A brilliant idea hit me yesterday during the talk at CU, I thought I’d share it with you.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been watching\iPlayering ‘The History of Christianity’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch. MacCulloch is a professor of theology at Oxford. It’s really interesting (and available in HD). It plots the story of the Christian church from Jesus to current day, and it reminded me how awesome and incredible the story of The Church is. I love this kind of thing because I find all the different beliefs that the various denominations hold to be really interesting, and stepping through their creations in a historical context helps frame their beliefs and understanding.
In light of this, I’ve been asking the question ‘Why isn’t there just one church? Why are there all these various churches preaching interpretations and beliefs that from where I’m standing are just plain wrong?’ which evolved from the question ‘Why do I find some churches\speakers that many people like to be so detestable?’ One example of this was at the CU weekend away. I really didn’t rate the main speaker at that event. I found him rambling, confusing and he often went off on a ‘evangelical rant’, telling us what was wrong with society today, beginning enumerate sentences with ‘Now that you’re at university…’ and rubbishing modern style worship music, whilst managing to always slip a verse or two from some 19th Century traditional hymn in in every talk. On the other hand, most other people in the CU seemed to think he was pretty good. (I didn’t rate the guy who gave the ‘male Christian issues’ seminar either, but that might’ve coincided with him saying ‘You shouldn’t go out with non-Christian girls’…)
So there I was sitting at CU last night, wondering how good the speaker would be. Things weren’t looking up when he mentioned that he was a good friend of the guy who spoke at the weekend away, but something he said a about the parable of the farmer who scatters seed on various types of soil got my attention. He was explaining how some kinds of flower like acid soil and some kinds of flower like alkaline soil. Acid preferring flowers won’t grow well in alkaline soil and vice-versa – acid and alkaline are two separate things. Jesus, in His parable, likens us to flowers as our seeds are scattered on soil. At that moment I realised, that some people will be acid preferring flowers, some people will be alkaline preferring flowers and some people will be neutral, and will grow best in an appropriate church (I’ll let you decided which churches are pH 1, pH 14 and pH 7…).
So although someone might strike a dischord with me it doesn’t make them wrong and doesn’t mean that it’s bad for everybody else. Whilst some people prefer to be part of an ancient church piled high in tradition and ritual, others may prefer a smaller church preaching a more intimate relationship. God is so big and so awesome one interpretation cannot possibly describe Him perfectly and fully.
