Heresy is an attitude
12 Apr 2007
Helen Mildenhall, sent me this link to a list of 25 Charateristics a university lecturer sees in his students, who asks what this might mean for the future of the church, it’s fascinating reading.
There is one passing comment in the piece that talks about how ‘A right answer given with a wrong attitude is suspicious to them. Attitudes and treatment of others is more important than right answers. They would have hated the Pharisees of Jesus day—people generally correct in their doctrine but wrong in their attitudes. To them, “Heresy is an attitude.‒
That phrase ‘Heresy is an attitude’ just summed so much I have been grasping around to define, but does so much better than I every could.
If the modern church was full of people with ‘correct beliefs’ who could be nasty, cruel, arrogant, little seems to have changed, so often. I am suscpicious of people with great projects, ministries, within and outside church, who display cynicism, arrogance, bitterness, co-oercion, and any kind of pathological behaviour.
I’m not asking for people to be perfect, I’m not asking people to be unpassionate about their cause, and I am not arguing for things to stay the same, we need some major changes. But I am just wondering about the overal bent, and leaning of some in their beliefs about church, be they old beliefs, or newly constructed ones. Why does being a christians still seem to make us worse as people?
The fruit of the Spirit and the activities of the Spirit should go together shouldn’t they? Or why do they so often not seem to do so? Surely the truths of the Kingdom should make us in better people who take action in kindness, or am I missin something?
Tagged: character, Emerging-Church, Kindness
22 comments
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Comment by goodfornowt
2.33 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Jason,
I’m having a similar struggle at the moment. I’m a retired, unattached, and fairly disaffected Anglican priest. My elder daughter is the only family member who is religiously observant. She attends the local Quaker Meeting. At the same time she is treating me and my wife (her stepmother) with far less human kindness than her sister and others who have steered clear of religion all their adult lives. It hurts.
Comment by Paul
2.34 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Thanks Jase, i agree wih you. In a post i wrote exloring what we mean when we talk about Jesus being the only way to God/heaven, I quote similar sentiments written by Brian McLaren:
“when it comes to other religions, the challenge of modernity was to prove that we’re right [christians] and they’re wrong. But I think we have a different challenge in postmodernity. The question isn’t so much whether we’re right but whether we’re good. And it strikes me that goodness not rightnes, is what Jesus said the real issue was – you know, good trees produce good fruit. If we christians would take all our energy we put into proving we’re right and others are wrong and invested that in pursuing and doing good, somehow I think more people would believe we are right…”
What I find most troublesome is that we have carried on this desire to be right into the post-modern world. We now seem to be in danger of writing off large parts of the church as faulty for having this attitude of heresy and yet at the same time seem to not realise that we are in doing so equally guilty of such heresy ourselves.
It seems to be me that we need both a generous orthodoxy as well as a generous orthopraxy and maybe the old saying is right that charity begins at home with those we find it the hardest to get along with – maybe it is only then that we have to rely more on the Spirit to grow, through the need to practice it regularly, grace and generousity in us that is radical and revolutionary and allows us to reach out futher than our own christian communiites?
Comment by DangerMouse
9.54 am on 20 Apr 2007
A look at Spiral Dynamics (similar to Fowler’s stages of faith) can be enlightening. Each new way of thinking solves the problems caused by the old way of thinking. Briefly the stages are:
Beige – survival of self – express self
Purple – tribal survival – supress self
Red – express self to hell with others – express self
Blue – keep the rules for reward later – supress self
Orange – assert structure on the world – express self
Green – enjoy relationships – supress self
Yellow – ensure the world will continue – express self
Turquoise – be aware of the interrelationship of everything – suppress self
Each level encompases the thinking of the way before.
Much of religion is in the blue way of thinking. Orange ways of thinking emerged with the renaisance. The reformation was the blue adapting the rules to cope with the orange threat. Green thinking emerged at the turn of last century, yellow post war and turqiose over the last 40 years.
Postmodernism in the main is a green way of thinking. The reaction of church to post modernity can be largely seen as a blue reaction to green thinking.
So green, yellow, and turquiose folks (outside of the church) who are focussed on enjoyable relationships are going to appear “good” compared to the blue folks who need to be “right”.
