{"id":1228,"date":"2013-09-02T08:36:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T08:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/09\/cultivating-knowledge-of-christian-history-is-a-moral-obligation.html"},"modified":"2013-09-02T08:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T08:36:00","slug":"cultivating-knowledge-of-christian-history-is-a-moral-obligation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/09\/cultivating-knowledge-of-christian-history-is-a-moral-obligation.html","title":{"rendered":"Cultivating Knowledge of Christian History is a Moral Obligation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

by Crystal St. Marie Lewis<\/a>
R3 Contributor<\/span>

<\/span>*This first appeared at Crystal St. Marie Lewis<\/a> blog<\/span>

<\/span><\/p>\n

Last night, I entered a conversation about theology on Facebook\u2013 something I vowed never to do again after the \u201cCrystal-you-must-worship-the-devil-because-you-just-said-that-David-and-Jonathan-were-in-love\u201d debacle of 2010. (Yes, in an effort to show that the Bible is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0clear on the topic of same-sex relationships, I invoked the long-controversial and hotly-debated ambiguous\u00a0relationship between David and Jonathan<\/a>. Both the\u00a0relationship<\/i>\u00a0and the\u00a0language used<\/i>\u00a0to describe the relationship are unclear, I argued. I appealed to scripture and the original language\u2013 yet I did not succeed at making my conversation partners think twice about their assumptions. I only succeeded at causing them to unanimously declare that I must \u201cworship the devil\u201d. Moving right along.)<\/span><\/div>\n
Last night\u2019s long conversation began when a friend posted a quote and asked for our thoughts on what he shared:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\u201cAscertaining what someone means by the word \u2018love\u2019 is almost as difficult a ascertaining what some someone means by \u2018God.\u2019 As Mildred Bangs Wynkoop has said, love is a notoriously ambiguous \u2018weasel word.\u2019\u201d (Thomas Jay Oord)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
One gentleman said that the quote made no sense, as the meaning of \u201clove\u201d is easy to ascertain when its definition is based on the attributes found in the God of the Bible. I wrote in response to him:<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
An argument can be made that much of what is portrayed as \u201cGod\u201d in scripture is more abusive than it is loving. I do think that both \u201clove\u201d and \u201cGod\/god\u201d are loaded words.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And all hell broke loose.<\/span><\/div>\n
The conversation devolved into a strange space in which I repeatedly wrote that the image of a God who would kill his son to satisfy his own wrath should give us pause. However, the gentleman to whom I was writing argued that such an image is perfectly okay, as long as it\u2019s God doing the son-killing and not us. I wrote to him that \u201cthe doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement asks us to worship that which we could never morally justify imitating,\u201d but it was not received well. My statement was said to be the humanistic claim of someone who \u201cthinks too much\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n
As I exited the conversation last night, I remembered the first time anyone had ever suggested to me that there might be something morally wrong with my religious belief system. It happened during a chat about the doctrine of hell when an agnostic friend called my God a \u201ctorturer\u201d. He referred to Christianity as a \u201ccluster of recycled mythology\u201d and to Christians as a herd of people ignorant of our own roots. I found what he said so off-putting, so utterly jarring, that I shut him down completely, and refused to even think about his assertions.<\/span><\/div>\n
Months later, while overtaken by curiosity, I did some research and discovered that he was right\u2026 Right about everything. Right about the \u201cmythologies\u201d. Right about the historical use of those mythologies to control people. Even right about the average Christian\u2019s lack of knowledge when it comes to the history of the faith. I remember being angry that I had given myself so unquestioningly to what I believed, and even angrier that given the intricate history of Christian beliefs and doctrine, there had not been more discussion in my churches about the depths of our background.\u00a0This morning, upon re-reading my crazy Facebook discussion\u2013 the discussion in which I was told that it was evil for people to shun Jesus, but that God would expect a good Christian to shun a loved one with whom he disagreed\u2013 I experienced those confused, and even angry, feelings again.<\/span><\/div>\n
I believe our churches are morally obligated to acknowledge the psychological power religions can have over people. Because we know the negative effects of fundamentalism, the complex history of Christianity as an imperial power, and the ongoing problem of Christians bypassing love in favor of division and doctrine, we
\n have an obligation to head blind-believerism off at the pass. If the Christian religion is ever to truly be about love and not power, or love and not idolatry, or even love rather than merely being \u201cright,\u201d then we have to talk more openly about our imperfect, human beginnings to church attendees. This is how we become a religion that isn\u2019t opposed to intellectualism. This is how we become a religion committed to calling all forms of violence evil, even when committed by a \u201cdeity\u201d. This is how we demonstrate that honoring the truth is the basis of our moral fiber. This is how we cultivate a faith beyond fundamentalism.<\/span><\/div>\n
Follow Crystal on Twitter @crystallewis<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 Contributor*This first appeared at Crystal St. Marie Lewis blog Last night, I entered a conversation about theology on Facebook\u2013 something I vowed never to do again after the \u201cCrystal-you-must-worship-the-devil-because-you-just-said-that-David-and-Jonathan-were-in-love\u201d debacle of 2010. (Yes, in an effort to show that the Bible is\u00a0not\u00a0clear on the topic of same-sex relationships, I invoked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCultivating Knowledge of Christian History is a Moral Obligation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 Contributor*This first appeared at Crystal St. Marie Lewis blogLast night, I entered a conversation about theology on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/09\/cultivating-knowledge-of-christian-history-is-a-moral-obligation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cultivating Knowledge of Christian History is a Moral Obligation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 Contributor*This first appeared at Crystal St. Marie Lewis blogLast night, I entered a conversation about theology on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/09\/cultivating-knowledge-of-christian-history-is-a-moral-obligation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-02T08:36:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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