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Christian Living

3 Problems Caused by Theology

An Academic Pursuit of Religious Knowledge Can Cause Much Harm

When I wrote about the dangers of pursuing a right theology, I noted that God doesn’t want us to know about him. He wants us to know him on a personal level. In our pursuit of knowledge, we seek to categorize our understanding of God.

We’ve taken the mystery of who God is and turned him into an academic pursuit. We organize, and we intellectualize. In doing so we risk producing three negative outcomes.

1. Theology Labels

Theologians love to give highfalutin names to murky philosophical constructs in a vain attempt to quantify God and explain who he is. This produces labels for various theological thoughts.

People who study God from an academic perspective will align themselves with viewpoints they like and distance themselves from others.

Using these labels, they determine who is with them and who is against them in their spiritual comprehension of faith (see 1 Corinthians 1:12-13).

People too often try to do this with me. They ask, “Are you a (insert-theological-label)?” They grow irritated when I don’t answer. This is because I can’t.

By intention I’ve not studied the nuances of the doctrine they mentioned. Instead I study God as revealed in the Bible and through the Holy Spirit.

I follow Jesus and strive to be a worthy disciple. That’s all that matters. Seriously. Don’t let theological labels detract from this singular focus that trumps all others.

If we’re all on Team Jesus, everything else becomes a nonissue.

2. Theology Judges

As we put labels on certain theological perspectives, we apply these tags to those who align with them. We judge people based on which camp they reside in according to their set of beliefs.

As a result, we view some people as in and others as out (see Romans 14:10 and James 2:4).

If they agree with the beliefs we hold dear, we accept them. But if they have an alternate view, we judge them as unworthy of our attention and push them aside.

In most cases, the judgments we form by our nuanced theology force many people away. It’s us versus them, even though we all pursue the same God—the God of the Bible.

3. Theology Divides

First, we label. Next, we judge. Then we divide. We see this most pronounced on Sunday morning. We go to church with other people who believe just like we do. And too often we vilify those who believe differently.

This is why Protestantism has divided itself over the centuries to produce 42,000 denominations today. Most of these spring forth from theological disagreement.

Jesus prayed for our unity (John 17:20-21), and we responded by allowing our theological squabbles to divide us. Denominations are the antithesis to Christian unity.

Tool or Distraction?

For some people, an academic quest to understand God is a tool that brings them to him. Yet many more pour themselves into pursuing a right theology as if it is the goal, as if nothing else matters.

They risk having this intellectual path distract them from truly knowing God, from having an intimate relationship with him.

The result is labeling, judgement, and division. This trio harms the church of Jesus, distracting us from becoming all he wants us to be.

Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

The Downside of the Protestant Reformation

The Wave of Disunity Continues to This Day

Reformation Day is one October 31. It celebrates the Protestant Reformation.

I love the Reformation even though it was actually a spiritual revolution against the established status quo. (But perhaps that’s part of its allure.) After all, the root of Protestant is protest.

Though the actual reformation isn’t fixed in one date, on one person, or from one location, as a matter of convenience Martin Luther emerged as its posterchild, Germany became its setting, and Luther’s posting of 95 points of contention on October 31, 1517 set the date.

Hence we have established Reformation Day to communicate our celebration of this much larger movement.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses: Celebrating the Protestant Reformation in the 21st Century

I understand that Luther didn’t intent to spark a religious revolt. What he sought was to bring about needed change within the established church, a most admirable and lofty pursuit.

Though most of the changes he advocated did eventually occur; they didn’t happen quickly.

Instead it took decades. In the meantime impatient change backers, anxious to correct religious errors, set out to form a new church, a reformed practice with the Bible as its anchor.

This was fine, except that not one new church emerged, but many, all variations on a theme but lacking tolerance and love for one another. They argued, they fought, and they killed one another in the name of their brand of religious theology.

Each variation of Protestant thought assumed it was right, which implied everyone else was wrong.

Today, almost five hundred years later, we’re still stuck in this mindset. Each person and each preacher and each church establishes their sincerely held view of spiritual thought and then rejects all others who disagree.

But that’s not a problem, they say. The dissenters, the ones rejected, just go out and start their own church, complete with their own spiritual litmus test of who’s in and who’s out. As a result we now have 42,000 Protestant denominations.

How deeply this must grieve Jesus who earnestly prayed that his followers would live in harmony, that we would be one. And, for all the good it produced, we have the Reformation to thank for this most unbiblical result of division, dissension, and disunity.

God help us all.

Read more about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation in Peter DeHaan’s book Martin Luther’s 95 Theses: Celebrating the Protestant Reformation in the 21st Century. Buy it today to discover more about Martin Luther and his history-changing 95 theses.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Bible Insights

3 Lessons from the Early Church

Dr. Luke Describes 3 Characteristics of the Acts 4 Church

The book of Acts unfolds as an historical narrative of the early church, the activities of the first followers of Jesus and those who join them.

