Billy: The Commitments?
Jimmy Rabbitte: It's a "the".
Deco: How do you spell it?
Jimmy Rabbitte: T-H-E.
That particular quote comes from a film entitled The Commitments, a 1991 movie about an Irish soul music band with some talent but little luck. Their version of Mustang Sally is the best there is (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1pl5f_the-commitments-mustang-sally_music). For whatever reason, I can't hear the word 'commitment' without thinking of them.
Irish accents and rollicking music aside, I want to lay out my personal theological commitments before I go any further in my blogging. I say this because I am looking at an understanding of critically important biblical teaching (Who then can be saved?) that is associated with the 'emerging church' and I'd prefer not to be labeled in advance as apostate, eschewing orthodoxy, or any other pejorative statement.
Why should I be concerned about being unfairly criticized? A prominent evangelical pastor here in Canada has employed terms such as those that follow in describing the emerging church as he sees it:
-a dangerous Trojan horse
-grave danger
-spiritually hazardous
-unbiblical doctrinal positions
And that's only in the first nine pages!
Those who oppose this movement are described at the end of the booklet as "all who earnestly and humbly desire to stand for the truth for the glory of God..."
I see myself as a conservative Protestant holding to the historic tenets of the Christian faith. This I believe:
1. There is one God in three persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. All humanity is made in God's image; i.e., there are in God's created beings attributes that mirror the image of the Creator himself. I would include in this a strong sense of right and wrong, creativity, love, community, justice, and self-sacrifice.
3. Nevertheless, all of humankind and creation are 'fallen'. God's creatures are unable to live solely for God and fall short of what he intended us to be and to do. This has not eradicated God's image in us entirely, however. God's creation has also been marred by humanity's abuse of same and, as with humans, is less than was intended when God brought it forth.
4. The relationship between God and his creatures has been severely strained, and were that estrangement not healed, humanity would be lost; i.e., we would forever be separated from a family relationship with God and would have to live with the full consequences of our choices.
5. God has never given up on us, even when we have (wittingly or unwittingly) given up on him. He has done everything he can do to heal our relationship and sweep us forever into his arms, short of violating our free will.
6. God is able to accept us with all our shortcomings because Christ accepted the consequences of those failures and bad choices upon his own shoulders through his death and resurrection. No other act, no other person, no other sacrifice could accomplish this.
7. Life is eternal. While life on earth in only a small portion of this everlasting state, our time here is of great importance in terms of our priorities and our fundamental choices. I say this because the choices we consciously make on earth will shape the form of life to come.
8. The results of Christ's death and resurrection are cosmic and timeless; i.e., they affect all of humanity and all of creation from the beginning.
9. God has not operated in secret. He has revealed what we need to know in a variety of ways, most prominently through the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
10. I describe my understanding of God's revelation as prima scriptura, which holds that, besides canonical scripture, there are other guides for what a believer should believe, and how he or she should live. Examples of this include the general revelation in creation, charismatic gifts, angelic visitations, conscience, common sense, and the views of experts. Prima scriptura suggests that ways of knowing or understanding God and his will, that do not originate from canonized scripture, are in a second place, perhaps helpful in interpreting that scripture, but testable by the canon and correctable by it, if they seem to contradict the scriptures.
If this is liberalism, I'll eat my Bultmannian shirt (sorry, inside joke).
With respect to the important issue of salvation, as my regular reader knows, I have established the following in previous posts:
1. I don't believe that God is arbitrary. To say that Christ's atonement (the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ) is sufficient for all but efficient only for some (Calvinistic teaching) is abhorrent to me. This teaching posits that God arbitrarily chooses among the "undeserving" those whom he will draw to himself by his irresistible grace, with the rest left to their own devices.
2. I don't believe that all humanity will be ultimately reconciled to God either. This makes a mockery of free will.
3. I don't understand the description of Hell literally. Hell means final separation from God, but eternal conscious torment is a misunderstanding of the apocalyptic language of the New Testament.
4. I believe there is a wideness to God's mercy that evangelicals underestimate and classic liberals overestimate. But the liberals are closer than the evangelicals.
With that being said as background, here we go!
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.
(from the 'Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' speech of Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, 1598)
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