Systematically Speaking: Part 1

We have tried to systematize the good news.  Understandably so because the natural laws that govern the earth, nature, the cosmos, the universe, and all that it contains do seem so systematic.  The way that we humans have discovered the orderly nature of the universe, though, came about by much trial and error, as if part of our meaning is derived from the ever-reaching pursuit of the heretofore unknown.  Our initial guesses were interesting and informed for the moment, but we discovered more as we continued searching, reaching and testing.  

This is the norm for the human experience.  Even after we discover the earth is round, the sun is at the center of the solar system, and that gravity causes certain objects to act certain ways, we are still left with the uncertainty of origins, the nature of dark matter, what lies within a black hole, the mysteries of neuroscience, and whether life exists anywhere else.  There are questions -- too many to count -- that I know will not be answered in my lifetime, or in my kids' lifetimes, or in their kids' lifetime.  Answers do not come easily.  They're not meant to do so.

Yet in religion, we Twentieth Century humans tried to systematize God.  Oh, we didn't say it out loud quite like that, did we?  Well, maybe we did.  We have disciplines of Christian theology that attempt to formulate an orderly account of the doctrines of the faith and more.  In the fundamentalist culture into which I was born, even the conversion experience had been distilled down to a single prayer, something like this Billy Graham version --

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness.  I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.  I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life.  I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior.  In your name, Amen.

The prayer itself is solid.  Even our weakest prayers are an acknowledgment of God, so I'm glad we have model prayers.   I am further persuaded that a prayer like this one may assist an individual in his or her conversion experience.  I actually think it helped my own conversion when I was so very young.  The faith of this little child -- i.e., me -- could at least grasp belief in Jesus with the assistance of this prayer and the nighttime prayers I used to have and the visual of waking to see my mother praying in the living room.  But any notion that these precise words (or variations thereof) somehow are required to unlock a magical door to eternity is fantastic, by which I mean the dictionary definition which is "based on fantasy, not real" or "conceived by unrestrained fancy."  It is too systematic.  Jesus did not have a single formula when he engaged with individuals.  Each person's story into which he spoke life was just that -- a separate story.

After conversion, everything seemed to have a system; and each Christian denomination seemed to have their own separate system.  It might be seven dispensations of time, election and predestination,  times and manners of baptism, literal interpretations of prophecy, or signs pointing to this, that or the other.  It was all so very culturally constructed, only it wasn't presented that way.  It was presented as the right way.  The only way.  But it never was.

In the 1970s, following within a "generation" of the re-establishment of the Israeli state in Palestine, the verbal, plenary and inerrant inspiration of the Word led many of my teachers from 6th grade through college to explain that "rapture" was real, would happen before we made it to adulthood, and the whole world would be thrown in chaos before we each lost our virginity.

I can write that now with a smile on my face.  I understand why they felt that way.  The Twentieth Century was chaotic.  Israel did bud like a fig tree -- well, "figuratively" at least -- and nuclear bombs threatened to end the world in a cataclysmic fire.   It was all so systematic, and so knowable.  And who knows, maybe that's all correct.  So far it hasn't happened that way, but maybe it will.

Personally, I don't have to know.

But life experiences have shaped me differently since then, transforming me from a systematic believer of sorts into a far more mystical believer.   Moreover, as I read and re-read the Gospels, I don't see Jesus applying a systematic approach.  Nor is his approach non-systematic.  It's actually hard to assign any descriptive engineering adjective to his approach.  Systematic doesn't quite fit.  Nor do any of the antonyms.   And, over the next few weeks (at least) or months (possibly), I think I'm going to write a bit about that.

I think I'll start with this question:  was the gospel intended as a threat or an announcement of good news?