One challenge is blues (especially church ones) perceive the shift to orange as evil and a backwards move because it goes against many of their rules.
At some point the tipping point comes and one has to choose either to stay blue or to grow and move on. A challenge is that that person then is criticised by the blues they are attempting to be in community with and unfortunately sometimes a seperation is needed. A shame really but most blues don’t get it, and much of the church community works at a blue level – as evidenced by the over focus on othodoxy and even the definition of heresay as being about the rules rather than behaviour!!!
Anyway, hope this help.
– DM
Comment by makeesha
5.24 pm on 12 Apr 2007
good thoughts Jason. It’s a tall order but a worthy pursuit. I do however, think it’s important to apply positive intent to people who seem to be bitter, cynical, whatever…on “both sides” of the proverbial aisle.
Comment by Paul
11.08 am on 13 Apr 2007
maybe a companion book to Jase’s on +ive church would be ‘the cyncical church’ ;)
I agree with you Mak, thinking the best of people and remembering that we are all in the same f****d up boat might make us less keen to want to split the boat in half – unless we all want to go swimming together?? :)
Comment by Pastor Astor
5.34 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Wow!!!
Comment by steven hamilton
5.39 pm on 12 Apr 2007
i love that…heresy as an attitude…rings so true…hits the mark. i would echo the sentiments left by Paul, but Paul already did that so read his above (2), even with the excellent quote from Brian!
Trackback by Tro & Tänk
6.01 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Heresy is an attitude…
Jason Clark citerar ur en artikel om dagens studenter och 25 exempel på hur deras attityder skiljer sig från tidigare generationers. ‘A right answer given with a wrong attitude is suspicious to them.
Attitudes and treatment of others is more imp…
Comment by Helen
7.47 pm on 12 Apr 2007
“heresy is an attitude”; yes, I like it too because interestingly, it allows more hope for me than the definitions of heresy I’m used to hearing ;-)
Thanks for mentioning this, Jason – I’m glad you found it as interesting as I did!
Comment by Paul
11.14 am on 13 Apr 2007
you know helen i quite like the heresy of the church fathers where they would think too much and in doing so would maybe loose something else of the bigger picture – you didn’t get burnt at the stake you just got a load more conversation, communing and sermons as your fellow Fathers helped point out that maybe you had let the pendulum swing too far one way…
I aslo wonder to what extent we are all heretics anyway, since none of us has the monopoly on the full story and therefore maybe are attitude should be one of generousity, grace, openess, conversation and teachability – since we all need each other rather than chronological, sociological, denominational, any-other-al snobbery?
Comment by Helen
2.23 pm on 13 Apr 2007
Paul, I’m all for *not* burning heretics at the stake!!
Comment by Paul
2.38 pm on 13 Apr 2007
i know you don’t like flaming heretics, that’s why i thought you’d appreciate this other way of engagement :)
Comment by Helen
7.53 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Oh, I guess I wasn’t done yet ;-)
Jason, thank you so much for (in effect) advocating for kindness.
You wrote: “Why does being christians still seem to make us worse as people?”
…hence Off The Map, whose unofficial mission statement is “helping Christians learn not to be jerks”
(I expect you already knew that.)
Comment by Martin Downes
11.43 pm on 12 Apr 2007
Hello Jason
I read your blog from time to time but this is the first time that I have commented on anything.
I’m sure that you are right. Heresy is an attitude. Of course it has to be more than an attitude to qualify as heresy, but it is at its roots an ungodly attitude. I think that it was Calvin who said that “ambition is the mother of all heresy.”
Comment by jason77
7.38 am on 13 Apr 2007
This sums up what drove me into “the wilderness” and how I felt when I tried to re-enter mainstream Christianity…only to go back into the wilderness
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10.23 am on 13 Apr 2007
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Comment by tim
1.17 pm on 13 Apr 2007
Perhaps its generations of leadership that have refused to lead people into direct relationship with God – say the sinner’s prayer and now listen to me (we’ve all been there before). I agree with Paul, our challenge is to evolve the church into something whose central role is to provide a community of faith that will enable each member to spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
Comment by Dean Whisnant
2.08 pm on 13 Apr 2007
“Heresy is an attitudeâ€, now there’s a bumper sticker for you. Actually, I would link the roots of this statement not to someone in today’s culture, but to eternity. Yes, I understand the origins for how we speak of it here, but stand on both sides of the statement for a moment, in different times.