For the most part, Acts simply describes what happens, with little commentary and few instructions for proper conduct.

While we can look to Acts as a possible model for Christian community, we would be in error to treat it as a requirement for right behavior. In this way Acts can inform us today, but it doesn’t command us.

For example, if I wrote, “My church went to a baseball game after the service,” no one (I hope) would think I was saying that attending baseball games is prescriptive of Christian life.

No. It was merely descriptive of what one church did one time. We would never build our theology on a statement like that.

So it is with the book of Acts. Yet we can learn from it. Luke writes three things about that church:

Christian Unity

The Acts 4 church is of one heart and mind, just as Jesus prayed that we would be one (John 17:21). Their actions are consistent with Jesus’s prayer.

Jesus prayed it, and the early church does it. I hope unity describes every one and every congregation.

Community Minded

In the Acts 4 church, no one claims their possessions as their own. It isn’t my things and your things; it is our things. They have a group mentality and act in the community’s best interest.

While we might do well to hold our possessions loosely, notice that this isn’t a command. They just do it out of love.

Willing to Share

Last, the Acts 4 church shares everything they have. Not some things, not half, but all. This would be a hard thing for many in our first-world churches to do today but not so much in third-world congregations.

Again, this isn’t a command (and later on Peter confirms that sharing resources is optional, Acts 5:4); it is just a practice that happens at this moment of time in the early church. 

While these three characteristics should inspire us to think and behave differently, and can provide a model for our gatherings and interactions, we need to remember that the Bible gives us no commands to pursue a communal-type church.

We can, but it’s one option. Of the three only unity rises as an expectation because Jesus yearns for it to be so.

That should give us plenty to do.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Acts 1-4 , and today’s post is on Acts 4:32.]

Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.

Read more about the book of Acts in Tongues of Fire: 40 Devotional Insights for Today’s Church from the Book of Acts, available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

Do You Live in a Spiritual Silo?

Aligning Ourselves with Like-Minded People Results in Isolation and Division

An issue in the corporate world is business silos. This is where a department or unit puts up walls that separate them from the rest of the company.

The leaders of these silos of information and function do so to maintain control and assure them of power. The result is a lack of communication with other units or departments, along with the hoarding of knowledge.

This means the sales department doesn’t talk with the customer service department and neither one knows what marketing is doing, along with research and development, billing, and operations.

In the end, the customers suffer and the company is less than what it could be.

You may or may not have experienced this in the business world, but in Christian circles it’s much more common. It’s so common that it’s hard to avoid.

For most Christians who’ve been following Jesus for a while, their circle of friends and the people they interact with have become other Christians. They have little meaningful interaction with people who don’t follow Jesus.

This, however, overstates the situation. In truth their circle of friends and the people they interact with aren’t just other Christians, they’re only other Christians who think and act like they do.

Spiritual Silo as a Group

Over the centuries Christians have become experts at dividing themselves. Courtesy of the Reformation we ended up with Catholics and Protestants.

Protestants then divided themselves into three main streams: mainline, fundamental, and charismatic. But within each of these groups, further division occurred, now amounting to over 42,000 Protestant denominations.

That’s a lot of division, disunity, and opportunities to form spiritual silos.

Most denominations isolate themselves from other denominations.

Afterall, it was disagreement that caused them to form their denomination in the first place. And once they split off and formed their new denomination, they isolated themselves from those they disagreed with.

The result is a spiritual silo. Even within denominations, individual churches isolate themselves from other churches in their own group.

Some churches go so far as to isolate themselves from every other church.

The result of these spiritual silos is people associating themselves only with others who believe and act exactly as they do.

Their understanding and practice of Christianity becomes extremely narrow, with them on the side of right and everyone else, wrong.

Spiritual Silo as Individuals

The spiritual silos that churches form—and most every church has done so to one degree or another—spills over to the people who attend there.

Within churches people congregate with others like them, specifically others who follow Jesus with the same spiritual paradigms and priorities as theirs.

They push away people who think and act differently, even if it’s by the smallest of degrees. This produces even smaller spiritual silos, where members of the same church withdraw from other members over the most trivial of issues.

Taken to an extreme a person completely retreats from church and any form of spiritual community to live an isolated life away from all other followers of Jesus. They create for themselves a spiritual silo of one.

Spiritual Silos Promote Disunity

As we associate with people who are precisely like us, we push aside all others.

The result is we spend our time with people who think exactly as we do, believe exactly as we do, and act exactly as we do. We view our own thoughts, beliefs, and actions as best aligned with God.

The logical extension is that we view all others as misaligned.

