All or Nothing?

You cannot just believe part way,                       
You have to believe in it all.
My problem was doubting the Lord’s will
Instead of standing tall.
Elder Price in The Book of Mormon

HH and I saw The Book of Mormon over the weekend – and it’s fabulous, of course – in terms of entertainment.  But the play also sparked some interesting theological conversation.   Is it true that to be a faithful Christian (much less a faithful Mormon) we have to “believe it all“?  And what does “believing it all” mean?

Our Roman Catholic friends are often accused of being Cafeteria Christians  – picking the parts of RC theology they like and ignoring the parts they don’t like.  All of us do this actually.

Maybe we rationalize our picking and choosing based on interpretation of scripture.  Or maybe we fundamentally reject the plain words of Jesus because they rub us the wrong way.

From a recent conversation during a church coffee hour:

Parishioner from Belize:  What I like about the United States is that you execute criminals.  We no longer execute criminals in my home country.  This is what I like about being a Presbyterian in America.

Me: (?!)

PFB: In my country, you cannot even kill your enemies.

Me:  But what about what Jesus said about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies?

PFB:  I prefer to believe what the Old Testament said.

The truth is that we don’t all believe the same things, even within the same Christian traditions.  In my tradition, we speak of agreeing on the essential tenets of our faith, but nobody has spelled out exactly what those are.  I could take a crack at it:

We Presbyterians, for example, all basically believe that

• we are saved by grace through faith
• God is known to us in Three Persons
• there is a priesthood of all believers
• Holy Scripture is the unique and authoritative Word of God

And there are others, but then again, there are still other tenets that some call essential and some call non-essential (like who God calls to serve, for example.) And honestly, even among The Essentials We All Agree On, there are faithful followers of Jesus who have some doubts about those.  If I hypnotized a roomful of church leaders, they might admit that they don’t quite get The Trinity.  Or they don’t exactly believe that the whole Bible is equally authoritative (e.g. Is Leviticus 11:5 as important as John 3:16?)

But back to Mormons.  Maybe our next President will be a Mormon.  In fact, Mr. Romney became a bishop and stake president serving approximately 4000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Boston when he was still a young adult.   He was and still is a prominent leader in his church.  What bothers me about this is not the incredible beliefs (e.g. Jesus will rule from Missouri in the Second Coming) because my own beliefs are fairly strange (e.g. Jesus turned water into wine.)  Spiritual faith involves mystical pieces that don’t make sense.  Not a problem for me.

What is a problem is the All Or Nothing requirements of any faith.  It’s not that I’m in favor of picking and choosing the doctrines we like best.  It’s that – if we believe that God is God and we are not (another one of those essential tenets:  only God is sovereign) then we also have to believe that none of us has cornered the market on Truth.  For any of us to say we know the mind of God is idolatry.  And while I believe that I understand many things about God, I could be wrong about a few of them.  Because I am not God.

What would it be like to have a President who is so certain that he is right about theology that he has participated in excluding people who questioned or ventured from that “right theology”?  What would it be like to have a President who believes he can become a god?  (Note:  we have had many Presidents who acted like they were gods, or at least they believed that they were God’s gift to the nation.)  An interesting read, albeit from a culture magazine, is this.

I would love to hear your thoughts – not necessarily on Mormons – but on this notion that – if we are part of the same faith – we all must embrace the same value judgments, live within the same social parameters, and believe the same thing about women’s leadership, marriage, and what we can eat and drink.

What do you believe?

I believe that there are many different ways to follow Jesus.  I believe that there are many different ways to worship God.  I believe that the Spirit speaks to us in a variety of ways.  Again, what do you believe?

PS  I do not believe that MLK was either a god or a perfect man.  But I believe he tried to live out some of the more difficult ways of Jesus.