Church Reconstruction Pt 4: Curiosity > Certainty
It's past time for churches to get off our soap box.
This is the last bit of my Church Reconstruction series. I’ve been charting out the four core values of the Haven Collective, our new church experiment. I started with Friendship, then Collective Liberation, then Change. This issue is about Curiosity.
Evangelicalism, as a rule, is not known for Curiosity; quite the opposite - if anything, we’re proud of how certain we are. This posture toward the larger world has decimated our reputation - I’ve lost count of the number of my non-Christian friends who fervently wish the Christians they know actually acted like Jesus.
Here’s what a posture of curiosity might look like, and how it’s more authentically Christian than the certainty with which we’re accustom, as related through multiple encounters I’ve had with Muslims.
The Debate
I attended a debate once between an Imam (a Muslim clergyman) and a Southern Baptist theology professor. The debate was on the nature of Jesus. This was the first time I learned how much Muslims respect, revere and love Jesus (Isa in Arabic). I’m ashamed to say that theology professor got trounced.
Christians believe Jesus is a singular being - the enfleshment of one person of the Trinity. Unlike Hercules or Perseus who are demigods - half human and half god, we see Jesus as fully human and fully divine.
Muslims believe Jesus is born of a virgin, but fully human. He is the second greatest of the true prophets of God, below only Mohammad. They believe Jesus was not crucified, but rather taken into Heaven - and they believe he will return at the end of all things to lead God’s armies against the Antichrist.
What’s at the heart of our disagreement is Jesus’ nature. Is he divine? Or only human? That’s sort of Christian theology 101, so that’s not why I say the prof got trounced. No, it was because he didn’t care what conversation he was having. Or, maybe more accurately, he didn’t come to have a conversation. He came to deliver a lecture.
The imam, on the other hand, knew exactly where he was - in a room full of Evangelicals who knew little about Islam. Not only was he warm, charming and funny, he presented the basic teachings of Islam - specifically those about Jesus - accessibly. He came ready to have a conversation.
The professor evinced as much knowledge about Islam as I had (which at the time was basically none). Rather than engaging Islam or Muslim beliefs about Jesus, he stated what Christians believe about Jesus. The end result was heartbreaking for me - though I agreed with the professor, I saw him totally fail to engage in the real conversation the imam showed up to have. He was playing solitaire and the imam showed up ready to play chess.
These days when I look back on that debate, what I see is disrespect. The professor apparently didn’t see the need to learn anything about his debate partner’s position. He saw himself as the sole possessor of truth, and as such had no need to engage the imam’s beliefs or perspective.
The professor embodied the certainty that is so off-putting to non-Christians. He knew he was right. He knew the Imam was wrong. So he didn’t need to participate in a conversation. He only needed to state his beliefs and call it a day.
Now, as it happens, I agree (mostly) with that professor. I believe Jesus is the incarnation of the second person of the divine Trinity that is the heart of all creation. I do not believe he was only human, however holy.
But what struck me in the debate - particularly as I listened to the Imam, was how unexamined so much of my own belief system was. While I was not convinced by his understanding of Jesus, I found his view of God to be very helpful in critiquing and clarifying my own theology and formulations. I left the debate feeling I knew God better - not because of what the Christian professor said, but because I listened to the Imam.
Even if Christianity is right about Jesus’ divine and human nature, my limited understanding and perspective (as a somewhat well-educated middle-class twenty-something white cis-hetero Midwestern American male at the dawn of the twenty-first century should I keep going) does not have the full monopoly on truth.
I can’t even hide behind the Church and say, “Well sure but even if I don’t have the full truth WE have the full truth,” because it should be painfully obvious that a) churches around the world and across time agree on precious little and b) we’ve been wrong about all kinds of stuff historically - the dignity of women, the morality of slavery, the marginalization of queer people, genocide of indigenous people, the shape of the earth and its relative location in the universe (again need I go on?)…
Given this reality, the only appropriate posture to take when engaging those who don’t share my beliefs is humility. I must approach them not as targets to convince (or conquer), but as a potential travel companion on the journey into the heart of the divine mystery at the heart of existence.
