The Vision Thing

We Americans, being children of the Enlightenment, like to think of ourselves as rational people. But the truth is even logic and reason must be based on a belief system. A foundation of philosophy and theology. If you can understand a person's belief system it follows that understanding their logic, and therefore the person, will be easier.

A while back a Bible verse captured the imagination of a lot of church leaders. Since the verse only appears in the Bible once, it may have been a bit overdone, maybe even misunderstood. Proverbs 29:18 has often been quoted as: “Where there is no vision the people parish.”

While Googling for the correct verse of this saying I came across a site which explained what I was thinking about Proverbs 29:18. http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/where-there-is.php

Tim Challies pointed out a few things about the verse I didn't know. First the translation of the vision verse comes from the King James Version and is probably wrong. The NIV version offers: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.” The NRSV, which is the one I usually use reads: “One who walks in integrity will be safe, but whoever follows crooked ways will fall into the Pit. (Or fall all at once.)

Why would church leaders use a Bible verse from a translation they probably never read? Because they are trying to change people's belief base and form a community. As Tim notes the translation probably means something like follow God or it will go badly for you. The vision rendition reads more like follow what I offer or we will fall apart.

Because one of a pastor's main responsibilities is community formation, often referred to as leadership, perhaps we should be forgiving of the verse use from an outdated translation of the Bible. (Sorry original King James Version fans.) The point I'm trying to make here is that what we believe to be true is based on our theology and philosophy of life. When people operate from the same belief base community is formed.

Studies have proven that people will accept the understood truths of the community they live whether these beliefs are true or not. . This is because our human makeup drives us to want to fit in so powerfully that we will accept beliefs as truth even if it can be logically proven the truths are false. And not only will people accept these community beliefs as true, they will defend them as if challenges to these “sacred” truths are personal attacks. Like their very life depends on these beliefs being understood as true.

This is why the founding fathers created what today is often called civil religion. These were a set of beliefs all Americans must hold to be citizens of the United States. This is why grade schools pray, excuse me, recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. Just as Rome demanded that everyone, accept Jews, could believe in whatever god you wanted as long as you worshiped their gods, we require people can worship as they choose as long as we accept America's civil religion. Of course, the big difference here should be that the founding fathers never claimed civil religion was worshiping God. Although some churches today seem to get that confused

And understand that to be a country we must have shared truths which everyone agrees with. Just like congregations and denominations must have shared beliefs to exist. The problem is that sometimes circumstances demand that these shared beliefs change or the beliefs themselves will destroy or change the nature of the community. For the Unites States civil rights for Blacks was one recent issue. Our civil religion preached equality for all, but, because of slavery, Blacks were believed to be inferior and somehow sub human. Such a belief threatened the very foundation the Unites States created on

For churches a similar issue was divorce. There was a time when divorce was looked upon like homosexuality is today. As a sin that separated a person from the body of Christ. If that belief had not changed there would be no churches today. Homosexuality, in fact, is tearing about many church bodies right now. The shared belief that homosexuality separated a person from the body of Christ is no longer held by a significant majority.

Conflict over homosexuality in churches maybe be only a symptom of a deeper split in shared beliefs by congregations. Not so long ago, at least for those of us past the age of 50, there was a shared understanding that churches were communities where people agreed to live in a certain way to experience God's grace. Those who didn't follow these shared expectations were opened shunned (or separated by the group.) In 2009 only the most “conservative” Christian congregations still practice that belief. Most Christian churches today practice a grace open to almost anyone who wants to belong to their community. Not only can you be divorced but you can live together and not be married. Homosexuality has come into conflict, not because homosexuals are shunned, but because they want to be considered normal Christians like divorced people. This conflicts with the fact that while most churches now practice open ended grace, many of the people attending these churches still believe in the old system of members conforming to a certain kind of behavior so everybody can better experience God's grace.

And all the logical Bible thumping in the world isn't going to settle anything. Because those living from the perspective of open grace or never going to have the same truths as those who believe in conditional grace. And please don't fine hair me by pointing that God's grace is always unconditional. Most Christians believe that living in God's grace results in changes in a person. If that person doesn't change to our liking, we Christians will understand they are no longer in God's grace. That understanding seems pretty conditional to me.

Which leads us back to Proverbs 29:18 because if God has built existence dependent on a number of truths, not living those truths will destroy not only the individual as well. This is why it is vitally important that communities continually keep reexamining their belief systems to see if they are from God, or from human reason, for I contend human reason can't always be trusted. Worse, human reason has, throughout history, been very destructive to individuals and communities.

We should struggle constantly to make sure that our vision is God's vision.

by Monty Keeling