23 November 2023
The Covenant identity trumps all human ethnic and social identities. It's not that you can change your personality and background, but that your flesh surrenders to the Covenant. In our fleshly human existence, there will forever be the tension between whence we came and the demands of the gospel. Our calling in Christ is to transcend our human identity, however much we can bring ourselves to submit to Christ. It won't matter what human background you bring to the Cross; you cannot claim to be His until you knowingly surrender everything.
And it is plainly obvious that some elements of every human identity are unacceptable to Christ. No existing human culture escapes unscathed. That's because not a single human background is genuinely Christian. Human history is filled with examples of bogus Christian religion that is loaded down with cultural trash folks refuse to surrender to Christ. We have not done our homework. There is too much that flatly defies things Jesus taught.
And contrary to what some have suggested, I do not propose that we are going to somehow reclaim the ancient Hebrew cultural identity. Rather, what I have said is that we must become aware of that ancient Hebrew culture in order to see what it means to be uniquely Christlike. Doing your homework means you will dig into the Bible and discern from your convictions what applies to you and what does not. In other words, the stern warning is that you must do the work. There is nothing in that warning that prescribes certain outcomes.
The outcomes are what we have room to debate. That there must inevitably be a debate is precisely what we would expect from the Bible. One of the lessons from the Tower of Babel is that we are not supposed to come up with one single answer for all humanity. In this fallen existence, there must be some level of dispersion and variation in the results of seeking peace with Jehovah. The mere fact that we live in different places, that we must react to seasons and climate differently, that survival itself demands variations in the human response to conditions, will bring about a significant difference between human groups seeking to serve Christ.
By the same token, the variations in human talent and gifts of the Spirit will inevitably lead to diverse approaches that will separate us from each other in our human existence. There absolutely must be disagreements and splitting into denominations. There is nothing at all embarrassing about the presence of disputes. It is utterly impossible to resolve at least some issues because God wants it that way. That's part of what the Tower of Babel is all about. The obsession with human unity in religion is not from the Holy Spirit, but comes from the same fallen spirits that made the first Babylon possible.
I do not pretend to offer an implementation of the Covenant for those who come from a different background than mine. I'm not telling Africans and Asians how to do religion. I do raise the question, and I do promote a meta-standard, but I don't propose answers for folks who come from different cultures. Rather, I propose something that should work for most white Americans. It will probably work for folks with other packaging, but only if they sense a calling to embrace some measure of our shared cultural background.
So, this is not the silly empty-headed "kumbaya" nonsense. Your actual color and background really don't matter, but only if you want to participate in a religious expression that comes from this mostly Anglo-Saxon cultural background. It's not racial exclusion; it's cultural. If you were to meet with me in my home worship, you would need to appreciate our use of Protestant hymnals and a faith that is expressed in rural American Protestant religious terminology. It is not rural American Protestant theology by any means, but it comes dressed in that clothing.
If that is comfortable enough for you, then we can become a covenant family in Christ, regardless what kind of baggage you tote. If you start to get uncomfortable with our ways, then you'll need to come up with a different plan, because we aren't changing for you. There are plenty of non-essentials we might adjust, but we will not accommodate your different culture very much. The business of negotiating what is and isn't essential is a subject matter all its own, and is always subject to whomever the Lord has appointed as elder of the specific body.
The Covenant itself says that it cannot be democratic in style. We don't vote. If I sense something is going to be tough, I'll poll the feelings of everyone, but the atmosphere of how we relate and get along as humans will probably set the stage so that you'll avoid unnecessary conflict. Just a few meetings and some time in fellowship will reveal to you where I am flexible and where I am not. And if your convictions demand something different, you'll take it elsewhere. And I will not hold it against you.
The dynamics of how we may or may not continue to cooperate is just a matter of how we meet in the middle.
That is what's behind this blog. The Radix Fidem path is not a denomination; it's not structured to produce one. It's a collection of ideas about how to build a religion that will express your faith to the world around you. Our ideal is a jillion small bodies scattered across the world, each taking their own peculiar path within their own context. We can decide to cooperate in various ways, or you can just take what you need and run with it. You're welcome.
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