Choosing or Submitting to Beliefs?
Sometimes my columns are picked up
and posted other places and one such posting gave me the idea for this column.
My denomination, The Wesleyan Church, hosts a blog
discussion and picked up my column on hell-Bell. I was prompted to go
there when a couple of anonymous folk called me out, insisting I state my
own “stand” on hell. That sparked the idea for this column.
Since I host discussions online that include Calvinists and
Charismatics, liberals and fundamentalists, traditionalists and emergent, some suspect
my beliefs are up for grabs. Worse, a few suspect I harbor all kinds of
illegal positions on homosexuality, hell, abortion or something else. I
am sorry to disappoint them. I’m pretty traditional. So traditional that all my positions
are published in detail at http://wesleyan.org/beliefs. These are doctrines of
The Wesleyan Church, my denomination. I like to hear those who differ with us,
including Rob Bell, but there is no light between my own stands and those of my
denomination.
When did I come to believe these
doctrines? I did not decide them one by one. In fact I never “decided” to
believe these things—I submitted to them. I submitted when I became a
member of The Wesleyan Church and submitted even more so when I was
ordained. I didn’t decide…I submitted.
That disappoints some people. They
imagine another process. These folk elevate the individual, so they expected that
I would have studied the Bible, read everything I could find on a subject like
eternal security or tongues or hell and then I would have made up my mind on
that issue, crafting my own personal statement of faith on that subject and
move on to the next issue. After a decade or more of
deep study,
I would then have crafted my own personal statement of faith on all the issues.
Then I suppose they’d have me go shopping for a denomination that matched my
own private apostle’s creed.
That’s not how I “decided” what I
believe. How it really happened for me as I was
gradually exposed to doctrines as a child, teen and then a college student. But
I joined my denomination long before I had read every book available on eternal
security or tongues or anything else. How could I become a member of a
denomination before I “made up my mind” on these things? I submitted
to the Wesleyan doctrine. Maybe you suspect I believe these things less
for submitting to them instead of deciding them? Maybe you think it would be
better if I had “dated around” and tried out the other options before marrying
the Wesleyan doctrine. Sorry, I didn’t date much (though I went steady with Calvinism for a few years before we broke up).
How I came to believe the Wesleyan
Articles of Religion is the same way I came to
believe the Apostle’s Creed. I didn’t study the Bible for a few years,
then read a couple hundred years of church fathers, then write my own personal
apostle’s creed. I simply submitted to the Apostle’s Creed that’s been
around a couple thousand years. I believe it just as deeply even though I
didn’t write it myself. I don’t plan to revise it personally. I believe
it “as is.”
The only exception to my
submission is if I want to get involved in changing my denomination’s
doctrines. But, in that case, once the vote is taken, I would submit to
whatever decision was made and believe it…submit to it.
All this makes me look weak to the
rugged individualists. They think the individual makes the final decision on
doctrine. I think the church makes these decisions and the individual submits
to them. I’m not smart enough to write my own Apostle’s Creed. I don’t trust
myself—or any other single individual—to decide matters this important. That’s
why I have submitted my beliefs to the creeds, the councils and the
articles of religion of my own denomination. For me, belief is less about
“choosing” than submission.
So,
what do you think?
The discussion
of this column is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=161502633
Keith Drury April 5, 2011
www.TuesdayColumn.com