Letters From Leavers

It was over 40 years ago when I was treasurer of a Church of England Parish Church, that I asked the question in a Men’s Discussion Group, “What is the purpose of life?”  The immediate response of the Vicar was, “Peter, that’s the 64,000 dollar question (a lot of money in those days), you can’t ask that.  Let’s go on to the next question”.  I guess that began to reinforce my frustration with what I saw as a lack of ‘radical’ Christianity.

 I was gradually drawn to a church that has in the past, not unreasonably, been described as both a cult and a sect (at no time have I had any kind of leadership role).  We effectively ‘came out of the world’; we were ‘legalistic’; and we ‘knew’ that we were members of the ‘one true Church of God’ because we kept the Sabbath and the Holy Days, but we were so wrong!  Things really changed at the end of 1994 when the leadership of the church announced that we had been misguided over the years, and that there was actually quite a lot wrong with our theology!!!

We were faced with a dramatic reappraisal of our own beliefs.  It was a very traumatic experience that resulted in serious family break-ups (my daughter and her husband for example no longer consider themselves to be Christians).  The end result is that I was involved with a wilderness experience (for the second time), where I found myself questioning just about everything I had ever believed, and ended up with a transformed faith that is constantly being influenced by those who have travelled a different journey!

I have often referred to this as a time of freedom and liberation from the slavery of legalism.

I began to wonder whether the majority of divisive theology was the work of the devil!  I had been told that when properly used theology can serve the church by combating heresies or false teachings.  This is no doubt true to some extent, but where did the majority of heresies and false teachings come from originally but from misguided theology!  The bottom line surely, is that true knowledge comes only from God, and not by any amount of human study or reasoning. 

You may feel that I have been a little extreme here, but I believe that George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury had some interesting things to say in a book entitled “Canterbury Letters”.  As a young and committed enquirer Carey had endless books.  The first group retold the simple faith, but seemed to ignore or deny questions.  There was a need to transition from simple belief to profound doctrinal understanding.  The second group dealing with questions and competing claims didn’t have the same excitement and commitment to faith.  He suggested that the rigorous and detailed analysis and fruits of some 200 years of research could not be ignored by any serious Biblical student, and went on to refer to the absolute importance of tradition.

Traditional teachings about heaven and hell have always caused problems for me.  The Internet has been an eye opener.  Perhaps my position could best be summed up by quoting Brian McLaren:“Maybe we need to admit we may not actually understand the good news, and seek to rediscover it (reboot our theology in a new understanding of the gospel of Jesus)!”

If Christianity is not primarily information about how one gets into heaven after death, then almost nobody on earth presently seems to know what it is instead.  Perhaps it has something to do with the Kingdom of God, and perhaps the Kingdom of God is not equal to going to heaven after death, but rather involves God’s will being done on earth, in history, before death, in the land of the living so to speak.

So back to my question, “What is the purpose of life?”

If we are fearful of the God who is described as a God of Love, something is surely wrong!