I know you want to push back here and say, “But beliefs matter!” They do - I keep saying I think the Trinity is the most important language we’ve ever developed for speaking well about God. But when we look at Jesus, he’s not interested in what everyone believes. He’s interested in the direction people are going. He’s much less patient with right-believing people who are facing away from God so they can police belief borders than he is with sinners who are looking toward God (even in shame). We ought to take a lesson from that.
The Evangelism Class
When I pastored in Ohio, there was an older man who really embodied that lovable old grump persona. He was incredibly generous and kind, but he also had Thoughts (TM) about how Church should be. After a few years, he started bugging me nearly weekly about why the church didn’t teach an evangelism class. He lamented the long-gone days of churches holding Evangelism trainings and wondered why we didn’t prioritize them. He was quick to assure me they didn’t have to be “old school” - he knew the world had changed. But he wanted something.
I couldn’t quit thinking about his plea. It was his earnest desire that moved me - and what I perceived to be a real love and concern for people who didn’t know Jesus (again, he was such a kind person to everyone, so it really did fit). So I ended up designing a class I called World Religions (you can still listen to it at my website).
I took the example of Paul evangelizing the Athenians at Mars Hill. He opens by praising their faithfulness. Then he affirms the things in their religion he knows to be true - he actually quotes two of the philosophers they revered. He closes by explaining who Jesus is (though he doesn’t name him).
So each week in my class, we spent three hours on a world religion. We’d first go over the basic belief system - can we be sure we understand this faith? Next, we’d explore the places where that faith and Christianity agree. And finally we’d explore what makes us different. My goal was to equip the class to begin genuine, deep conversations with their neighbors, co-workers, even family who don’t see the world the way they do.1
I structured the class so that Islam was the fourth religion we covered. I reasoned that would give us time to develop a rhythm, to build up some credibility with the class before we explored the one I knew would be the most divisive. It… sort of worked? The majority of the class (which was full to bursting that week!) really engaged with the material and were as surprised as I’d been at just how much common ground our two faiths shared.
But less than a week after that class finished, I got a box of books from Amazon - sent anonymously. The books were all variations on how evil Islam is, how it’s a uniquely demonic and dangerous religion.2
I was again struck by the dissonance for some of these classmates. They were interested enough in the idea of other faiths to put up with ten weeks of pretty in-depth explorations. But there were limits, lines they wouldn’t (couldn’t?) cross. It didn’t matter that we were treating every religion the same, asking the same questions, practicing the same sort of hospitality we extended toward all the other faiths.
It didn’t matter that the information I (their pastor!) presented contradicted what they’d previously heard. It didn’t matter that I’d vetted my lesson with a Muslim friend. No amount of facts was sufficient to overcome their certainty.
A Baptist theologian named Roger Olson once said, “Before we say, ‘I disagree,’ we must be able to say, ‘I understand.’” This, I think, is where churches fall down - particularly when it comes to missions and evangelism. We interpret the whole world through our own lenses and experiences. We don’t consider a reality where God is bigger than our boxes, where we might have more of God to learn than what is contained in all our theology books.
When I came to my old church here in Texas, its core values were Love, Grow and Serve. They had come up with these core values from a book (I think it was Simple Church). After I’d been here about four years, I suggested we spend some time really identifying what our actual core values were. After all, Love, Grow and Serve are all pretty generic - another church less than a mile from us had the same values.
Serve was one of the trickiest to rehab. After all, serving sounds like a Christian value - Jesus himself said, “I come not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many,” but Christian service all too often looks more like a power play than self-sacrifice. Consider the shelter for the unhoused that requires you to sit through a sermon to get food. Or the tracts stuffed in a Trunk or Treat bag along with a generous portion of candy.3
Consider the word ‘charity’. If you go back to the King James version of the Bible, you’ll find ‘charity’ as the preferred English translation of the Greek word agape - modern translations simply render it ‘love’. So Paul tells the Corinthians, “These three things remain forever: faith, hope and charity. And the greatest of these is charity.” Charity used to be the best way we could translate God’s posture of unconditional love toward humanity into English. Tthe Church’s ‘acts of charity’ weren’t ‘service projects’ but ways of encountering Jesus among the people where Jesus told us he could be found.
