How in the World Could we all be Following the Same Jesus?

Preface

I love Jesus. Most of the time I like Jesus. I am learning to love the church again. I am allowing myself to ask questions I never asked before. I don't ask because I want to degrade Jesus, but because I think He is strong enough for my questions. These are thoughts as I continue my faith journey from deconstruction to reconstruction and beyond…

Prayer

God. It gets so confusing to see people that are Christians but act and believe so differently than me. It seems like we should be more consistent. Honestly, I feel like you did not do a very good job of vision casting for your people. I understand this because I run an business and it is always a struggle to keep everyone on the same page. But, You being God, I thought you would have a better handle on this.

Musings

We received a text from someone today. There have been enough of them that we know how it works. First we receive the message. Next we laugh and laugh at the joke, and slap each other on the back. Then someone says, “Hey guys they actually believe what they wrote. It wasn’t a joke.” Someone else says, “Nah no way!” Then it sets in that they really do believe what they said. We feel so very sad suddenly. Silence falls across the room, and we ask the question, “How in the world could we all be following the same Jesus?”

Of course this question has been asked for generations. I’m not an authority; I may be mostly right or mostly wrong, nonetheless here is my theory. There are two critical aspects of American Christianity, diversity and hyper individualism, which lead to a three step progression. It begins with "picking and choosing", progresses to confirmation, and ends with certainty issues.

The two critical aspects are the diversity within the Bible and the hyper individualism of the Church which began with the protestant revolution.

The Bible is a complicated book. It does not didactically teach us the right way to live. It illustrates the journey that ancient peoples took to get to know and follow God. At times it is prescriptive, showing us the way, and sometimes simply descriptive. Telling the difference can be challenging. Sometimes it is unclear what about a situation made a certain path correct, making it hard for us to apply truth to our lives. Within the story are conflicting emotions and actions. We see anger and peace. We see grace and judgment. We see death and healing. In the end, you can find what you want in the pages of the Bible.

The protestant revolution occurred because the Bible was being withheld from people. Henceforth, the Bible would be available to all people in their language. This gave people the ability to have their own relationship with God apart from their clergy, and it provided checks to the teaching of the priestly class. These were all good things. Over the years, in America we have taken this to the extreme; allowing and expecting lay people to rightly interpret the Bible for themselves. This is especially true in the evangelical church and even more true in the Pentecostal parts of that.

Coupling a diverse Bible and Hyper individualism naturally leads down this path.

Step 1, Picking and Choosing

I want you all to know that I pick and choose what I believe from the Bible. That’s shocking because all my life pastors have been pulpit shaming “people that pick and choose.” I never believed I did so; however the fact is we all pick and choose what we want to believe and/or prioritize from the Bible. Of course few people admit such a thing. Demonstrating attribution theory, the unwritten assumption is that, the others, THEY pick and choose based on their corrupt personal desires. On the other hand WE follow scripture completely and only leave out those things that are clearly not for today. That is not pick and choosing! Right!? No. We all pick and choose, and I don’t believe our criteria is as noble as we would like to think.

I believe we decide what to pick primarily based on the traditions of our tribe and our personal preferences. We may think that our choices are based only on the Holy Spirit and biblical scholarship, but many, I’m betting most, are not. Christianity is a lot like going to a cafeteria with a limited budget and one plate, not the ones like Golden Corral where you eat whatever you can stuff in. It’s more like the ones you find in the basement of government buildings in Washington DC. You get one plate and you can only fill it once. On the buffet are many contradictory options, all found in the Bible. 

• Anger
• Peace
• Law
• Grace
• Mercy
• Judgement
• Genocide
• Salvation
• Love for a few
• Love for all

Once you decide to be a Christian you go to the buffet and pick the items you want. Your personality and church tradition will be the primary guides as you begin to fill your plate. Tough second amendment guy? You might feel comfortable with a helping of righteous anger. LGBT? You should take some love for all. We believe that our theology molds our character, and in part it does. But it is just as significant, or more significant, that our character molds our theology.

