Thinking out loud

For the past several months, my wife and I have explored the different perspectives of Messianic Judaism and now recently, I've been diving into Orthodoxy. Why? I'm an Evangelical Protestant who lives in the Bible Belt. That should suffice as an explanation. For some other perspectives on that check here.

The main things that we took away from the Messianic point of view is to ponder the need for community dynamics that, here in the individualistic USA, get lost. The church (or in this model, the Messianic Community) is a Body, linked and interconnected. To the average Southern Evangelical, that means having a pot-luck dinner and maybe a small group meeting once a week for "pretend intimacy". We've also been challenged to reevaluate our view on Israel and the Jewish people in re: eschatological studies and seeing how a couple of dominant doctrines right now have "the Church" as having replaced Israel. My indoctrination says this is true, my heart is no longer so sure.

On the Orthodox side, mystery is the key catch-phrase. I've been asked to define that, and the best I can come up with is this: Mystery means that there are times where God both is and is not something (i.e. Unfathomable, yet knowable). Mystery does not attempt to have a well diagrammed and systematized theological or philosophical explanation of it, as we in the West are want to have on hand. Mystery simply means we accept these things by faith and then submerge ourselves within it. I've heard many theologians quoted by pseudo-theologians (which I guess I am one of the latter group) who say that the truth of faith things aren't realized until one walks in them. Okay, sure. I've experienced that too.

So, I'm coming to a place where I'm wondering how much longer I reside within traditional Evangelic Protestantism and if/when I attempt to challenge the status quo. My denomination does a fantastic job of stating that 1) God is 2) Man is and Man sins and needs redemption and 3)God, who is Christ, came to Redeem Man and offers redemption to us. But, after acceptance of His sacrifice and Being, most people in my denomination seem to be then cut off from the Divine and put into a systematic Bible study for indoctrination (not a bad thing per se, one needs to know what one believes) and sent out to "witness" and then go to church and tithe. Overall, it has a fairly man-centric quality. The bulk of the sermons are on what we are to be doing, whether "getting saved", repenting of sins and living a better life, or responding to a "call on our lives". God is the background color on this canvas, to be sure, but I, and what I do, am the subject. Any Evangelics who dabble in the divine are apparently thought of as a bit "off" and regarded as being a bit "retarded" by the less emotional strands of Evangelical Protestantism.

That is a long winded way of saying there isn't much Life in my denomination. I guess that makes me a heretic? Or am I? The things that my denomination major on, to me seem to utterly fail to connect with the emerging generation of Believers. My wife and I lead a college Bible study and also give emotional and spiritual encouragement to those who are struggling w/faith and God. This is what we see: 18-30 year olds bored silly by "church". I read of whole movements of people out of the church. Very dear friends of mine are currently sojourning the Christian landscape seeking where to be. I'm an ordained minister becoming disenchanted with many parts of church.

I've heard a local college pastor tell a group of students that he thinks they are an "annointed" generation. With all the apathy, I have a counter question, one borne of my discouragement: is this the generation that will become apostate from the Faith? (1 Tim. 4:1)

More later. Time to go be a Latte-Jockey.

KiltedJedi