Ministers learn to read the Bible through the lenses of various methods of interpretation. The technical name for them is “criticisms,” which simply means different ways to evaluate the meaning of a text based on form, textual context, history, authorship, canonical function, and other variables. Essentially these are tools of interpretation that help ministers reach the best possible conclusion about the original meaning of a biblical passage. Because the methods and the people using them are different, conclusions are also often different. While similarities are always present, scholars and ministers sometimes disagree as to the overall meaning of a text. This is what makes study of the Bible interesting and humbling.

It occurs to me that a similar approach to faith is needed for Christians today. Despite the church’s efforts to state core Christian beliefs through creeds and doctrine and dogma, there has never been any widespread agreement about those beliefs. Theological diversity has always characterized the Christian community, a lesson apparently lost on many Christians. So they read the four gospels that are quite different in the story they tell about Jesus as if these differences don’t exist, or, if they do, don’t matter. That would be like saying no differences in belief exist between Protestants and Catholics, and, if they do, they don’t matter. They do exist, of course, and they do matter, but not enough to make us enemies or lead us to declare who is or is not a real Christian. Sadly, though, this is precisely how such differences have been used.

This kind of theological naivete that insists there is only one way to interpret the Bible or only one set of Christian beliefs that is true cannot be the foundation for a faith that is big enough for the world we live in. Thinking that all Christians are going to believe the same things almost guarantees conflict and schism. We must, instead, recognize the richness and efficacy of theological diversity. Christians of all stripes must find some common ground for discussing the differences that exist between us about issues that range from the nature of God to Jesus to the Bible to core beliefs. What that common ground is something I will write about in my next blog.

Simple acts of kindness, compassion, working on behalf of social and economic justce - these are things that change the world. Preaching, ever how eloquent, moralizing, ever how sincere, railing against the sins of others, ever how biblically based, will ever change the world.

If Christians could understand that people respond to how you live more than what you say, we might be able to make a difference in the lives of others. It never ceases to amaze me how fervent people are about what they believe and think others should believe while at the same time paying no attention to the impact their words and actions are having. The old adage that I would rather see a sermon any day than hear one reflects the way most people think.

Last week Joy and I were driving to visit her brother and his wife who live in the North Caolina mountains. On the way we passed a church with a sign out front that read: HELL IS SMOKING - GOD IS NOT JOKING - JESUS SAVES! Did the minister who put that sign up actually believe it was going to make someone think about their relaitionship with God? If so, he (I am admittedly assuming it would be a "he" in that church) is very misguided. Apparently he doesn't know that 75% of Christias today don't attend church on any regular basis. That sign is hardly an incentive to anyone who isn't to believe they should.

I am more comvinced than ever that Christians are our own worst enemy. We think we can conjole people into taking God seriously, but we can't. The best thing we can do is to show them a life worthy of the compassion and love God shows us. Short of that, all our words will come to nothing. The Apostle Paul said it best: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor. 13:1), Nothing more need be said.