What do you believe?

One of the pleasures of re-reading books, and new ones, is that they help to feed the heart and mind. They challenge and you have time to ponder. This is so important when it comes to matters of faith and what we may or may not believe or have come to no longer believe. That this should develop, mature and change seems to me to be what is required when we live within the flow of God’s Love. 

To hold on to the things which no longer work or have meaning is foolish, though I suspect many hang onto beliefs when they no longer serve to sustain. It may well be that many play it safe and don’t think about matters of their faith. Maybe to be seen or heard to question the accepted norm makes it too an uncomfortable a place to be. 

I just can’t help but feel in church life it has been dulled by hanging onto some traditions for the sake of it. Or joy has gone out of it all because Christians make it into an us and them. We have it right they don’t. How un-inclusive is that?

Don’t get me wrong. Life is complicated, messy and living the life of Jesus Christ is not an easy path. But where is the divine laughter and delight in many acts of worship. Where is the good news that Jesus came to bring life, hence not to condemn but to show mercy, forgiveness and create Joy and Hope. 

So below I have jotted some thoughts about what I currently believe which in turn reflect what I no longer or never believed. The irony of course in saying what I believe, means I am also saying I don’t know, and that’s okay, its healthy.

I believe that out of Love, that which we call God, brought into existence the creation that we know and don’t know. For who truly knows the universe and beyond? 

That creation continues to unfold as the universe continues to expand. It is a flow that reflects the nature of God that is Trinitarian, Father Son and Holy Spirit, where Love flows one to the other and the spaces between make the relationships possible. One would just be an individual, two would be a couple, but three makes a community. Amazingly God invites us into the relationship. The self emptying of the trinitarian God in Love, brings creation into being and continues as it flows and expands infused with God throughout. Yes God is transcendent but is incarnate within the creative act and so creation itself.

I believe the nature of God is Love. Being true to that nature God can only Love the creation even when it messes up. So mercy and forgiveness are a constant given. Retribution and punishment are not in the nature of God. This later is human made and makes for conflict in family and society. 

I believe scripture tells the story of how humanity has encountered God, thought about God, and sought to impose upon God its views based on the understanding of the time. But the thread through scripture can be picked up that God wants to Love, forgive and show mercy. We of course are not so keen, so we want there to be a price to be paid for forgiving. Always a transaction to be made. So we impose upon the cross a false understanding of what God was doing and make ourselves miserable as a consequence. In doing so we seek to impose upon God a control that God must have satisfaction before forgiveness can happen. This flies in the face of the God on the cross with arms outstretched who shouts out forgiveness.

Scripture is contradictory in as much as its not published in the order it was first told and written down. It is clear that stories are kept but updated in other places, and all the time there is a flow of discovery as to the true nature of God, Love, mercy, forgiveness inclusion. For example the whole movement from Israel believing their God is one among many, to a position of there is only one God, highlights this changing understanding. Then it goes on that this God is God of all people, and God desires to draw all people into one community. This is still being worked out. The written scriptures ‘Bible’ might have ended with Revelation for Christians but it’s still being written as we work out what it all means in the light of today. 

I believe Scripture does not give us a rule book to be followed and Jesus often re wrote the rules highlighting compassion, forgiveness and Love which always takes precedent. Scripture always needs to be read in context of the time it was written, and the time we find ourselves in. We look at scripture through the lens of Jesus and that assists us in filtering out the destructive elements that scripture is sometimes used for.

Scripture is not the focus of faith, it is God, or for Christians God in Christ, lived out through God the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, even when we are not fully aware of this. When people claim the Bible says this or that, not only are they missing the point, but they turn the Bible into the focus of their devotion and not God. Then they proceed to beat others over the head with it, no wonder folk walk away.

I believe a God who is Love does not need to somehow be appeased to put things right. God constantly and particularly in Christ Jesus acts to show the way to live and be part of the divine community. 

God cannot not love, because Love is the nature of God’s very being.

and as Brian McLaren writes ‘Jesus is the way - he’s not standing in the way.’ 

I believe that when I die, which I will, I will return to the one who gave me life in the first place. I have no idea what that is. But Jesus was clear that in knowing where he came from he knew where he would go. He came from the divine dance of the Trinity to which we are invited. We are part of the flow of the Love that brought forth creation and ourselves in particular and that therefore is our home. 

Teihard de Chardin said  ‘the very physical structure of the universe is love’ Those who have eyes to see……

Peter Enns writes we need to  ‘decouple our faith in God from our thoughts about God. That way faith doesn’t rest on correct thinking.

Yes its great to discuss, debate and tease out our changing understanding about God, that’s healthy, and necessary,  but, and it’s the big but, faith is still putting our Trust in God, and living with uncertainty. 

So I believe but these things are always provisional.

What is not provisional is my Faith a Trust in God .........that's less about the head and more about the heart, the relationship, the experience of God in the spaces of life....