I personally have participated in social media groups since 1998. My first venture into it was being a member of Yahoo Groups. The name of my ministry was New Wineskin Fellowship and one day back in 98 searching it online, I found a New Wineskin Yahoo Group that was made up of house church folk. After that, I joined others and even started a group with the purpose of rediscovering the Apostles Doctrine, called Acts 2:42. The New Wineskin group did not question doctrine as much as it questioned structure and practice. I had felt for a long time that the dogma, doctrine was not correct. That was my reason for starting the Acts 2:42 group.
The idea first came to me from a passage in 2 Thessalonians.
2Th 2:15 “So then, brothers and sisters,
stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either
by word of mouth or by our letter.” That verse resonated with my
spirit, and I said to myself, of course, they were taught in greater detail by
word of mouth, and the epistles were supplemental. The word-of-mouth teaching
would have been clearer as they were there in person to ask the apostles questions
about anything that seemed confusing.
In reality, the entire Christian scripture was confusing to
me because it seemed so contradictory. During the height of my evangelical
days, like every other “good” believer I did not question the contradictory
aspects and basically ignored them but that was truly dishonest. I was not
being honest with myself. The confusion came from reading the synoptic gospels
as opposed to the letters of Paul. The glaring problem I encountered was the
obvious conflict of law and grace. But, to further exacerbate the problem, Paul
himself was inconsistent with his teaching of law and grace. Anyone who will
not admit that there is an obviously glaring contradiction with law and grace
is simply not being honest and I will not take that back as it is simply truth.
Many have unsuccessfully tried but always failed to properly synchronize law
and grace on the basis of what is written. The bottom line is that this
contradiction results from the doctrine of inerrancy and infallibility of
scripture. It comes from giving equal weight to everything written as if it
were a perfect edict from God.
Even when I was teaching seminary, the kinds of questions I allude
to here were never asked. This is where the internet and social media come into
play. Sitting behind a computer screen or phone screen, speaking with someone
you don’t see on a regular basis makes a safer environment to ask the difficult
questions. In the beginning, like the New Wineskins Yahoo Group, one still got
a lot of pushback and accusations from varying from the evangelical party line,
and I must admit with a wry smile on my face it led to some very heated
debates. I, however, did not shy away from them and rather enjoyed them I would
say. But over time, more and more people grew bolder and bolder about the
questions and minds were changed, and dogma was changed. Likely not with the
person one was debating but over time, things that made sense would be
assimilated later on.
Slowly, more and more people adopted ideas that were
heretical to the evangelical crowd, and with the addition of Facebook and
twitter, more groups formed to offer a safe place to question, ask questions,
and declare new conclusions. As the result of this several new movements of
thought arose and people were discarding old dogma for something that made more
sense to them based on what they read, heard, and experienced. I benefited from
this because over time I became bolder and bolder expressing my questions and
new conclusions. I have resolved the law grace situation one hundred percent
for me, but that is a topic for a different time. The main thing is that I want
to acknowledge and even celebrate what the internet and social media has helped
accomplish and I am confident that it will only continue to grow.
I am quite sure that I arrived at syncretistic and eclectic
spirituality as the result of the freedom offered by the internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment