the details.

My brain has been swimming for the past week. The first half, however, was from a multitude of cold medicines to turn off my faucet-like nose and numb my sandpaper-esque throat. The latter half has been from the stimulating reading and conversations of the weekend.

When I was growing up, the Bible was a storybook. There were some interesting and believable characters in it. And then there were fanciful tales that only a child’s mind could illustrate. Or so I thought.
Then I grew up and was taught that what was written was indeed literal (mostly). If you were facing a challenge in life, whip out your trusty NIV and find the 4 easy steps to solve the problem. I learned that an apologist wasn’t someone who went around telling people they were sorry about being Christians. They had the answers. For EVERYTHING. I wanted to be one. I wanted to shut up my fancy-pants college professors who arrogantly stood at the head of the lecture hall and preached that while evolution was only a “theory,” that it and only it was based on science. You could NOT give any physical support to “creation” because it was based solely on faith (literally said to me as a grad student). Apologists could explain and defend any biblical premise and position.

But recently, I’ve come to the realization that the details that many Christians have disputed, defended, resisted, and talked themselves blue in the face over are not all that critical. Would it be that tragic if the world wasn’t created in six literal days?
Does that change the fact that God created it?

Will anyone care if at the end of time hell isn’t a literal furnace and the devil isn’t a furry guy with ram’s legs and a spiked tail? (ok, I think that last part is from Disney or something). All that matters is that you don’t want to be there! It is eternal separation from God. It matters not if you are on fire or tormented or made to tirelessly eat stacks of unending donuts while you are there.

Are dancing, playing cards, listening to rock music, drinking alcohol, etc. activities that ultimately sinful? Or does each individual have to make the distinction between what is good or not good for themselves. To what extent is this a stumbling block to me? At what point does this activity turn me away from HIM?

I think that there are infallible, undeniable, and unwavering TRUTHs in the bible. There are laws that God handed down in the Old Testament that did not change when the New Covenant of Jesus was instilled and the concrete is still hardening today. The pillars of Christianity have not crumbled and have not been altered to fit today’s changing culture. I GET THAT. But TRUTH in other matters can be true in different ways to different people. We have 136 different “Christian” churches in Peoria alone! There is a reason.

So with all the recent discussion and some hostility towards “emergent,” “emerging,” “postmodern” churches or their leaders, I don’t understand all the hubbub. If you take one path and someone takes another and you both end up at the same destination, what’s wrong with their path?
It’s not that one church is right or another is wrong. Maybe they’re both wrong. Maybe they’re both right. Maybe it doesn’t even matter.

What does matter is Jesus and the way he lived. Let's just do that.