Tolerable religion in our post-Christian world is religion which is essentially private. If a religion has to have a social expression, it might just be tolerable if everyone is a volunteer, involved because they chose to be so. Within a particular religious group, the modern world would give it languid "high fives" if it had no rules, strict regulations, doctrines, or practices to which all participants must conform.
The apostasy of our age would far prefer a religion which is voluntaristic from woe to go. "Here is a neat doctrine or idea" (but it's up to you whether you believe it or not, of course.) This kind of religion is tolerable. Anything further is offensive at best, harmful to people at worst.
This brings us to the paradox of the Church of Christ. Highly dogmatic it surely is. After all, the core of the Gospel message to Unbelievers is: "Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Reject Him and His salvation, and the wrath of God abides upon you." It comes with a divine injunction to repent (turn away from) sin. Moreover, the Church of Christ has all sorts of doctrinal particularities, which to the modern Unbelieving ear seem terribly pedantic and irrelevant. Still further, the Church insists upon these doctrinal abstractions, warning that to disbelieve such is to put one's eternal welfare at risk.
More than any other organised religion found in this world the Church has organised its beliefs and doctrines into formal creedal statement, derived from the Scriptures, but organised in such a way as to present doctrinal precision. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," and "I believe one holy, catholic and apostolic church," for example. If you turn to the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession, or the Twenty-Nine Articles you will find official extensive doctrinal formulations declaratively stating what the Bible teaches--and calling all Christians likewise to believe.
The Church of Christ is thoroughly dogmatic--although its dogmas are not originally its own. Its doctrinal formulations, if they are to have any conscience-binding authority at all, must be and are derived from Holy Scripture--that is, from God Himself. However, because God alone can bind the conscience, and because the Lord Jesus Christ alone is lord of the conscience, the Church is not entitled to bind in addition to, or beyond, what is revealed and taught in Scripture itself.
The Church commands belief in the Name of God. But it does not compel belief. Faith must be what every individual person believes, as well as a common corporate commitment. In that sense the Church is voluntaristic. It invites people to enter into covenant with God. But the terms and conditions are God's; they are not negotiated. "Choose you this day whom you will serve," commanded Joshua. "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
Such religion is deeply offensive to the modern ear. To the spirit of Unbelief such claims to authority are not just wrong, they are inappropriate to humanity. They denigrate and risk harm the psyche. They are implicitly abusive. But David Brooks, writing an Op-Ed in the New York Times sees right through the contemporary zeitgeist of Unbelief.
Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False.
That’s because people are not gods. No matter how special some individuals may think they are, they don’t have the ability to understand the world on their own, establish rules of good conduct on their own, impose the highest standards of conduct on their own, or avoid the temptations of laziness on their own. . . .
Rigorous theology provides believers with a map of reality. These maps may seem dry and schematic — most maps do compared with reality — but they contain the accumulated wisdom of thousands of co-believers who through the centuries have faced similar journeys and trials.
Rigorous theology allows believers to examine the world intellectually as well as emotionally. Many people want to understand the eternal logic of the universe, using reason and logic to wrestle with concrete assertions and teachings.
Rigorous theology helps people avoid mindless conformity. Without timeless rules, we all have a tendency to be swept up in the temper of the moment. But tough-minded theologies are countercultural. They insist on principles and practices that provide an antidote to mere fashion.
Rigorous theology delves into mysteries in ways that are beyond most of us. For example, in her essay, “Creed or Chaos,” Dorothy Sayers argues that Christianity’s advantage is that it gives value to evil and suffering. Christianity asserts that “perfection is attained through the active and positive effort to wrench real good out of a real evil.” This is a complicated thought most of us could not come up with (let alone unpack) outside of a rigorous theological tradition.
Rigorous codes of conduct allow people to build their character. Changes in behavior change the mind, so small acts of ritual reinforce networks in the brain. A Mormon denying herself coffee may seem like a silly thing, but regular acts of discipline can lay the foundation for extraordinary acts of self-control when it counts the most.
He concludes with this pearl of wisdom:
I was once in an AIDS-ravaged village in southern Africa. The vague humanism of the outside do-gooders didn’t do much to get people to alter their risky behavior. The blunt theological talk of the church ladies — right and wrong, salvation and damnation — seemed to have a better effect.
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