Nuance VS. Tradition

I was a speaker at a conference over the weekend, one of several. It was a conference on evangelism. The setting was an inner city ministry in the San Francisco Bayview District. My goal was to give a fresh perspective on evangelism and discipleship as I see the two inextricably linked. They are two sides of the coin of church/kingdom growth. Since it was a mixture, it seemed to me that the topics sort of canceled each other. In the past, I would have been angry and would have tried to fight against those ideas that I thought were counter productive. Since reading A New Earth by Eric Tolle, I see things differently.

Instead of being up tight, I readily accepted the conference for what it was, i.e. all that it was. An interesting thing happened as a result of that. The course of events evolved to the point where I was able to connect with someone who could really benefit from my understanding...point of view. So, when I was able to recognize my ego getting up-tight and then by simple awareness let go and relax, it all worked out miraculously.

The problem I see with much of evangelical Christianity is, many people cannot distinguish between nuance and tradition when interpreting the bible. It seems that so many think that they can literally understand the bible and that its message is plain. I say that it is only really plain when one looks through the lens of tradition...and then, it is not really plain, but it is easy to pick out the plain traditional message. Furthermore, when people find the Spirit of God, whispering an idea that does not square with the traditional view of interpretation, they discard the voice of the Spirit and sometimes even credit the Spirits promptings with the voice of the Devil.

I believe that the Spirit is showing me by nuance, a slight difference that ends up making a drastic distinction in interpretation. The bible in my view is solely redemptive in its message. It is designed to bring the individual to the point of understanding the great love of God and the lengths that God went to have a relationship with humanity. In the nuance, I see that it does not really support the egoic group constructs that divide so many. I have also learned that I need to let go and allow God to change the situation. He acheives that through me at times one person at a time.