Real Radicals and "All or Nothing"

(Since this isn't an official voice of our parish or anything like it, I get to say what I think here.)

At the meeting last night, one of our members said he was once in one of those "all or nothing" churches: you believe the whole ball of wax or you don't take any of it.

That's very interesting on several counts.

First of all, the ball of wax for many churches keeps getting larger. For example, among Roman Catholics, two key (and essential to the faith) doctrines about Mary are quite recent: her immaculate conception (1854), and her assumption into heaven—meaning that like Enoch, she did not suffer physical death (1950). Dispensationalism, a key doctrine of some branches of the Baptist church, traces back to the writings of John Nelson Darby (who died in 1882). He also came up with the idea of the Rapture (1830).

I'm sure there's a doctoral dissertation somewhere in there. The nineteenth century looks like it was a hotbed of new "essential" doctrine. The Book of Mormon showed up for the first time in 1827, and Mary Baker Eddy wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (the foundational document of the Christian Science church) in 1875.

Of course this brings up another essential question: Just how big should the ball of wax be? Years ago, when I was interested in communal living, I read Living Together in a World Falling Apart. The book was published in 1974, and interestingly enough it's still in print. Its basic point is that THE Christian way to live is in a shared-possessions community. Someone asked the author (I wonder if this is still in the latest edition) whether he would preach that as part of the essential gospel: "Believe on the Lord Jesus and move into a communal household, and you will be saved." His answer was yes. That seems odd. I guess I have an easier time with concepts that I find appealing. Apparently in the 1830s, revival meetings would ask their brand new converts which abolitionist organization they wished to sign up for—on the spot. But that's still a "Christian faith plus" kind of approach.

One of the main things that pushed me toward the Episcopal Church is just how big the ball of wax has gotten for so many right-wing churches. Believe in the Lord Jesus AND fight to the death for all of these (and there are more on this list that I haven't included):

• Young-earth creationism
• American-style capitalism as the biblical standard for economics
• General disbelief in science
• Rejection of the idea of global warming
• Rejection of equality for gay people
• Unreflective biblical literalism

Another thing that strikes me as I consider all of this is just how small the ball of wax was for preachers in the New Testament. On the Day of Pentecost, the crowd asked the general question, "Brothers, what should we do?" and the answer was, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:38). When Paul wanted to come up with the essentials of the faith, he wrote, "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). A big question in the early church was whether non-Jews needed to become Jewish to be Christians, and the response to the non-Jewish believers was quite simple: don't eat food that is so ritually unclean that you will nauseate your Jewish brothers and don't participate in sexual immorality (Acts 15:28). Very small ball of wax indeed.

For very good historical reasons, the Episcopal Church has opted for a very small ball of wax too. Christian baptism of some sort (not necessarily ours). The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. That's absolutely it (though if you want to be a church officer, you need to be confirmed as well). We get accused of being loose and liberal, and we really do have some folks who are on the far fringes of Christianity, but I like this minimalism much better than the "Christian faith plus" approach that puts secondary things on the same level as primary things and demands faith in all of it. Even when some of the secondary things are quite new.