of effectiveness, ethics, and feasibility that would typically govern our actions in everyday situations of disagreement or conflict.

Specifically, effectiveness becomes what preserves or promotes God’s truth, ethics becomes what best respects / serves God, and feasibility becomes what would be most broadly endorsed by their Christian community. The result of being faced with two, contrary orientations toward similar problems—an everyday orientation and an overtly Christian orientation—is experiencing tension.

Yet in such situations the Christian’s role appears clear: tell God’s truth and act to preserve it. So Christians can hope that these non-Christians (outsiders) will see the ‘truth’ of the Christian position and accept it, but they also expect a “hardness of heart” or even a “blindness” that prevents this. In any case, under such circumstances seeking a win-win solution that validates overtly non-Christian perspectives can only be seen as being unfaithful: “selling out” or “being worldly.”

This presents a “boundary-focused” approach in a much different light.  This approach does manage the competing needs of growing the community’s membership while preserving its identity and values, both of which are important for Christian communities. Yet it does so by holding a particular understanding of truth, how it is acquired, and the Christian’s role relative to truth (truth-telling); a particular understanding of “outsiders” and how Christians should be oriented toward them; a particular understanding of love (and loving both neighbours and enemies); a particular understanding of tensions (and how to respond to them).

In my next series of posts I will argue that the preceding understandings are, variously, under-formulated or misformulated, overly narrow or exaggerated, and ultimately needing to be de-contextualized in order to be set in their proper context (and thus properly related to one another).  For the remainder of this post I want to examine the origins of a boundary-focused orientation.

So where does it come from?

My guess is that it represents an attempt by Christians to model themselves after the conduct of Jesus. For example, Jesus is accepting of children and open to the poor and downcast. Jesus is compassionate to outsiders who seek him (in granting the Syro-Phonecian woman’s request) and embraces outsiders who recognize him (in praising the centurion’s faith). Yet Jesus is decisive—even merciless—against the religious eliteand the various Judean powers of his day.

Yet even as Christians aim to “do what Jesus would do” we must always consider not only the nature of Jesus’ actions but their context. And this context is at least threefold: Jesus’ knowledge of the truth, Jesus’ power to act on that knowledge, Jesus’ understanding of his own mission (or his self-understanding within that truth). Let’s consider these three more closely.

Jesus’ knowledge was thus divine without being omniscient (or, it was sufficient for him to carry out his mission). Jesus power to act on that knowledge was complete without being boundless (or, it was directed in a specific, limited fashion toward being a clear sign and indicator of his authority without being an overwhelming effect). Jesus understanding of his mission and his role therein was entire without, in itself, guaranteeing the success of his mission in advance.

Thus in the fullness of his knowledge, power, and self-understanding Jesus exemplifies God, and yet he also—and more so—offers a model to humanity by the bounded, incomplete nature of this same knowledge, power, and self-understanding and thus in his reliance on God the father as essential to his identity and the success of his mission.

So what does this mean?

Essentially, while Jesus needed far less from God than we do (for, being God, he had far more to begin with), his dependance and reliance on God are exactly the postures that Christians need to emulate, while being very circumspect and trepidatious about assuming that we can imitate Jesus when it comes to our knowledge of various situations or motives, our power to carry out God’s calling, and our self-understanding / understanding of that calling in a given context. For if we attempt to imitate Jesus in this regard we risk idolatry: declaring equality with Jesus divinity rather than simply finding consonance with those aspects of Jesus that mirror—and are mirrored in—our humanity.

In short, a desire for Christians to model themselves after Jesus is certainly proper and valuable. However, Christians must always be careful not to extend this modelling too far: we are to be Christ-like in character but cannot be so in nature, for Jesus’ nature was also divine. Further, we must be aware that where the Holy Spirit acts to enable us to become more like Jesus, this spirit does so in the same, character-oriented manner.