Christian Doctrine, what the church believes, teaches and confesses, fills many volumes, distinguishes subtle concepts from each other and is too voluminous and complex to be of much practical interest to non-professionals.
Asked what we believe as church members, most would reach for one of the several creeds the church has formulated over the two millennia since Christ's time. The creeds are precise summaries of Christian doctrine, formulated to answer basic questions. Christian creeds in use today start simply with the relatively brief Apostles creed and become increasingly detailed as new questions arose and were answered.
As I have discovered, however, creeds were created as a way of identifying those who preached something to the contrary more than they were to tell parishioners what to believe. The Nicene creed from 325 has a particularly troublesome history. It is a compromise that very few really liked. It was finally imposed by military force 200 years later. The protracted war of orthodoxy waged by the Emperor Justinian destroyed Roman cohesion in the Western Mediterranean and hastened the collapse of central Roman authority. The Goths and Visigoths just got the blame a long time later.
Most English translations of the Nicene creed do not adequately represent the original concepts expressed in Greek. These described what we now call the Trinity, the concept that one God could simultaneously be three distinct personalities. Although fundamental doctrine today, the idea expresses a paradox - truth which seems to contradict itself. 3=1 and 1=3, not easy to understand on any level.
I must plead guilty of reading a good deal of the history of antiquity in the last few years. I have worked my way through most of Jaroslav Pelikan's five volume history of the development of doctrine since Christ. I find the debates and disagreements interesting, which may reflect the large amount of discretionary time I have discovered in retirement as well as my insatiable curiosity. I have regularly attended a Lutheran church during the past several years. Before my move to Nampa, ID four years ago I had avoided doing so for nearly 50 years. One of my first questions on picking up (or resuming) some intellectual activity for me is to wonder about it's family history. The adventure has shed light on how I see God as well as how I regard the significance of many "ordinary" church practices.
I was educated in the Lutheran school system from the first grade through several years at Valparaiso University. In my early twenties I had a fairly good grasp of the Christian story and considered it true for all practical purposes. As my world broadened to include the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement as well as life as a young adult, I stumbled over a question which seemed to make the very existence of God highly unlikely. Not an uncommon path for young people.
I knew that many varieties of religious practice claimed to be the real thing exclusive of all the others. Churches mutually considered all others misguided at best to completely evil at worst. I also estimated that Christians of all varieties were a small fraction of the total number of humans through history. What sort of creator being would select a small number of his identical creatures for Paradise while condemning the majority to Damnation?
This question of essential fairness led me to conclude either every faith was legitimate or none of them were. How all of the mutually contradictory religions could be true was beyond my comprehension. So I concluded that the faith of my fathers was pretty much a story without a point. If God existed, he was not making his preferences, or presence, known to mankind.
This seemed to render churches as merely gatherings of variously deluded folks. If one were to honestly avoid pretense and hypocrisy, then churches were to be avoided. So that is how I set off on my adult life, an un-churched non-believer.
So where does this long story lead?
I think the very core of Christian faith has nothing to do with creeds or even much to do with God. To me, the only concept is to live the Golden Rule. Not an easy practice, but one I have come to respect and put into practice. "Treat others as you wish to be treated." Sounds so simple . How does that work?
If you want to be an aggressive, nasty person them stop reading. You hardly need my advice. Do not direct your ill will in my direction ether. I bite back. Take your life somewhere else.
First, there is no point in treating people badly through carelessness or by intention or through anger. None whatever, as I will show. Anger is particularly unfortunate because it comes from a very primitive part of our brains that cannot be said to posses intelligence at all. Anger makes you stupid. You will behave very badly when angry. If you experience anger, withdraw until the anger and the fighting hormones settle down. Treating people badly creates fear and resentment which last a long time. Someone you have treated badly is not likely to respond with love and tenderness some time later. The lesson about you has been learned.
Treating people well involves a bit more of your time, but their experience runs from positive to pleasurable. People treated well are so much easier to live with. If someone does not respond well, back off a bit, let them settle down.. Stop associating with people who are in the grip of some delusion that they are just fine alone, or surrounded with sycophants. These people are likely to be persistently unhappy, fearful and possibly wounded. If you must interact, do so very deliberately. When someone is unhelpful or nasty, not much point in prolonging the encounter.
Treating people well makes your life so much easier. The time you spend on them comes back to you in good, productive ways so very often. And what does it cost you? You must stop really caring about who is right in some disagreement. Defuse it, let the righteousness go. Our positions are rarely beyond compromise. It is sometimes good if the other person thinks they won. The next day it hardly matters who won or lost. You just live the day that comes up next. There are no true wins over those who spend a lot of their time in your life. You win, you get turned off just slightly in the other's perception. This adds up and can explode.
Needless to say, booze or drugs do not let you off the hook. If you are an angry drunk, you are probably a terribly damaged person just below the surface. Normal people tend to recognize and avoid angry people and wall them out of their lives.
Treating people well does mean you do what you agree to do. Without being asked, if possible. My experience is that just doing it takes so much less time and energy. Fighting about something means it does not happen soon and will not go away. You will be in constant conflict.
I had better explain about human capability before going further into what you may regard as fantasy. Homo sapiens, you and me, are incapable of doing anything consistently, nothing ever works the first time as you think it should. You will sabotage yourself and break just about any rule. You will know the taste of defeat if you live a while. Without exception, this is true by age 60, maybe a lot earlier.
You are a unreliable animal. You came innocent and fresh into this world to replace tired, worn out experience. Your term of service is nearly over.
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