Me-ology

What is meology? It is the study of me and everything that I am entitled to have. In its legal setting, meology tries to figure out how the law should be applied to others whilst I receive a pass. In its religious connotation, it refers to the efforts to conform God to my vision of what he should be. It pervades every aspect of our entitlement culture and has its greatest following in the Millennium Generation. Argumentation for meology usually concerns some form of fairness...of course it is unfair if my definition of fairness is not applied to the argument.

For this post, let us look at defining God in my image. How can I do that? It is simple. The Postmodern mindset has the reader being the chief translator of the message being conveyed and for our purposes, that means the Bible. So, If I don't like certain passages of the Bible, I can take a wink and a nod at the page and try to find something that is, let us say, more appealing to my sensibilities.

The popular Jesus is the soft and fluffy Jesus. We don't like judgment, so we conveniently leave out Jesus condemning sin (and people!) because that's too mean. We don't like to think that God would be condemning especially to people who don't receive the message of Jesus. When in reality, there is something we hold close and don't want to be judged for. This stems from a week view on repentance and an inflated view of human identity. I find it amazing that in Mark, arguably the first written Gospel, Jesus' first words are judgmental. "The Kingdom of God is near, repent...." Oh Dear! How do we change this? Simple, just focus on the second portion of the statement. "...Believe the Good News!" Huzzah to that! No repentance, just grace and faith.

I think we are all guilty of this to some degree. Most of us struggle with what we don't like in the Bible in a mature manner. We let the tension guide our understanding of who God has revealed himself to be. However, it is the immature thinker who cannot handle the tension and starts to excuse it as contradiction or unreasonable. Worse, it is the meologian who devises a whole new vision of God and revelation to suit his or her sensibilities. It is the height of self-focus to believe that God conforms to our needs. It also speaks to an ingratitude that has lost the vision of a gracious God revealing himself to humanity, saving humanity from its sin, and including humanity in His Kingdom.

One thing about the story of God's salvation in the world that I have observed concerns His highlighting of our ignorance and the revealing of what is true concerning who God is. Throughout the Bible, people have diminished certain aspects of God and elevated others. Sadly, this aspect of human nature has continued in the Church. If the Kings of Israel and Judah were meologists, why am I surprised to find the same thing today? I just don't like the fact that judgment (there is that bad word again) usually followed in the footsteps of the apostate Kings.

The Cheap Gospel of the West

I find in my anecdotal observations of Western Society and Culture that liberal enlightenment philosophy has worked itself out to a significant degree in common Christian Theology. I have been asking myself for a few years why there is so much emphasis on salvation through the distribution of material goods. Liberation Theology and Word Faith theology are naked purveyors of materialism. Social Justice theory and Comfort-and-Happiness-Suburban-Christian belief systems depend on what we have in the house and available to us in service. In both of these examples the not-having or the having of material goods is the focus.

If I were to matriculate with this subject in mind, my thesis would be such:

With its focus on the workings of the material world, the Enlightenment of the West sought to de-mythologize culture. With its focus on anti-supernaturalism, materialism grew in stature and was under-girded by man's increasing ability to manipulate his environment. With the growth of industry and agriculture, man no longer needed a provider. With the increase in knowledge of the human body, man no longer needed a healer. With the growth in abilities to manipulate the elements, man no longer needed a creator. With the assumption that soon the evils of the world would be solved as knowledge increased, man no longer needed a savior.

...Or something like that with less antagonistic rhetoric.

Here is the rub, I agree with the good that has come out of the Enlightenment. Capitalism has become the greatest engine at reducing poverty and famine the world has ever seen. The advances in health care are amazing and my parents would be long dead without them. The human capacity to understand our creation has gone a long way to sustaining the a world population of 7 billion. However, we will never solve the evils of this world. Each of these advances has been perverted and used for evil and no matter how hard we try to manipulate the systems of exchange and control, the reality remains that somewhere someone will abuse another person for gain...regardless of their station in life. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said it best when locked in the Soviet gulag, "It was lying on that bed of straw in that small cell that I discovered the line between good and evil runs through everyone's heart." (paraphrased).

Back to the material gospel, as much as the conservative and liberal wings of the Church say they do not agree, both have bought into the material gospel. The Social Justice crowd cannot speak of anything but the distribution of materials. Their bitterness and anger is evident in their writings and their speeches. They use the the prophetic tradition to teach the hatred of certain classes of people. Wait, there's more! The self-reliant crowd in the Church is to quick to point out how materially well-off they are, so they should not be bothered with the pleas of the poor because our Western Democracies give opportunity to those who are willing to work. A good life is measured by how much material you can provide for your family.

I think that there is an anti-supernatural bias living below the surface of our congregations. "Man's Effort" has become the focus of the the West and the Church has bought into it. Of course we will hear of God's work in someone's life, but I cannot help but question what that really means. In J.I. Packer's words the Gospel means, "God saving people." If we really believe that then we must see salvation as primarily spiritual and the biggest gift of salvation is not the material goodies of a plush western life. No the biggest gift is the Holy Spirit of God for the Jew and the Gentile, the slave and free, the male and female, the rich and poor.

Salvation is clearly a supernatural event, the gifting of the Holy Spirit. This is the line of demarcation. Instead of fussing over who has what bobble, Christian's should be wondering how we translate this supernatural event into the natural world in which we live. In the polite society of the chattering classes or in a group where the biggest toy wins, that is the truly hard part because the door has been slammed shut on the supernatural. How do we move away from the rubric of materialism that our societies base themselves upon and seek God's Kingdom when we make our decisions? How does the Church regain her composure away from the material and help believers understand the Holy Spirit?