Lets look at me as a case study. My top 5 Gallup strengths are:

1. Strategic
2. Learner
3. Responsibility
4. Analytical
5. Relator

Strategic people tend toward the big picture. Theologically, I default to the macro trends in the Bible as opposed to various proof texts. I know many Christians that will look for a verse or two to find wisdom, but I will always first ask if the wisdom fits with the overall narrative of the biblical story, God's strategy. It astounds me that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same Bible.

The learner part doesn't directly affect what I believe. Rather it affects how I believe. I never get to the place where I am certain I know the answer to theological questions. I am always open the idea that I am lacking some key piece of knowledge, therefore, I am willing to listen to those that interpret scriptures differently whether through conversations, books, or podcasts. It astounds me that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same Bible.

The responsibility part has made me a Christian environmentalist. It is entirely clear to me that we are responsible to care for creation. It is clear that we have a responsibility to right the wrongs of the past and work diligently to fix society ills. It astounds me that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same Bible.

The analytical part of me writes to understand God. Writing thoughts down helps me understand the thoughts, if not the God behind them. I watch for relationships between inputs/outputs and cause/effects in the Christian experience and in the scriptures to try to make sense. It astounds me that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same Bible.

The relator part of me makes me care for people and their relationship with me personally and the church corporately before analyzing the sins they commit. Jesus demonstrations of love for and relationship with lost people speak much more than condemnations in the Bible. I am convinced that love proceeds trust which proceeds any relationship with Jesus. It astounds me that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same Bible.

Of course, me, a single data point does not prove a theory. However, I have observed this connection between personality and theology over and over. I am sure you have things you believe, that fit your personality, that are so clear from the pages of the Bible, and it astounds you that other Christians don't believe the same, reading the same bible.

Step 2, Confirmation

Here our natural tendency toward confirmation bias affects us. After we choose our theological plate, we start looking around within our community, assisted by social media, and “amazingly” find data everywhere that confirms our choices. Christianity as we have made it allows each person to define their own truth. The ironic thing  is that we pulpit shame the culture for thinking they can define their own truth, while our hyper individualistic theology encourages Christian’s to do the same albeit within the bounds of the Bible and using Christian language. Most evangelical churches and most evangelicals believe they uniquely understand the truth of scripture. Every one hit the jackpot and we are all winners. 

Step 3, Certainty Issues

Finally we wrongly believe in certainty. We conflate certainty with spiritual maturity, so if you want to be a good Christian you can’t doubt anything. You must be certain that:

• You are saved
• You sense God
• You hear from God
• You know what the Bible means
• You know truth
• You have the correct theology
• You have the correct politics
• You are raising your children right
• and so on

Just believing that you can be certain about all these things is intense. Believing that you MUST be certain about them is unbelievable pressure. When we couple this pressure with the, oh so common to evangelicalism, fear of the slippery slope, we have a potent cocktail where people must be right about everything and suddenly many Christian’s find themselves intransigent and on the narcissism spectrum.

Once you fall into the hole of intransigence, you can not be wrong. Anything must be sacrificed because if you are proven wrong on one point you are completely wrong, and your faith and salvation are in question. I know someone holding so tightly to their being right that they are sacrificing their relationship with their child, mother, future grandchildren, and siblings. It will be a painful day when there is a realization that they gave up all those relationships to be right when being all right is actually wrong and not what Jesus requires.

We begin our journey toward difference by picking and choosing what we like from the Bible. We become more committed to those beliefs encouraged by American individualistic biblical teaching, confirmation bias, and social media. Then finally we lose our mind when we conflate Christianity and certainty. No one can hint we might be wrong and we sacrifice all on the altar of being right. Repeat this process over and over and we have an evangelical church in America with such a divergence of views and extreme commitment to them the church can only push the world away.