I once held extremely conservative views and theology. The things I once did in the name of God makes me cringe when I think of them, and make me pray for forgiveness for my actions, and grieve for those I destroyed at the time. However, as my knowledge grew, as our understanding of ancient language changed and increased, I began to realise that I was wrong. Psychology was telling me that reality did not coincide with what I believed. That all I was doing was causing severe psychological trauma, and inciting hatred, murder, prejudice. None of these was consistent with a God of love. None of these were fruit of the spirit of Love. New understanding of ancient languages meant I had to acknowledge that either the Bible was severely mistranslated in places, or nothing more than a made up fictional work in a made up fictional language. I realised that if I didn’t change my interpretation of scripture, I may as well be venerating the elffic writings of J.R.R. Tolkein, or Gene Rodenberry’s Klingon as they were just as grounded in reality.
I am in the process of undertaking a study for my degree (eventually it will lead to a Phd), looking at how people with conservative religious views live in society (which won’t be finished for about another 3-4 years). My preliminary findings so far suggest that conservatives do not integrate their faith with their physical world, but learn to live parallel lives, keeping the two separate, and that they cease to have individual identities, adopting a corporate identity, believing only what the corporate identity tells them to believe. People only change when they are forced to acknowledge that their beliefs do not fit with reality that is before them. At that point, they become more liberal, or radicalise as a fundamentalist. Education on its’ own does very little.
It is easy to say that because the Bible was written by the supreme, perfect God, that He would make sure those that read His word, would understand it as He intended it to be understood. However, that has a dire implication. Does that mean that those great men and women of God in the past, who understood the bible as supporting the suppression of women, of supporting slavery, of supporting the genocide of the Jews, of teaching that people of colour were not human, that those godly people, were not following God? That they were not Christian? That we are the only people in the history of the world who are or ever have been Christian? If God makes sure that we understand perfectly His word, why didn’t He do the same for our ancestors? Or have we got it wrong? Should women be suppressed? Should people of colour be slaves, and denied human rights as non-humans? Should we be practicing genocide?
Taking a hard-line view on either side leads to dire consequences. It puts our very salvation at risk. The most anyone can do is say ‘I don’t know! I am only human. I can only know what I am capable of knowing at this point in time.’ Our thinking will and should change over time. It is a hard thing to change what we have always believed. But that’s part of being human. Just because we perceive two different views to be diametrically opposed, does not mean that they are. It may just mean that our human minds are not large enough to understand that the box is far greater than we see it, and our two views, in proportion, are perhaps more closely aligned than we could ever have imagined.
Graeme Randall
Former
Australia
Australia Southern Territory
2 comments:
Graeme,
Boy, you hit the nail on the head for me when you wrote about holding ultra conservative views and hurting people in the process. I know that when I was very "right and rigid" that I probably did more harm than good and had to go back to some specific people and apologize for my piety. Unfortunately, most harm can not be "undone" and I had to just pray that God would smooth out the wrinkles that I caused.
I would love to hear more about your research. My own studies have been in the area of burnout in the helping professions (to include ordained ministry but with a focus on mental health workers). I LOVE the connection between faith and psychology and am passionate about helping people find true wholeness.
Keep On Keeping On!
I too would love to hear more about your research and I too am very keen on the link between faith and psychology, as I feel that it is in this area that we will be able to have more impact on keeping Officers as Officers rather than as 'Formers'.
I contemplated once on writing a piece on the foundations of fundraising in Scriptures, and I still might, but it would be far more interesting and beneficial to study a piece on the Foundations of Psychology in the Scriptures.
It appears at times that TSO Leadership (as depicted in this blog's responses), not all hasten to add, seem to be almost 'PhD's' in management of the process, but ignorant of the fact that our Officer Corps is made up (almost) of real, live, often fragile people who need real emotional, and psychological support, with the encouragement to leave spiritual support between them and their God.
Graeme and Patti! Keep at it, this is fantastic. Go strong and long in reaching the goal of people, not just formers, not only becoming comfortable with their Faith, but just simply being comfortable in their own skin, here in the glorious now.
This is where the excitement is for me when we talk of 'formers', and how we stop the flood.
Cheers
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