What’s the Least? 1

What’s the Least? 1 March 2, 2011

Alongside our posts about Miroslav Volf’s book, and alongside some of the fury unleashed about universalism this last weekend, I want to begin a weekly series by drawing on a book by pastor Martin Thielen. His book has a provocative title, but the title only gets us to open the book to a very serious topic that is handled responsibly and pastorally.  The title: What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?: A Guide to What Matters Most. (For how to use this book in the church, see this site.)

This is a good question because it is one many people ask … and I can’t say I think it is a final question. But it is one that can generate a good conversation for us. Take a stab at it, what do you think? What is the least? Or what is the minimum one has to believe to be a Christian? But there’s another question today: What is something you don’t have to believe though you’ve been in circles where they needed to believed — or at least it sure seemed that it needed to be believed?

His book is cut in half. The first half looks at things Ten things Christians don’t need to believe, and the second half at Ten things Christians do need to believe.

Today, the first half of the first half…

Here are some things one need not believe.

1. God causes cancer, car wrecks, and other catastrophes. Here Martin takes a common line: although God can and does bring good results out of tragedies, God doesn’t cause them.

2. Good Christians don’t doubt. Doubt is not the enemy of faith and it is part of authentic Christianity.

3. True Christians can’t believe in evolution. Science and faith, Martin contends, are compatible. Theistic evolution is perfectly reasonable.

4. Women can’t be preachers and must submit to men. Women are fully equal with men in marriage, church and society.

5. God cares about saving souls but not about saving trees. God cares about personal salvation and social justice, and so should God’s church.


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