{"id":967,"date":"2013-02-14T22:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T22:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/different-phases\/"},"modified":"2013-02-14T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T22:12:00","slug":"different-phases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/different-phases\/","title":{"rendered":"Different Phases"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Different Phases <\/span><\/p>\n

The title caught me.\u00a0 <\/span>I resonated with it immediately, thinking of others \u2013 then realization sat in.\u00a0 <\/span>He was talking about me.<\/p>\n

Ross Douthat in Bad Religion<\/em> holds the premise that through the ages, a \u201ccore orthodoxy\u201d has held the church together and allowed her to weather the storms of heresy.\u00a0 <\/span>However, today heresies are growing stronger as something obligatory has to fill the empty void present because our past religious experiences aren\u2019t sufficient for this day and time.<\/p>\n

Age doesn\u2019t guarantee wisdom or intelligence but it does allow for a vast array of experiences which can be meaningful when interpreted and processed correctly.\u00a0 <\/span>I pictured myself in almost every stage and expression of faith that Douthat described. \u00a0<\/span>And in each of these phases, I chose my \u201cown Jesus,\u201d as he suggests is the process of most.\u00a0 <\/span>Some chapters I applauded out loud while others made me squirm in my seat as \u201cchief of heretics.\u201d<\/p>\n

I began my faith journey during the height of the Jesus revolution, Billy Graham and churches full of attendees.\u00a0 <\/span>Although disillusion was beginning for many, in Kansas and the Midwest \u2013 where trends arrive about 20 years late \u2013 we experienced the growth and popularity that Douthat speaks of.\u00a0 <\/span>People like Norman Vincent Peal, Niebuhr and even Martin Luther King seemed far away.\u00a0 <\/span>We had faith in our Faith.<\/p>\n

My mainline Protestant denomination was growing.\u00a0 <\/span>There was excitement in the air.\u00a0 <\/span>The seminaries were full and jobs were plentiful.\u00a0 <\/span>But something happened; the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution and globalization.\u00a0 <\/span>Personally I struggled with becoming political without being partisan \u2013 I agreed with Senator Mark Hatfield\u2019s book Between a Rock and a Hard Place<\/em>!\u00a0 <\/span>But then I moved to a large city where people called my church and my faith irrelevant.\u00a0 <\/span>I still felt the joy of Christianity, but with doubts coming at me from many directions, questions crept in.\u00a0 <\/span>It wasn\u2019t from those outside of the church but those within. Those that said my seminary training was too liberal.\u00a0 <\/span>That the mystery I knew to be faith wasn\u2019t black and white enough.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Douthat explains that “Christianity is a paradoxical religion because the Jew of Nazareth is a paradoxical character.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>My generation believed in mystery, in areas of gray, of not having all of the answers – but I was finding out that many younger than myself felt differently, and worse, were even challenging my Christianity.<\/p>\n

As I began moving further from the adherents of a utopianism and nationalistic gospel, my denomination seemed to me less relevant.\u00a0 <\/span>When I would challenge people to worship Christ rather than America, I was being non-religious, \u201cand a pastor at that!\u201d they would say.<\/p>\n

My own disillusionment prompted me to leave organized religion for a time and work in business.\u00a0 <\/span>But even during that time of sabbatical, my boss, a conservative of the type mentioned above had me pledge allegiance to Focus on the Family, Jim Dobson and Pat Robertson!\u00a0 <\/span>He from time to time would even give me gifts of money, stating \u201cdon\u2019t worry \u2013 the Bible promises that the more I give away, the more I\u2019ll receive.\u201d (an easy idea for the head of a company who had more money than he needed!).<\/p>\n

Yes, I had read \u201cThe Late Great Planet Earth\u201d by Hal Lindsey and debated various positions of \u201cpost, pre and ahhhhh.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>But now it wasn\u2019t even up for debate.\u00a0 <\/span>If I didn\u2019t believe like certain followers of apocalypticism, I might as well keep my mouth shut.<\/p>\n

I began to drift, further toward the Liberal side, further toward Accommodation.\u00a0 <\/span>I thought \u201cthese crazy people are driving many away from Jesus\u2019 message.\u00a0 <\/span>We need to live only by the Gospel.\u00a0 <\/span>Paul was a chauvinist and out of step.\u00a0 <\/span>The Jesus I want is in the \u201cred letters.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The more I studied different religions and traveled overseas, solipsism begged at my brain \u2013, I even watched and could relate to Julia Roberts in \u201cEat, Pray, Love\u201d managing however \u00a0<\/span>to pass through that phase with little harm done.<\/p>\n

So I sit today, full of questions. But also full of faith.\u00a0 <\/span>Although I still lean toward Accommodation, (I just think the people in that camp are nicer, but primarily, because I can\u2019t stand those caught up in nationalism and the prosperity gospel).\u00a0 <\/span>I want the Christian message to matter \u2013 today, in our reality, with the mystery it once held.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s allow the core beliefs of orthodoxy to pervade us once again.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s allow mystery to reign supreme and allow discussion and doubt.<\/p>\n

As Douthat outlines in his book, “America’s problem isn’t too much religion or too little of it. It’s bad religion.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m still trying to figure out what good religion looks like.\u00a0 <\/span>He gives some direction including; the Opportunities that Postmodernism allow, a Benedict option, applying ourselves to the Next Christendom and just settling for an age of Diminished Expectations.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps I\u2019ll migrate back toward the middle, but for now, I\u2019m happy where I am \u2013 in search of core orthodoxy, surrounded by lots of mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Different Phases The title caught me.\u00a0 I resonated with it immediately, thinking of others \u2013 then realization sat in.\u00a0 He was talking about me. Ross Douthat in Bad Religion holds the premise that through the ages, a \u201ccore orthodoxy\u201d has held the church together and allowed her to weather the storms of heresy.\u00a0 However, today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,7,109],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-douthat","tag-lgp"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}