But our spiritual silos are exactly what God doesn’t want. Jesus prayed for the unity of his followers, that we would be one just as he and Papa are one.

Our divisions, denominations, and spiritual silos work against Jesus’s desire for us to get along and function as one (John 17:20-23).

And why does he want us to be one? It’s to maximize our witness to the world, so that they may know.

Read more in Peter’s new book, Living Water: 40 Reflections on Jesus’s Life and Love from the Gospel of John, available everywhere in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

A False Assumption About Church Growth

A Lesson in Reacting to the Unexpected

In college I heard an account about a struggling church who hired a minister to help them grow. He was full of energy, enthusiasm, and ideas. In no time he connected with the local community.

They responded by showing up for church on Sunday morning and for the community programs throughout the week.

By the time he reached his one-year anniversary as their pastor, the church had added programs, went to two Sunday-morning services, and had more than doubled their attendance.

And the church fired him.

A False Assumption

What neither the church leaders nor the congregation were aware of when they hired their pastor, their goal to grow their church carried an unspoken expectation, a false assumption. They anticipated the new attendees would be people just like them.

When their growth came from people who differed from them, they realized they weren’t getting the results they wanted and blamed their new pastor.

This church was in an urban location. The members, however, drove from their suburban homes to this inner-city church each Sunday.

These white-collar, middle-class people carried the false assumption that their increase in numbers would come from people just like them: white-collar, middle-class.

Yet the church didn’t reside in a white-collar, middle-class neighborhood. It sat in the middle of a diverse community of blue-collar workers along with the underemployed and unemployed.

The church members didn’t feel comfortable with this rapid shift in the demographic of their church. They blamed the minister and got rid of the problem.

The church soon returned to what it once was. Most of the locals stopped attending, the church retreated to one service, and its members ceased their outreach into the community.

Though the church members’ desire for numeric growth is admirable, their failure to embrace the outcome isn’t. Though we can understand their false assumption of what the growth would look like, we can’t excuse their reaction to it.

Love and Embrace Everyone

Their surprised results should have caused them to look inside themselves, to uncover their biases of people and who they wanted to go to church with.

Yes, embracing a different socioeconomic group might have been uncomfortable for a time, but it would’ve been a necessary interpersonal development for each of them on their spiritual journey.

Instead of embracing their commonality in Jesus and the unity he prayed for, they sought solace in the status quo and what made them feel most comfortable.

It’s easy to be critical of this close-minded congregation, yet I wonder if we are all a bit like them, just in diverse ways.

God, reveal to us our blind spots—any false assumption we may carry—and show us how to love all your people, not just those who are just like us.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

9 Perspectives That We Must Change about Church

Re-examine Our Church Practices from a Biblical Viewpoint

Over the past few months, I published a series of posts about assumptions we should change about church.

Here is a list of all nine:

  1. We Don’t Need a Church Building
  2. Exploring Church Staff from a Biblical Perspective
  3. How Much Money Does the Church Need?
  4. The Fallacy of Church Membership
  5. Seek First the Kingdom of God
  6. How Important Is Seminary for Today’s Church Leaders?
  7. We Must Rethink Sunday School
  8. Love God and Love Others: A Call to Christian Unity
  9. Make Disciples Not Converts

What perspectives should you change about your view of church? Pick the assumption that most convicts you and work to reform it, first in your mind and then in your practice.

Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Visiting Churches

Reflecting on Church #15: Moving Towards Unity and Acceptance

Let’s Strive to Get Along

With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #15.

This United Methodist Church is an outlier congregation, quite unlike the others from their denomination that we have visited. Though we enjoyed them all, this one stands out.

My happy memory of attending this church lingers. They promote unity and acceptance.

I want to return. In only a few of the 52 churches did I feel the active presence of the Holy Spirit. But in this one, I did. And he draws me back.

52 Churches: A Yearlong Journey Encountering God, His Church, and Our Common Faith

A Guide for Unity and Acceptance

I was surprised to learn there’s a charismatic element within the United Methodist Church.

Their denomination is intentional about everyone, both churches and their leaders, accepting one another despite differing views on the role and function of the Holy Spirit.

They seek mutual acceptance and shun division.

I wish all churches would adopt this attitude. The Methodist Church has even written a helpful document to offer a healthy and holistic approach to the function of the Holy Spirit and the Charismatic stream of Christianity.

It is Guidelines: The United Methodist Church and the Charismatic Movement.

It’s a great example to follow. Let’s do so.

[See my reflections about Church #14 and Church #16 or start with Church #1.]

My wife and I visited a different Christian Church every Sunday for a year. This is our story. Get your copy of 52 Churches today, available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Visiting Churches

Reflecting on Church #14: A Theology That Divides Jesus’s Church

Speaking in Tongues–or Not

With our journey of visiting fifty-two churches over, I can reflect more on the complete experience. Today, I’ll add to my thoughts about Church #14.

