Anyway, there's been a whole lot of interpersonal and online questions aimed at people of my religion lately, because we 1. (gasp!) Believe things that others do not, and 2. My church leaders have made quite a few procedural changes in recent years. People who know that they do not agree with my religion are apparently continually astonished that they still don't agree with us - like that should be a surprise, to them or to me. There's lots of, "Can you believe that someone said/did..." like it's just amazing - which puzzles me, because I don't spend any time being surprised by the fact that I don't agree with religions to which I do not belong. I certainly don't post on social media about it, or engage people who are members in conversations about why I'm not a member.
Anyway. I digress.
So, I'm going to explain 1. why changes don't bother me, and 2. why not everything will, or should, change. I don't think I'll change any minds, but I assume that others really do want to understand, not just to insist on agreement. (Call me crazy...) You will definitely not agree with me if you think that all religion is superstitious nonsense, but please save us time by not being surprised or outraged by that. You also won't agree if you don't view Jesus as the Messiah; don't be surprised by that, either. It'll just save us both time and frustration.
To demonstate my points, I'm going way back - back to the Old Testament. For centuries, people followed the Law of Moses. A significant part of that was the law of sacrifice. Dating back to the time Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, people had been commanded to sacrifice the first and best of their crops, livestock, etc. in the temple. There were all kinds of associated laws - what was acceptable, when to sacrifice it, how to sacrifice it, where to sprinkle or spread the blood of the sacrificed animals. It was part of what separated God's Chosen People from the "heathen."
Following me? OK.
Now, it's New Testament time. Here comes Jesus. He declares that there should be no more "burnt offerings," no more animal sacrifices, no more crop sacrifices. This law had run its course; it had been "fulfilled."
Theologically, the sacrifice was supposed to remind people of the Messiah, the Savior. Now that the Savior had come, those were no longer needed. Christ asked them to offer "a contrite spirit" instead of animal sacrifice.
Were the people thrilled about this? Did they say, "Wow, this is great! Not only has the Messiah come, but this frees up time and food that my family can use!"? No; they accused Jesus of trying "to destroy the law and the prophets."
Some of what they said is recorded in the Bible, and I'm pretty sure that I can imagine how a lot of conversations not recorded went. People were furious and scandalized. This was, after all, The Way Things Have Always Been Done, it was the Word of God, it was how one earned salvation, generations had followed these precepts - and now they were being asked to discard it. This made no sense to the vast majority of believers.
The problem was in thinking the same way many people today think. "Were you wrong before, or are you wrong now?" Because, people assume, if you've changed something, something has to be wrong. People don't seem to be able to understand that both ways can be right, for their time and circumstances.
Of course, not everything is fulfillment of prophesy, like the arrival of the Messiah, but the idea of different behaviors for different circumstances shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who's been younger than they are now (which is all of us), and especially for parents. Do you treat your toddlers the same way you treat your teens? Of course not. Does that mean that you were wrong to treat them differently, that "different" automatically equals "not fair?" Of course not.
Now that brings us to the flip side of that coin, people who assume that everything must unavoidably change; that, in fact, anything that doesn't change is wrong. To look at that idea, let's go back to the Old Testament again.
Let's look at the Ten Commandments. Most societies, religious or not, agree with at least some of those commandments, things like "don't murder each other" and "don't take things that don't belong to you." Let's agree that, even if you don't follow all of the ten, you recognize that these rules go back many centuries, and are accepted by people of differing religions as the basis of their moral code.
I'm going to take one of these as my example - "Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor." There are so many laws based on this concept - plagiarism, libel, false advertising, perjury, breach of contract, defamation, slander and more. Pretty much every system of government has laws against false witness.
If I come across a religion that tells me that these ideas are outdated, outmoded, unnecessary, embarassingly backward, I know that I do not want to practice that religion; I don't think anybody should practice that religion. (The same is true, actually, of a government.) That's because some things do not change, so our attitude toward them, and our observance of them, shouldn't change. Saying, "OK, it was accepted in the past, but we know better now" doesn't sway me.
