As I come to the end of my undergraduate career at a private faith-based liberal arts college, I think it is appropriate that I reflect on my journey.
I am not sure what sort of Christian I am. I only hope I’m not a heretic. Where amongst the thirty thousand denominations do I fall? I agree with the declaration of the Nicene Creed, so I must be ok.
Throughout my life, I have been dragged through a slew of different denominations. My parents, coming from Gideon and Baptist backgrounds, joined the inter-denominational mission organization Wycliffe Bible Translators. The first four years of my life were spent in a non-denominational Congolese Church. This was quite the Charismatic experience, as I’m sure you can imagine. I recall a story of a woman, supposedly practicing sorcery and possessed by a demon, who barged into the Church hollering in a man’s voice. They say it took seven men to drag her out and beat the demon out of her.
After this, we moved to France, where I was put in a private Catholic school for the following 11 years. I attended Catechism. I was taught that the Saints would intercede for me. I went to confession. I partook in the Holy Communion.
Also in France I attended an Assemblies of God church with my family. Within the first few months I could mimic word for word the “bidi-bidi” sounds that they claimed were Tongues and could also give the interpretations that would always follow.
Around this time, my parents became intrigued by what was happening in Toronto. John Arnott prayed his famous prayer “come Holy Spirit, come;” And thus began the infamous Toronto Blessing. After this, my family joined the Vineyard movement, a neo-charismatic movement stemming out of the Calvary Chapel.
After I moved back to the States, some close friends of the family invited me to attend the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. This is a charismatic non-denominational mission organization that emphasizes post-tribulational premillenialism. Led by a former Kansas City Prophet, Mike Bickle, the movement focuses on the end times.
I am no theologian; however, I’d hazard a guess that I have come across quite a few views that stray in some ways from orthodox Christianity, yet in each of these everyone maintains that their views are most in line with that of the early Church. I find myself distraught. I can’t help but to wonder what heretical views I uphold. Are gays Christian? When does human life begin? Is paedobaptism wrong? Is credobaptism necessary? Do demons exist? Are revivals psychological? Does God carry on personal relationships with everyone? Does God have a plan for my life?
Spiritual people always try to point to scripture. They tell us to base our beliefs on the word of God. Unfortunately, there are verses for and against each one of these questions. I don’t have any answers. I don’t know whether demons exist. I don’t know whether I should be re-baptized, or what happens when I take communion. I don’t know why God has been silent. I find comfort in Thomas’s doubt. But I recognize that for some people, these questions, when unanswered, put Biblical faith at risk.
Rather than continue preaching these ambiguities—that is, all the doctrines that cause division amongst Christians—for which two thousand years have taught us that there are no conceivable resolutions, let us, as Wolterstorff writes, “endure holding on to God… join with God in keeping alive the protest against early death and unredemptive suffering… own our own suffering… and join with the divine battle against all that goes awry with reference to God’s intent.”
At the last supper, Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another. This was nothing new. He had instructed his followers to do this time and time again. Yet a few hours before his death, he tells his followers that they will be recognized for how they treat others.
Ultimately I am no longer afraid of being a heretic because, as one wise blogger once wrote, “what is orthodox to someone is going to be heresy to another.”
Throughout my time at Houghton I have heard, on at least three different occasions, individuals make reference to being Catholic and “converting” to Christianity. This makes me cringe. Was it their Catholicism that made them unchristian? What if I stated that I used to be Evangelical but then I became a Christian? I used to be Charismatic, but then I got saved. The fact is that Catholics are heretics, and so are the Eastern Orthodox, Baptists, Wesleyans, Mennonites, and the 30 thousand other denominations. We are all heretics to someone else. None of us hold the keys to the mystery of the universe. But we can choose how we are going to treat our fellow heretics: with Love.