Milk Versus Meat

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready. (1 Corinthians 3:2)

My recent tirade about atonement theory has left me musing on the gap between what I learned in seminary and what the average person in the pew understands about scriptural theology.  Generally, I would say the gap is wide.  

In preaching, I have characterized my approach as trying to sneak  enlightened theological concepts through the back door.  Perhaps I was too subtle.  Or, more likely, I was too risk-averse.  After all, when a preacher causes someone to question what they have assumed to be “the faith,” there is often conflict which arises and must be dealt with.  A steady diet of conflict is a great burden to bear.  

From my own experience I once preached a sermon in which I implied that God’s grace was expansive enough to include persons who were not nominally Christian.  I took as a launching point the passage in Romans where the apostle Paul says

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. (2:13-16)

I did not anticipate the firestorm that resulted in the congregation, leading to the exodus of several up-to-then faithful members - a conflict that became well-known in our community and from which it took a year or so for us to recover.  The reaction of my critics was so visceral that long-standing friendships collapsed almost overnight.  Emotions trumped reason.

My point in telling of this incident is to illustrate how much resistance there is to even subtle challenges to people’s long-held beliefs, even if those beliefs are built on insubstantial scaffolding, or are but one way to understand a particular Biblical concept.  Indeed, I suspect that the more rickety the props of belief, the more resistance one will face when those beliefs are undermined.  But I love Hebrews 12:26-27 which attests to the necessity of building one’s faith on something solid.  “At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.”  

“What cannot be shaken,” however, is a matter of opinion.  One person’s foundation is another’s house of cards.  My denomination, United Methodist, is at present facing schism because different parties are attaching ultimate significance to different interpretations of scripture.  Apparently, even seminary education doesn’t create like-thinkers.   

Of course, I don’t think the goal of preaching and teaching in the church is to turn everyone into seminarians.  Nevertheless, Christian education falls far short of what could be.  Yet, my own experience demonstrates how difficult the task is, especially since seminary does not guarantee that clergy will all have “the mind of Christ.”

There is another factor that contributes to the gap between modern theology and what most church-goers believe and that is the discrepancy between the little wisdom a preacher is able to impart on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night, versus the insurmountable tide of distorted, misinformed, and mistaken messages the average person encounters during the rest of the week.  No twenty minute sermon can compete with the endless flow of TV, radio, podcast, streaming media, etc., which often has very questionable theological content, often in stark opposition to what I understand as the good news of the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed.  I often feel like the little boy with his finger in the dike while fresh leaks are sprouting all over the place.  There is only so much one can do.

I wonder if there is a better way.  One recent effort is the sponsorship of the Neighborhood Seminary, hosted by different districts of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.  These are in-depth classes providing laity with the best available scholarship on various subjects for the application of Christian principles to daily living.  Of course, these classes appeal to only a small minority of church-goers but they are an attempt to bridge the gap between the academy and the pew.  I am not sure there are any better solutions.  

When Jesus told the parable of the mustard seed the implication was that it only takes a little faith to be effective for the kingdom of God.  Maybe  I’m expecting too much.  While I would rather the church be filled with “meat eaters,” (see the opening scripture above), maybe a diet of spiritual milk is all that is necessary.  Jesus told the disciples to “go out into the deep,” to catch fish, but I believe he welcomes and loves even those who wade only in the shallows.  I suppose I should, too.

Several books have been written about stages of faith, understood not only as an individual’s journey toward spiritual maturity but also as a description of the church’s growth toward maturity.  Certainly a six-year-old has a very different spiritual life than a thirteen-year-old.  And one would hope that someone at seventy-five would have greater depth of belief, and acceptance of faith’s complexity beyond that of a thirteen-year-old. One would hope.  

So it is hoped that the church has matured through the centuries from childlike, to adolescent, to more complex faith.  God’s people no longer burn heretics at the stake, nor do we launch crusades to wage war against people who are not Christian.  We no longer bless slavery, and some of us accept the reality that women are called to ministry.  Even theologies of atonement have gone through changes through the ages.  Jesus once said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12).”  Perhaps in each age of history the Holy Spirit has revealed new truths little by little as the church became more ready to bear them.  That is not to say that acceptance of new theological insights has been without hard-fought resistance.  There are branches of Christianity that still will not bless the ministry of women and I suspect more than a few so-called Christians would be pleased to launch new crusades against their perceived enemies.  Still, I continue to hope that God’s people, as a whole, will continue to mature and be open to what the Spirit might be revealing today and in the future.  Perhaps someday all Christians will be ready to give up milk for the meat of the gospel.  One can hope.