Heretic

Choosing Right over Love

“God can get tiny, if we’re not careful”.

Father Gregory Boyle - Tattoos on the Heart, Page 1

"I asked the grasses if they believed
but they said believe is such a poor verb..."
                                 "In the Name of the Bee" by Pádraig ÓTuama from
                                  Kitchen Hymns

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Dear Friend,

I just can’t seem to get away from this Schliermacher guy. Last summer a friend introduced me to 19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. The introduction began as something of a lark - a sort of “I can’t believe you haven’t read Schleiermacher’s views on this or that.” And because Schleiermacher seemed so utterly obscure unless, I suppose, you had a seminary education (which I clearly do not) it was a funny introduction, and I still cherish it and the conversations and laughs that it sparked.

But recently, Friedrich just keeps randomly showing up and stirring the little brass kettle of my simmering and (hopefully) refining faith. A couple of days ago, a different friend shared Schleiermacher’s definition of heresy as:

Heresy: that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence.

What an invitation to a little self-examination…I wonder if I’ve been looking for heresy in all the wrong places, and trying my best to guard against falling into heretical pits of bad beliefs. Even prior to finding Schleiermacher’s definition, I feel like I’ve been playing a lot of defense, even going so far as to check Wiki for the officially recognized Christian heresies (and it’s a very impressive and confusing list),. And though I’m naturally inclined to playing offense rather than defense, it made me wonder if perhaps playing defense might be a good idea, in this case after all. Maybe it does, in fact, make sense to try hard, even if often unsuccessfully to recognize and say no! emphatically to things that might risk God escaping from the beautifully colored cardboard God-Box that I have been carefully constructing for Him most of my life - usually, but not always, out of materials I gathered up as a child - a shoe box from a long forgotten Christmas covered carefully by flannel-graph stories from Sunday school, and even more carefully filled with strips of colored tissue paper with proper Bible verses that support my particular brand of the faith and give God a comfortable, albeit smallish home in which to reside - a home that I can carry with me, you know, just in case I ever need a little favor.

But in so doing, am I not declaring my God-Box to be bigger than God, Himself. And am I not appointing myself to be God-judge, and declaring my own understanding of proper beliefs to be supreme, and declaring myself the adjudicator of what fits into this little box and what does not? That seems a job far, far above my pay grade. There is such grace in that, because I am certainly not qualified for such work, nor do I want that position. Who, in their most honest moments, would accept the job of God-judge, and how could you trust a person who would lay claim to that title?

I could not. Not ever. Yet how often do I try? So often.

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I adore Father Greg and his ministry, and I’m going to risk something here, that I ordinarily would not risk. I wonder if he really meant:

“God can get tiny, if we’re not too careful”.

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Friedrich’s definition seems to turn the question of “wrong beliefs” completely on its head, and perhaps invites us into something far deeper than “Do I think the right thinks?” That Schleiermacher would take a page from the Jesus playbook, by challenging the conventional wisdom of religious authorities gets my attention. I have long questioned whether belief as intellectual assent is best place from which to begin a walk with the creator of all things, and I wonder if something far more meaningful and far more difficult is being asked of us than simply and even sincerely professing the right creed or creeds as the gate through which we must pass before following Jesus - a sort of cosmic entry point for a relationship with the God of the universe. I wonder if instead of being asked to agree we are being asked to trust and surrender - even surrendering our own judgment of what fits and what does not fit into the boxes that maybe, just maybe, we all make with the best of intentions, instead of trusting that God will catch us if/when He finds us falling into some pit of bad beliefs He doesn’t want us to fall into. You know, like He has been doing all along.

Though often Jesus did insist on belief, I find nothing in Jesus’s words to suggest that faith or salvation rests on one’s ability to break into a fortified castle of intellectual assent to the gospel or cleverly finding a way into the secret inner sanctums of Christian orthodoxy. He insisted that we follow Him and believe in Him. Not, as far as I can tell, that we put our hope in a systemic orthodoxy of enlightened thinking. In fact, much of what Jesus said seemed to challenge the orthodoxy of His time.

It’s worth noticing, I think, that Jesus’s life predated our current faith in reason, progress, and cause and effect thinking of the enlightenment by over 15 -hundred years, the very enlightenment that seems to have cheapened the word, believe. Jesus, it seems, often suggested, to the dismay of many who heard him that belief the way we have come to understand it, simply wasn’t and isn’t enough. He wanted far more than simply thinking - or even doing - the right things. It seems somewhat clear that when Jesus said believe, He was asking for our hearts, and nothing less would or will do.

This is not my rejecting the importance of orthodoxy. Rather, I am suggesting that orthodoxy may well be an icon pointing to God, but also acknowledging it’s hard for me to resist the temptation to make orthodoxy an idol. In 2004, Barbara Brown Taylor, addressing the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College discussed leaving full time parish ministry for what she called a whole panoply of reasons…

…but at least one of which was because the language of belief had become so contentious…Christian faith seemed to be more and more a matter of defending theological positions instead of washing dirty feet. Part of me cringed when people waved the Bible to support their various causes, freeze drying foundational stories of the faith into rounded tablespoons of exclusive doctrine.

(I can’t help but wonder if Barbara had eaten a healthy Schleiermacher diet in seminary.)

In those rare moments when I can see myself clearly, I am certain that Brown-Taylor is talking about me. I would far prefer to defend my positions on social justice and compassion and to do so under the banner of heaven and Christianity than wash the feet of those whose views are anchored in their understanding of Christian doctrine, positions that look nothing like mine. I’d rather be right than be love.And when I refuse to get my hands dirty and hide behind my exclusive doctrine, am I not

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preserving the appearance of Christianity while contradicting its essence.

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Oremus,

Chris

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Father,

You are far more than we can ever imagine, contain, or hold. May you be glorified.

And may your perfect will come to pass now and always. Here and everywhere.

And if it pleases you, will you continue to meet all of our needs and our deepest longings with your breathtaking abundance. May we learn to recognize your abundance for what it is, rather than clinging to the lies of fear and scarcity, and instead to lean into your perfect love,

Forgive me if it pleases you, my pride and desire always to be right, and my making you small enough to justify my withholding what you, yourself have made clear what you ask of me - my heart. 

Forgive me when I neglect your beloved children whom you have asked only that I love, as you have loved them. Remind me that each face I see bears your thumbprint, no matter what they believe and no matter what they do, and that to love them is to love you.

Amen.