In other words, ‘charity’ wasn’t about what we could do for ‘the needy’ - it was in a real way about what ‘the needy’ could do for us: they could introduce us to God in a way we didn’t otherwise have access to.
Over the years, the meaning of ‘charity’ shifted away from practicing reflecting the unconditional love we’ve received from God toward those we’ve marked as ‘Other’. It shifted toward something closer to ‘helping those in need’. It acquired a paternalistic bent - we who have are aiding those who don’t.
It didn’t take much for that attitude to extend to ‘missions’ - our attitude toward anyone who doesn’t share our faith. They all became ‘needy’ Thems and therefore lesser than us. It was a relatively short path from paternalism to conquest and colonization, enslavement and genocide - all in the name of charity toward Them.
So… Serve didn’t get at what we were reaching for. But what would?
The Tornado and the Party
The day after Christmas 2015, a huge tornado tore through our town. We spent weeks helping homeowners sort through rubble and clear away debris. The first Sunday after the tornado hit, we gathered to worship in our work clothes, then headed out to help our neighbors. That day, we were joined by a large group of Muslims from a neighboring town.
It really wasn’t a big deal - which made it a big deal. We were all neighbors working together for a common good.
Fast-forward a few years - the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand was attacked by an active shooter, sparking terror mosques around the globe. Taking inspiration from my friend Matt, I looked up the closest mosques to us (there were none in our town at the time). I called the three closest and left voicemails expressing my condolences and assuring them I was praying with them for peace and safety.
The chair of the board of one of the mosques reached out and we began a friendship. At the end of Ramadan in 2019, they invited our congregation to share an iftar meal. We hosted them in July for a random summer cook-out. COVID put a hitch in our relationship, but we’re working toward more events together in the future - including some theological discussions.
Something I have personally deeply appreciated in becoming friends with some of my Muslim neighbors is how they sharpen my own faith. Our meals together often turn into long, sprawling conversations about Jesus, God and more. Their questions about not just Christian theology,4 but also Christian culture5 are challenging and illuminating.
In his truly terrific book Allah: A Christian Response, Miroslav Volf (legitimately one of our greatest living theologians) observes that it’s right and proper for Christians to confess that we worship the same God as Muslims. (Before you send me a box of Amazon books, I suggest you read Volf’s book.) Volf never argues that Christianity and Islam are theologically equivalent (nothing like an “all roads lead to heaven” approach), he does on an idea that sounds suspiciously similar to what Paul argued at Mars Hill - that God is bigger than Christian theology, and as such, we can learn about God from those who are not part of our faith.
With that in mind, we first considered the word Pilgrim to replace Serve. A pilgrim - long before they wore hats with buckles, a pilgrim was a person who left home to encounter God elsewhere. The pilgrim was convinced there were ways to know God they could only experience by going somewhere else.
But… the word ‘Pilgrim’ doesn’t connote a spiritually curious person anymore. It’s associated with religious certainty, intolerance. With witch trials and genocide. So we stuck with ‘Curious’. Because the Church has done a bad job of being curious (ask Galileo or Moctezuma). And we want to take seriously God’s invitation to fill the whole world, to explore the wide creation and know all the peoples God created and loves.
Doesn’t that sound better than being certain?
YOUR TURN: What role does curiosity play in your theology?
The man and his wife both attended. His wife confessed to me that they really struggled with the class - not because they disagreed with my approach, but because it was so much more complicated and difficult than what they had been taught to do. I don’t disagree!
No, Islam was the only religion that sparked such a generous donation to my personal library. I didn’t get any books about Hinduism, Judaism, Atheism or even Paganism.
To be clear our congregation here in Texas participated in numerous Trunk or Treats and never did this. But it’s a common experience in churches.
For instance: Why do we believe Jesus is God? Why do we accept the further revelation of the New Testament but not the Koran?
Most recently: Why don’t Evangelicals care about all the Christians being killed in Gaza right now?
Beautifully said. I won’t send you a box of books, but I will share a quote from Lauren Groff’s latest novel that stuck with me, and seems apt here.
“Against the resistance of other minds, one’s thoughts are pulled out of their comfortable shapes, and true thinking begins.”