Can people of faith change our minds about our faith?

Economist John Maynard Keynes once said something to the effect of "When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, sir?"

Like many things, humans generally think that changing one's mind is something that others should do (unless you are a politician in which you are then called a flip flop). We also think that we would change our mind if we were given direct information that confronted our position. But lets face it, generally we are much better at altering the interpretation of the information than changing our mind. 

I wonder if Christians are able to change our own minds at all.

Traditional evangelism is rooted in the idea of getting others to change their minds about how they will live and convert to Christianity. But, how many Christians have changed their minds about their faith since becoming a Christian?

There was a time when I thought that it was acceptable for a violent response to a situation. There was a time when I thought the Bible was the literal words of God and the Bible was infallible. There was a time that I thought that Jesus was literally born of a virgin and that mattered more than a number of other beliefs. 

Yet over the course of time, I have changed my mind.

I am unable to see how God desires or approves of violence of any sort. The Bible no longer contains the infallible words of God. The virgin birth is something that is a beautiful truth that is not important to me if it was literal. 

As I get more information I change my mind. My understanding of faith has changed over time and in some ways it is difficult for me to imagine my previous mind.

Admitting that my faith as evolved and changed and that I believe new and different things, may be something that a pastor should not say.

But I have changed my mind on that too. 

Tyranny of the monologue

Maybe you have heard of the tyranny of the majority or even the tyranny of the urgent, but I would like to submit that the church suffers from the tyranny of the monologue.

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Not all churches are under the oppression of the monologue. However, the power of the monologue has been very influential in the way most seminaries teach ministers how to be ministers. 

The tyranny of the monologue is not just that the church is set up to listen to one voice which has more weight than others. It is not just how preaching is conceived by one person standing addressing a crowd. It is much deeper and much more oppressive to community growth and maturation.

The monologue is many things, from Shakespeare to Leno,  but it is always one direction. The monologue does not care about the voice of the audience. The monologue cares about what the one who is delivering the monologue as to say. That is it.

So we have ministries that are set up to meet the needs of those who are doing the ministry rather than doing ministry to eradicate the needs of those who are being ministered to. The UMC polity is very monologue driven. For instance when we cannot even agree that we disagree on an issue, we have suffered the wrath of the monologue. The monologue does not tolerate disagreement.

The tyranny of the monologue is in the pews as well. When we desire our minister to give us the meaning of a scripture or even demand that the preacher apply the teaching to our lives for us so we do not have to really wrestle with the story of God. We have been "monologued".

When we would rather have a good monologue sermon than have a messy dialogue, you can bet the tyranny of the monologue is as strong as ever. 

When we would rather have a few "good" Sunday school teachers than empower everyone to be teachers - tyranny of the monologue.

When we read, consult or listen to the same voices over and over again - we are subjects to the reign of the monologue.

The monologue is a wonderful tool, but it can also be an oppressive hammer among the people of God. It is about time that we put the hammer down because it is doing a lot of damage these days.

The incarnation and Marshal Mcluhan #progGOD

Again Dr. Jones has challenged progressive Christian bloggers to write a response to a question. This time he requests responses to  "What the Incarnation tells us about God, human beings, creation, the Cosmos, the End Times, Heaven, Hell, salvation, or anything else...from a Progressive Christian perspective."

And so, I submit to you a short blog reminder that when it comes to understanding the importance of the Incarnation, Marshal Mcluhan is right: The medium is the message.

I am not a scholar of Mcluhan by any stretch, so I could be missing the mark on this, but Mcluhan it is my understanding that Mcluhan wants us to understand that all mediums have messages laced within themselves. Mediums are not neutral in their dissemination of content, mediums matter.

We generally think the content of the message is more important than the medium we choose. This seems to make sense. Preachers gather in groups and  talk about what they will preach. They are looking looking for the teachings that the Bible is giving witness to. Preachers generally don't talk about the messages that the medium of the spoken word carries with it. 

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But if you think about it, mediums do carry messages that are very powerful. For instance, when Kennedy and Nixon debated it is well documented that those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon won. But those who watched the debate on the new medium of television thought Kennedy won.  

If the mediums are neutral, then all that should have mattered was the content of the debate. But The mediums influenced the content of the debate to the point that your choice of medium influenced your decision of who won the debate!

Mcluhan stated, perhaps hyperboliclly, that the content of the message "has about as much importance as the stenciling on the casing of an atomic bomb.”

God has chosen many mediums to share content: from the stone tablets to a burning bush to a talking donkey. These mediums are so powerful that we get the message God is saying just by the selection of the medium. 

• Stone tablets - what God has to say in this message is as solid as rock 
• Burning bush - God is a mystery that is beyond comprehension
• Talking donkey - There are things that are unknown by humans but nature understands

The incarnation (that is God being "in-fleshed") tells is another, nay the ultimate, medium of God. The medium of God becoming human says a lot even before this God-Man is able to talk:

• God deeply cares about relationships
• It is more important to go to someone rather than hope they come to you
• There is something sacred about humanity
• There is something about life with all it's highs and lows that is worth participating in
• God is not found in the heavens but walking among us
• If God empties God-self and becomes mortal then what does that tell us about humility

You are a smart reader, you can add your own to this simplistic list.

There is a reason that Christians identify that the greatest revelation of God is Jesus*. Christians understand that the medium of God becoming human says something deeply about God's love for humans and the world.

The sermon on the mount, while excellent, is just stenciling when we look at the message found in the medium of the incarnation. 

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*It is worth pointing out that if we feel that the Bible is the greatest revelation of God, then we are elevating the medium of the Bible over the medium of the incarnation. Frankly, I think that is called idolatry.