The wrongness of right beliefs
November 20, 2012 by Bob
According to The Barna Group (a market research firm
specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of
Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture) around 98% of all
Church growth is transfer or biological.The truth is evangelism in the
West has been largely ineffective and with good reason.
Its one thing to acknowledge that something is not working but greater courage is needed to do something about it. It seems to be a part of human nature that people remain within unworkable situations, one only has to look at unhappy marriages where people stay together long after its use-by date. When we walk away from that which is unworkable we stand a greater chance of finding that which does work.
With over 3,500 Churches in the US closing each year Christendom has proven to be unworkable the current model is outdated it bears little resemblance to the original. When it comes to finding a spiritual path that is authentic, the church promotes the same old tired absolutes: more concerned that Christianity is the only way more concerned with teaching spirituality as a system of beliefs, more concerned with doing and not being, of which a system of theological absolutes are a significant part. The church seems more concerned with defending the premise that Jesus is the ONLY way yet failing to show how the ONLY way is lived out in real life.
One of the reasons, and there are many, that evangelism has been so ineffective in the West is the message is never better than its messenger. If what you say isn’t reflected in who your are, it matters little how good the, so-called, good news is. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between those who say they have found the way and those who haven't.
I’ve met many spiritually connected people who have come from buddhist, muslim, hindu, new-age and the christian tradition. The one thing they all share is a deep connection with life they have often found what the mystics from all traditions call the True-Self. They emanate a deep-sense of joy they seem at peace with the world and with themselves.
There comes a point when many feel the need to move forward, to grow up, to remove the training wheels, to leave home and find a space that resonates as true and real. We don’t demonize our first frame of reference. We don’t criticize the place where we first grew up, We realize how important the first half of life is yet we also realize that when we grow up we often grow out this means moving to a space and place that is larger still; if it’s not broken don’t fix it, but equally, if it is broken have the presence of mind to realize it and then seek the courage and the commitment to do something about it.
Copernicus was famous for his resistance to flat earth thinkers, and it almost cost him his life. Not surprisingly his greatest critics came from the church. They feared he might be right but, more, they feared being proven wrong, all or nothing thinking will always create insurmountable challenges. If we hold to a premise that is rigid or fixed there will always be little room for movement if one thing is proven to be wrong then reason says that the whole premise, therefore, must also be wrong.
Truth is not something you believe; it’s not a commodity, it’s not something you have or own its something you live. We change the way we think by changing the way we live;
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” ― Richard Rohr
Its one thing to acknowledge that something is not working but greater courage is needed to do something about it. It seems to be a part of human nature that people remain within unworkable situations, one only has to look at unhappy marriages where people stay together long after its use-by date. When we walk away from that which is unworkable we stand a greater chance of finding that which does work.
With over 3,500 Churches in the US closing each year Christendom has proven to be unworkable the current model is outdated it bears little resemblance to the original. When it comes to finding a spiritual path that is authentic, the church promotes the same old tired absolutes: more concerned that Christianity is the only way more concerned with teaching spirituality as a system of beliefs, more concerned with doing and not being, of which a system of theological absolutes are a significant part. The church seems more concerned with defending the premise that Jesus is the ONLY way yet failing to show how the ONLY way is lived out in real life.
One of the reasons, and there are many, that evangelism has been so ineffective in the West is the message is never better than its messenger. If what you say isn’t reflected in who your are, it matters little how good the, so-called, good news is. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between those who say they have found the way and those who haven't.
I’ve met many spiritually connected people who have come from buddhist, muslim, hindu, new-age and the christian tradition. The one thing they all share is a deep connection with life they have often found what the mystics from all traditions call the True-Self. They emanate a deep-sense of joy they seem at peace with the world and with themselves.
There comes a point when many feel the need to move forward, to grow up, to remove the training wheels, to leave home and find a space that resonates as true and real. We don’t demonize our first frame of reference. We don’t criticize the place where we first grew up, We realize how important the first half of life is yet we also realize that when we grow up we often grow out this means moving to a space and place that is larger still; if it’s not broken don’t fix it, but equally, if it is broken have the presence of mind to realize it and then seek the courage and the commitment to do something about it.
Copernicus was famous for his resistance to flat earth thinkers, and it almost cost him his life. Not surprisingly his greatest critics came from the church. They feared he might be right but, more, they feared being proven wrong, all or nothing thinking will always create insurmountable challenges. If we hold to a premise that is rigid or fixed there will always be little room for movement if one thing is proven to be wrong then reason says that the whole premise, therefore, must also be wrong.
Truth is not something you believe; it’s not a commodity, it’s not something you have or own its something you live. We change the way we think by changing the way we live;
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” ― Richard Rohr
posted by Gary O at 1:50 AM
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