My experience at this church is an enigma.

On one side, their friendliness embraced me. Their service was energetic and appealing. I wanted more.

52 Churches: A Yearlong Journey Encountering God, His Church, and Our Common Faith

On the other side, their theological stance that speaking in tongues is a required sign to validate a true salvation experience, communicates that I didn’t belong. It serves to push me away. They have a theology that divides.

Their doctrine makes a distinction that places much of Christianity on the outside. Instead of dividing Jesus’ church with declarations he didn’t proclaim, let’s accept our differing opinions and embrace one another.

Today our church excels in making distinctions over matters that are trivial compared to the centrality of following Jesus and being his disciples. This divides the church of Jesus.

These disagreements are the reason why we have 42,000 Protestant denominations in existence today.

Instead of having a theology that divides, Jesus prayed that we would be one, that we would live in unity to best point people to his Father (John 17:21-22).

The early church functioned with one heart and mind, just as Jesus prayed. Their actions were consistent with his request that they would be one then, just as we would be one today. Jesus prayed it, and the early church did it.

Why can’t we do that too?

Unity describes what everyone of us should pursue and how every church should behave. Jesus yearns for us to be united. But over the centuries Jesus’s followers in his church have done a poor job living in unity, as one.

Instead we embrace a theology that divides the church of Jesus. Shame on us.

[See my reflections about Church #13 and Church #15 or start with Church #1.]

My wife and I visited a different Christian Church every Sunday for a year. This is our story. Get your copy of 52 Churches today, available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Bible Insights

The Nazarene Sect: There are Two Sides to Every Story

Gamaliel Offers Wise Advice for Whenever Religious Factions Stand in Opposition

Paul’s in jail, imprisoned for doing what God told him to do. This isn’t Paul’s first incarceration for his faith in Jesus, and it won’t be his last.

When his trial finally begins, his detractors levy four charges against him, which they use to justify their actions.

They say, “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him, (Acts 24:5-7).

Let’s break this down:

A Troublemaker

This depends on perspective. To Paul, he’s simply involved in a new movement of God and is excited to share the news with his people. To his accusers, Paul’s messing with their traditions and upsetting the status quo.

To them, he spells trouble.

Stirs Up Riots

Though riots do seem to occur where Paul goes, he doesn’t incite them. The people who take offense at what Paul says stir themselves up. The riots are their fault, not Paul’s.

A Ringleader of the Nazarene Sect

They accuse Paul of heading up a subset of Judaism (a sect, the Nazarene sect), which could simply imply that Paul is a leader among those who follow Jesus, the Nazarene.

If so, Paul would likely say “guilty as charged,” but the reality is that Paul’s detractors actually oppose Jesus. It’s just that Paul is a present target. Jesus isn’t.

Tried to Desecrate the Temple

Regarding the event in question, Paul was doing everything by the book, literally. But people jumped to a wrong conclusion and made false accusations.

Paul’s detractors accuse him using twisted facts, half-truths, and lies. People fear what they don’t understand, often going to extreme means to oppose it. So it is when God does a new thing inside his church.

God’s followers too often find themselves in opposition to each other.

Instead of fighting one another, they should heed the advice of Gamaliel: “If it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:39, NIV).

And no one who loves God wants to end up fighting against him.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Acts 23-25, and today’s post is on Acts 24:5-7.]

Read more about the book of Acts in Tongues of Fire: 40 Devotional Insights for Today’s Church from the Book of Acts, available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Christian Living

Do You Criticize What You Don’t Understand?

Peter returns to Jerusalem, amazed at what God has shown him: God doesn’t just want to save Jewish people, but non-Jews (Gentiles), too. He has a heart for all people. Imagine that.

The Jewish believers, however, are quick to criticize Peter. Even though Jesus set the tradition-breaking precedent of embracing non-Jews, when Peter veers from their Jewish beliefs to go into a Gentile home and eat with them, his friends become critical.

His actions do not fit their worldview, and they are quick to disapprove. They criticize what they don’t understand.

Throughout church history, we often see people who are critical of what they don’t understand, of spiritual practices or movements of God that are different. In too many cases, people are killed over these theological nuances.

Today, this would cause a quick division, breaking friendships, destroying relationships, and even splitting churches.

These people close their ears to the truth, when they should listen with an open mind, willing to accept God at work—even when it challenges their practices or confronts their status quo.

This, however, is not what happened two thousand years ago. The people listen as Peter explains the situation, and once they understand, they adjust their perspective and praise God.

We will do well to follow their example and not criticize what we don’t understand. They deserve it, and God deserves it.

[Acts 11:1-18]

Read more about the book of Acts in Tongues of Fire: 40 Devotional Insights for Today’s Church from the Book of Acts, available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.