In other words, some doctrine just cannot be held in an “open, willing to listen and learn” manner. I certainly hope you are “dogmatic and closed-minded” on at least a few points of your faith, Brett. Otherwise you simply do not hold to it.

If you disagree here, or revolt against this statement in any manner, then Rollins is influencing you in a way that goes much deeper than the posture in which we hold our beliefs, and you may have renounced the beliefs themselves.

Read my next sentence slowly and thoughtfully please.

Just because he still includes the word “belief” in his redefinition of orthodoxy as “believing in the right way” rather than “right belief” does not mean he isn’t trying to do away with “right belief” altogether.

He is setting up “right belief” and “believing in the right way” as mortal enemies, and he is making it perfectly clear that he is choosing “believing in the right way”.

Ghandi was not a Christian. Unless the AIDS worker believes certain things, he is not a Christian. John Lennon was not a Christian, even though some people sing his songs in church.

And I feel obligated to point out to you, niether nonviolent resistence, nor social work, nor songwriting will save a soul. Believing the Gospel will.

I’ll be honest. I think you are treading on dangerous ground when you say things like “At this point I see the beauty in defining a Christian as a way of being in the world, as opposed to believing certain things about the world.”

Thanks for contributing to the conversation! I really appreciate you taking the time to leave thoughtful comments. You rock man

I wanted to address the question you asked, “Is this (Christians attempting to delineate what they believe) not a good thing?”

I think it is a good thing to do. I have beliefs. You have beliefs. We all have to wrestle through what we believe about Jesus, the kingdom, the Bible, church, etc.

What I think Rollins is hitting on is the posture in which we hold those beliefs. Do we hold them in an open, humble, and “willing to listen and learn” manner, or do we hold them in a dogmatic, arrogant, and close minded posture?

I think the phrase “believing in the right way” isn’t trying to communicate that beliefs don’t matter. That’s why the word “belief” is still included in the statement. However, what I think is of ultimate importance is who we are. Are we loving, Christlike people? I think this is why Rollins states that “orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little.” Because talk is cheap. It’s easy to say “I believe such and such about Jesus.” Yet, as he also states it’s another thing entirely to “bring love to the world around us.” That, like the Aids worker serving the dying will cost us everything.

I think at this point I see the beauty in defining a Christian as a way of being in the world, as opposed to believing certain things about the world.

C.S. Lewis gives a beautiful example of this in his book The Last Battle. Check out an excerpt here at an online blog I found.

Thoughts?

Much of the New Testament is composed of the apostle Paul’s attempts to expose and discredit false teachers, specifically the Galatian Judaizers, who required the circumcision of Gentiles before they could enter into the Christian community.

Many of the early creeds put forth by the church fathers(Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.) were composed to combat Gnosticism, which denied the bodily existence of Jesus, His death, the very notion of a resurrection, and in some instances claimed Jesus fathered a child by Mary Magdalene.

I mention these things to dispell the myth that there was ever a “golden age” of Christian unity, and that schisms and denominations only entered the history of the Church with the Protestant Reformation and the revival of serious theological study.

There have always been wolves in sheeps’ clothing, and there was never a time when Christians have not attempted to delineate just what exactly they believe, on down to the smallest minutia, in reaction to prominent falsehoods taught by whatever deceivers happened to be in vogue.

My question is: Is this not a good thing? After all, when I walk into the doors of a church, I hope they have a statement of faith I can read, so I will know just what I am claiming to believe by entering into a covenant community with them. I don’t want to find out I’m a Mormon five years into it.

It seems to me that Mr. Rollins, when he says, “bringing love to the world around us and within us will cost us everything”, means that it will cost us, specifically, our doctrine. He sets them up the heart and the head as diametric opposites; this needn’t be so.

He says right belief will “cost us nothing”. Not so. It will cost us church members. Truly, our beliefs divide us.

But they also unite us. The leftovers. The remnant.

Christ died for us, rose for us, to bridge the gap between God and man.

Other then that, what truly matters, does it truly matter that some of us attend churches were tongues are thought to be nothing more then babble? Does it matter that some of us attend churches that teach electronic music is not right? No, because if the message of the sacrifice of christ is being taught and taught as it should be in all it’s glory, in all it’s pain, in all it’s anguish and beauty, then it matters not whether I believe in tongues or not? You are right to say so many branches have been made but if the root of the tree is the same, what does it matter?

If I am wrong and you are not saying that, then I am sorry that I misunderstood.

To be unspotted in a pretty radical idea considering the attitude in most of the church today that we live as close to the edge of the world as we can, rather than try to get away from it.