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ne of my early mentors, in the face of the WCG’s then endless crises, used to say, “Brian, there are three things that I know: God exists, the Bible is His Word, and this is His Church.” At some point, he omitted the third item and left the organization. I’m not sure how he presently feels about the first two. In times of crises, it is natural to reexamine the foundations of one’s own personal faith.
Now that war with terrorism has settled in as an integral part of American life -- probably from here on out -- it is natural to ask oneself, “What do I really believe? For what would I be willing to put it all on the line?” Make no mistake; we are facing an enemy that hates our faith, and that of the Jews. To this demonic enemy, we are mere prey. Furthermore, this enemy does not make any distinction among kinds of Christians. A Sabbatarian is as much an “infidel” as is a Catholic or a Baptist.
With all this in mind, let’s reexamine my mentor’s three issues, and see where we can go from there.
My reasons for believing that God exists are no longer purely intellectual – although such are indeed compelling. I believe he exists because I’m convinced that I’ve experienced his existence.
Back in the twelfth century, English philosopher Roger Bacon suggested that there only three basic reasons for believing, or claiming to know, anything: reason, external authority, and experience. He was convinced that the third was the best. I agree. When it comes to the existence of God, reason can only take you so far. Not that reason is a bad thing. There are many convincing reasons, born of the process of reason, to believe that God exists. It is far more rational to believe that God exists than that he doesn’t.
External authority means virtually nothing to me any more. The fact that someone in ecclesiastical authority says that God exists is not of itself a valid reason to believe that he does.
Experience is the real clincher.
So how do we experience God firsthand?
If you’ve ever experienced the healing power of God, you’ll never again doubt his existence. I have. I’ve prayed for people, and anointed them, and seen them miraculously healed – sometimes within minutes. Once, when I was praying over the phone for a man who lived in a distant city, a tumor fell off his temple while we were on the phone. The place where it had been was smooth as a baby’s tummy. I knew that it wasn’t my power that made that happen.
Like many of you, I’ve experienced personal healings as well as divine protections and interventions. I have seen the shape of my own moral life transformed by the indwelling Spirit of God. I have experienced the phenomenon of conversion and subsequent transformation. By virtue of the influence and power of the Spirit of God, I am no longer the same person I was 40-plus years ago.
I have a myriad of personal reasons to believe, on the basis of experience, that God exists. I’ve had prayers answered in ways that could not be attributed to coincidence or time and chance. I’ve seen the hand of God in world affairs. I’ve seen it in the personal lives of thousands of believers. I doubt that anyone could convince me today that he does not exist.
On the other hand, I can’t claim to understand him comprehensively. His thoughts are not always my thoughts. His ways are past finding out. God is profound beyond all apprehension. I can only claim to know what he has revealed to me, and that seems to be a drop in the bucket of the vast sea of divine knowledge. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know, and in fact how little I am. I am perpetually embarrassed by my ignorance of God’s ways. Yet I understand them significantly better than I ever did when I was pontificating from the pulpit to the old WCG multitudes.
God is real, but he’s sometimes a real mystery. He doesn’t do things on my terms. He doesn’t always drop everything to answer my prayers exactly when I want them answered. He tests my patience. He tries my faith. But in the end he comes through because he is my Father and he loves me.
I still believe that God has revealed himself, and his will, through the Bible. I am convinced that it is an inspired product of the infallible God. People wrote as they were moved by the Spirit of God to do so.
At the same time, I no longer accept the Evangelical view that Scripture as we have it is inerrant; and I certainly reject the idea that we have such a thing as an error-free translation. That is simply an indefensible notion. We have no original autographs of Scriptural writings. We have only copies, and those copies are at variance with each other in myriad points. At the same time, within those copies, we have all of the critical information that God has revealed. It just takes good, sound Spirit-led scholarship to sort it out.
When it comes to the translation of these copies, we run into all kinds of problems. To illustrate, let me quote from a book entitled Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus by David Bivin and Roy Blizzard (p. 67):
“The Gospels are rife with
mistranslations, ‘But does it really make any difference?’ the reader asks.
‘Even if there are mistranslations here and there,
does one really have any difficulty in understanding the words of Jesus? Are
there any passages that have been misinterpreted to such an extent that they
are potentially damaging to us spiritually?’
“Unfortunately, the answer is ‘yes.’
In fact, had the Church been provided with a proper Hebraic understanding of
the words of Jesus, most theological controversies would never have arisen in
the first place.”
Sadly, the Church has been building dogma and doctrine on translation, rather than on the meaning and intent of Scriptural texts themselves. Those of us who are unable to work with the texts in their original languages should not be “doing theology.” The fact that we have has resulted in a world of cultic error. Furthermore, I am convinced that if we don’t understand Scripture Hebraically, we scarcely understand it at all.
Is the Worldwide Church of God still the main manifestation
of God’s Church on planet Earth? I think not. Is it “a”
The point
here is that I no longer believe that the true
I’ve said
it many times: Organizations are not what the Church is, they are what
it has, to use as tools, not what the Church is. The real Church
is the Body of Christ. It is made up of all of the people on Planet Earth to
whom God has given His Spirit (I Corinthians
Fragments, parts and particles of truth, may be found throughout the larger Church. There is no perfect denomination, or congregation. And I have never yet met a minister who seals up the sum of all theological knowledge and understanding, myself included.
I can now
understand why former members and ministers of the Churches of God are finding
places within so-called “mainstream” churches. They know that Sunday is not the
Sabbath, but they also see no harm in meeting on Sunday to learn the Word of
God, or to fellowship with brethren. To use a Biblical expression: “Against
such there is no law.” If they see the Spirit of God working in a
The Body of Christ still exists. Like the mustard seed it continues to grow. But it hasn’t yet gotten its act together doctrinally, politically or organizationally. That may not happen until Messiah comes to straighten us all out.
In the meantime, we all have to find a place in the Body where we can grow and produce fruit for the Kingdom. That may or may not be within the Churches of God Pod.
It is simply beyond the capacity of most of us to resolve all of the theological and political problems that exist within the Church in the span of our lifetimes. As they say, it’s not “doable.” At some point, we have to pick the hill will willing to die on. We have to decide where in the Body we’re being led to settle, and there try to do all the good we can while avoiding the downside of things. If God loved us while we were yet sinners, the least we can do is learn to love each other even when we disagree on points of doctrine. Not long ago, a friend sent me a copy of something the late Albert Einstein said. It seems appropriate to quote it here:
“Strange is our situation
here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet
sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. There is one thing we do know
definitively: that we are here for the sake of each other.”
We are not here to kill each
other, as were or are the communists, Nazis and Islamic terrorists. Nor are we
here to hate, reject, shun, mark and disfellowship
each other, simply for attending “someone else’s” service, or believing
something other than what leadership believes. Rather we’re here to nurture,
support, and love, care for and heal each other (John
God, who is
unchanging, has instructed us, “You shall not hate your brother in your
heart…you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge…you shall love your
neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus
When the Church repents of party spirit, cults of personality, and doctrinal exclusivism, it will make a great stride forward in spirituality. I still know that God exists, and that the Bible is his Word – but I don’t always know that “this” is his Church.