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Deeply De-Christian Doctrines

Peter Kirk has tagged me with a meme that states: list 5 doctrines that are taught within the Christian church that you believe to be deeply de-Christian. The meme originated here and Lingamish and Clayboy are among those who have already been tagged, I’m always a latecomer to these parties!

There is only one valid translation of the Bible: It is normally adherants of the King James Version who fall into this trap, but I’m sure that speakers of other langauges have their equivalents too. And here lies the problem. If there is only one valid translation of the Bible then all speakers of other languages and everyone born before the translation was made are excluded from God’s revelation. The logic of this is exposed brilliantly here.

The Gospel is identical to any particular political view: Christians have tried to suborn the message of the Gospel to a particular national or political ideology since the days of Constantine. The latest egregious example is the conservative Bible translation project (which I will not deign with another link). The kingdom of God stands above all of our ideologies and makes a far broader call on our allegiances than any human system.

Christians in one country or region are better than others: you don’t have to spend long in mission circles before you will here the suggestion that in some way Christians from the developed world are better than Christians from other places. Seemingly well meaning statements such as ‘they have a simple faith, so uncomplicated‘ are actually rather insulting – as well as being desperately uninformed. Yes, Western Christians might have centries of theological reflection on supralapsarianism or what-have-you behind them, but many of our brothers and sisters around the world have first hand reflection on questions of war, hunger and poverty. This stuff may not be in the libraries, but it is no less theological for all that. The truth is that all Christians in the world have strengths and weaknesses and we all need each other.

Salvation is all about you and Jesus: being a Christian means being a part of a local and a worldwide community. Salvation certainly involves a relationship with Jesus, but it brings with it a whole series of family relationships and the sooner we get used to that the better!

That’s only four – but it’s the weekend.

I’ll tag a couple of bloggers that I met last week at the Global Connections Conference: Steve Fouch and Chris Kidd.

EDIT: I like Jutta’s contribution to this meme – good stuff.

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