The politic of “affirmation” and politically correct assertions that to offend is the paramount sin continue to march through the Church.
An article caught my attention from the Christian Science Monitor on the newly released “Gospel of Judas,” the early Gnostic writings determined to be heresy well over a millennia ago. I first saw reference to this article on Kendall Harmon’s weblog, Titusonenine.
The article mentions that many progressive Christians are taking this newly released gospel and using it to buttress their claim that “diversity” has always been a hallmark of Christianity. They are using the fact that there were various communities and theologies during the beginning centuries of Christian development to justify their own variant views of Christian belief and practice.
Now, I am the first to agree that we change and our understanding of God, the Gospel, and the way we live it out in the world change. I don’t believe this means that God changes! Likewise, as an Anglican I support the vigorous debate of different ideas, but there comes a point when one stops believing in much of the traditional and orthodox Christian tenants at which point one stops being a Christian, despite what one wants to call one’s self. To use the early controversies as a justification for the chaos in theology and practice that is present today is not right, since during those early days many of those variants of Christian belief and practice were declared to be heretical, especially the Gnostic forms of all this stuff.
“To think that noncanonical texts legitimizes diversity today ‘is to ignore the fact that that diversity was not accepted [in the early church],’ says Ronald Simkins, director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion & Society at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. “It’s a naive use of history.'” Amen.
Then, there is the whole thing about being offensive!
“At the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul in Boston, the congregation has stripped Holy Week observances of traditional content that strikes members as offensive. On Palm Sunday last weekend, for instance, parishioners heard an adapted Passion narrative that removes biblical language seen as blaming Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion. And the hundreds who observe Good Friday won’t pray for those who haven’t yet received ‘the Gospel of Christ’ but for those untouched by ‘the grace of God’…”
The Gospel is patently offensive to this world, whether a conservative or a liberal world. There is no possible way to remove the offense without completely gutting the teachings of Jesus! It does none of us any favors by attempting to strip the Gospel of its offense and of its power, except that there are too many people who do not want to be held to account for who and what they really are – all of us! We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
To attempt to strip the Gospel or the Bible of offensive things will end in having none of it remaining, because offense will be found by some in all of it! So, just stop. Deal with it as it is. Let it challenge us, enrage us, reform us, save us, transform us, convict us, enliven us, instruct us, and lead us into relationship with the God who desires that we be reconciled to Himself, to one another, and to His good creation! To do otherwise is to be so very paternalistic by believing that people can’t handle the Truth, which may cause them some sort of discomfort or amendment of life. How sad. How shortsighted. How immature. How untrusting.