Mitch Lewis

"Cafeteria Christianity" is a phrase that is sometimes used to describe the modern practice picking and choosing which Christian doctrines and practices you will accept and which you will not. The hundreds of Christian denominations offer thousands of choices - just like a giant cafeteria. All that you need to do is pick the parts you like.  Those who use the term often do so in a derogatory manner; those who practice cafeteria Christianity, it is thought, do so because they're lazy and undisciplined and unwilling to make costly choices. They're looking, it is believed, for the easy way out.

Like it or hate it, cafeteria Christianity is here to stay.

(more...)

One of John Wesley's distinctive teachings involved what came to be known as "Christian perfection" or "entire sanctification." Wesley taught that Christians can and should experience a second act of God's grace enabling them them to love God and their neighbors perfectly in thought, temperament and intention. Both inner experience and outward action would then flow solely from pure love. As is the case with any person, Wesley's views on the matter changed over time, and the precise formulation of his ideas varied from occasion to occasion.

Consistently, however, Wesley averred that Christian perfection did not consist of freedom from physical infirmities or errors of judgment. For Wesley, these matters paled in insignificance compared that the mighty work that God sought to do in the heart of the the believer. Entirely sanctified Christians perfectly fulfill the law of love and so do not sin - at least in the most important sense of that word - even if they make mistakes based on faulty knowledge or bodily weaknesses.

For me, these two matters make "entire" sanctification moot as a matter of Christian doctrine.

Mind, Body and Spirit

As modern science learns more about how the brain functions, it increasingly difficult to separate the human body from its thoughts, emotions, desires, intentions, intuitions, self-awareness and inner experiences of  every sort. Even spiritual experiences take place in the synaptic activities of the brain. Wesley insisted that we distinguish between true infirmities and moral excuses, and I would be the last to say that humans aren't responsible for their actions. Still, it is no longer possible to compartmentalize human behavior neatly into body, mind and spirit. Mind and spirit take place by means of bodily processes.

(more...)

What I mean is this:
One of you says, "I follow Paul";
another, "I follow Apollos";
another, "I follow Cephas;
still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you?
Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
-- 1 Corinthians 1:12-13

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Wesley's thoughts on righteousness
-- With apologies to Edward Mote

As the United Methodist Church tries to find its way forward in the 21st century, what should be distinctive about the church and the movement John Wesley began in the 18th century? The answer to that question depends on whether you are looking at Methodism as a movement or at the United Methodist Church as a church.

(more...)

I wish that all the pieces of my theology fit together seamlessly like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When I gain an insight from the Bible or change my understanding of what a portion of the Bible means, I want to fit that understanding into the "big picture." How does my new insight fit into the rest of the pieces that I have assembled in my head?

Unfortunately, not everything fits neatly. I find gaps or overlaps in the picture. The pieces don't always fit where I think they should. I could take a hammer and pound the new piece into place, but I would wind up damaging something important in the process.

I think I expect too much.

Part of it is me. My little brain can't take it all in.

Part of it is the text itself. Some would have us see the Bible as one monolithic document; if we could only understand it correctly, the picture it would paint would be complete and internally consistent. But the Bible is not one document; it is a library. God has chosen to make himself known in a library of documents of varying genre, written in different ages for different purposes. (See God's Bookshelf)

Asking how to make the pieces to fit together seamlessly is like asking to where the pickle fits when you're building a bicycle.

There is a unity to the scriptures, but it is not the simple unity of pieces that fit together like parts of a machine. It's the kind of unity that an artist can perhaps appreciate more than an engineer.

And if we're going to use metaphors from the art world to understand God's self-revelation in the scriptures, we should probably think more along the lines of sculpture than of painting. That is, we should think in three dimensions, not two.

To understand a three-dimensional work of art, you have to look at from all sides. The same sculpture can look very different when you walk around it and change your point of view. Similarly, the various components of the canonical scriptures give us insight into God from a number of different perspectives. We need them all to get the whole picture.

Related follow-up: Rule of Faith

I subscribe to a form of Christianity that understands the Christian faith to to be a "revealed religion". In that, Christianity is distinguishable from those religions which are not founded on claims of divine self-disclosure, and from other "revealed religions" with quite different claims of revelation.

What do I mean by the phrase "revealed religion"?

In my first assignment as a chaplain, hundreds of Soldiers in Basic Training attended the weekly worship services and religious education classes I conducted. Many, if not most, came into the chapel with little or no Christian background. The first religious education class that I conducted for each new group of Soldiers always went something like this.

I asked a volunteer to stand behind a partition that divided the classroom. After the volunteers were separated from their peers, I instructed them to perform some action silently behind the screen. I then returned to the large group and asked what the volunteers were doing behind the screen. Some ventured a guess, and some of their suggestions were hilarious. Some said, "I don't know." Some asked if there was really anyone behind the screen. Perhaps I had sent them out the door.

Then I asked the volunteers to continue the activity but to step out from behind the screen. "Now," I asked the group, "who can tell me what the volunteer is doing? And how do you know?"

(more...)

Lectionary - Advent 3C - Luke 3:7-18

In the text for the third Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist denounces a group of religious leaders as a family of snakes. I imagine people have always treated a nest of snakes in their back yard in the same way: with a long, blunt instrument and vigorous clubbing. John talks about trees being cut down at the root and chaff being burned in the fire. John uses all of this very picturesque language to describe what he calls the "wrath to come." Sin, anger, destruction: these are all part of John's vivid language.

Is God angry? Is there an ax at the root of the tree? Will the chaff in this world be reduced to fuel for the furnace?

I confess: I believe in an angry God.

(more...)