It’s 2,000+ years ago and you are a Pharisee. You have a love for God, a passion to do His will and follow His commands. You believe with all your heart that He desires others to follow Him as well. You live your life to spread the law. You do it in a manner that some (many) see as arrogant and careless. Your attitude labels you as a heretic (under this definition).
Same time period, you are a Samarian. You aren’t as connected to God, in the ways the Pharisees would have you be. You may or may not even know what that means. You live your life in friendships and relationships. You are human and so you do good and you do bad. Neither are you a “perfect†person and the Pharisees and other Jewish people (as well as other faiths) label you as a heretic (under this definition).
Jump to the 1200’s, you are the son of a rich businessman in a little town of Assisi. For a time you love to drink and party and stroll the streets at all hours singing at the top of your lungs. To the church you are a heretic. You then have a life changing event and dedicate yourself to God deeper than any other, you want to serve Him alone and your father see’s your attitude and calls you a heretic (by this definition). You then visit the Pope and you see the riches of the church while you are a beggar to help others and you think, they are heretics (by this definition). And they you.
Modern day (today). Many denominations are full of attitude of love for God and wanting you to love Him the same way. By this definition, they are heretics. Many churches focus on wealth and prosperity and they too are heretics. A movement of revitalization comes along and people come to a point of refocusing on relationships, and the church sees them as heretics (by this definition).
Though we may all be able to poke holes in this story, or add more groups, the point being that someone will always look at our attitudes and find some reason to question them. Though we are just God’s children doing our best, to come closer to Him and share His love with our brothers and sisters.
So rather than calling attitudes heresy, maybe the lesson in this observation is that we should recognize these attitudes in ourselves and others, acknowledge that we ourselves (in whatever form, time, denomination, …) we exist are considered heresy to others and do our best to spread the love of God as He has revealed himself to us.
This in no way undermines Jason’s post or any comments. They are all great pieces of observation and conversation. Thanks for the phrase to focus on Jason, it does hit home!
Comment by Paul
2.41 pm on 13 Apr 2007
I think you’re right Dean, we’re all heretics now :)
Comment by Brodie
9.32 am on 16 Apr 2007
Jason – I’m seeing a link here with what you posted a few weeks ago about the chasim that often exists between belief and practice.
I’m struck by John’s description of Jesus (John 1:14) where he says that he was, “full of grace and truth”. To quote the subtitle of Volf’s book, “Free of Charge”, we live in a culture stripped of grace. I think this is true both inside and outside the church. In the church we are so preoccupied with being right that we have pushed grace to the side.
I think another issue is that as we become increasingly “individualised” and “professionalised” then we have developed the skills to relate to people in a work setting, but have become increasingly de-skilled in how to relate to people in family / social settings. The warning bell that should go off in our heads saying, “what you are about to do or say might hurt this person” is wraped with the cotton wool of the individualised self, thus we do not hear the warning and plow ahead causing all sorts of damage.
What’s needed is genuine transformation – what worries me is that I see so many people who say they follow Jesus but there is no transformation from selfishness to servant-hood.
Comment by Bryan Riley
4.57 pm on 21 Apr 2007
Perhaps the reason why this resonates is that it seems that God’s story is a story of redeeming and restoring a broken relationship. Thus, when we are not relational we are heretical. When we have the wrong attitude in our hearts, no matter what our head holds, we are not truly in intimate relationship with the Father. Idolatry, it seems, is having false intimacy, no matter how it manifests itself. God desires our undivided hearts, not because He is a cruel dictator, but because He loves us – i.e., He is more interested in our best and He knows that when we have undivided hearts, devoted to intimacy with Him that we are complete.
Good post!
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3.36 pm on 16 May 2007
[...] A couple of weeks ago Jason Clark basically said that “heresy is an attitude”. [...]
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