In general (although this isn't a hard and fast rule), practices change; doctrine shouldn't.
Many practices will change, and those changes don't mean that anyone is, or was, wrong. But some things are wrong, and time, popular opinion and other societal changes don't make wrong things, like false witness, right.
Sometimes I hear from people who are waiting for changes that they think should come, or those who feel wounded by changes that have come, and they talk about how pained and unhappy and angry they feel. The entire church (or all humanity), they think, should so obviously be doing things the way that makes sense to them. I understand that their pain is real, but I don't think that's the fault of any religion or its adherents. It's a problem with unrealistic expectations. How many times were you in tears as a child, or have you watched your child be in tears, because you couldn't have a pony, had to take a bath, had to do homework? That's what that pain looks like to God. He's lived many centuries longer than we have, so He has perspective and experience that we don't. He hurts because we hurt and He loves us, but not because He's doing things wrong and we children would do it better.
So, in summary, change is inevitable - but not all change. Makes sense?
Anyway. I digress.
So, I'm going to explain 1. why changes don't bother me, and 2. why not everything will, or should, change. I don't think I'll change any minds, but I assume that others really do want to understand, not just to insist on agreement. (Call me crazy...) You will definitely not agree with me if you think that all religion is superstitious nonsense, but please save us time by not being surprised or outraged by that. You also won't agree if you don't view Jesus as the Messiah; don't be surprised by that, either. It'll just save us both time and frustration.
To demonstate my points, I'm going way back - back to the Old Testament. For centuries, people followed the Law of Moses. A significant part of that was the law of sacrifice. Dating back to the time Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, people had been commanded to sacrifice the first and best of their crops, livestock, etc. in the temple. There were all kinds of associated laws - what was acceptable, when to sacrifice it, how to sacrifice it, where to sprinkle or spread the blood of the sacrificed animals. It was part of what separated God's Chosen People from the "heathen."
Following me? OK.
Now, it's New Testament time. Here comes Jesus. He declares that there should be no more "burnt offerings," no more animal sacrifices, no more crop sacrifices. This law had run its course; it had been "fulfilled."
Theologically, the sacrifice was supposed to remind people of the Messiah, the Savior. Now that the Savior had come, those were no longer needed. Christ asked them to offer "a contrite spirit" instead of animal sacrifice.
Were the people thrilled about this? Did they say, "Wow, this is great! Not only has the Messiah come, but this frees up time and food that my family can use!"? No; they accused Jesus of trying "to destroy the law and the prophets."
Some of what they said is recorded in the Bible, and I'm pretty sure that I can imagine how a lot of conversations not recorded went. People were furious and scandalized. This was, after all, The Way Things Have Always Been Done, it was the Word of God, it was how one earned salvation, generations had followed these precepts - and now they were being asked to discard it. This made no sense to the vast majority of believers.
The problem was in thinking the same way many people today think. "Were you wrong before, or are you wrong now?" Because, people assume, if you've changed something, something has to be wrong. People don't seem to be able to understand that both ways can be right, for their time and circumstances.
Of course, not everything is fulfillment of prophesy, like the arrival of the Messiah, but the idea of different behaviors for different circumstances shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who's been younger than they are now (which is all of us), and especially for parents. Do you treat your toddlers the same way you treat your teens? Of course not. Does that mean that you were wrong to treat them differently, that "different" automatically equals "not fair?" Of course not.
Now that brings us to the flip side of that coin, people who assume that everything must unavoidably change; that, in fact, anything that doesn't change is wrong. To look at that idea, let's go back to the Old Testament again.
Let's look at the Ten Commandments. Most societies, religious or not, agree with at least some of those commandments, things like "don't murder each other" and "don't take things that don't belong to you." Let's agree that, even if you don't follow all of the ten, you recognize that these rules go back many centuries, and are accepted by people of differing religions as the basis of their moral code.
I'm going to take one of these as my example - "Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor." There are so many laws based on this concept - plagiarism, libel, false advertising, perjury, breach of contract, defamation, slander and more. Pretty much every system of government has laws against false witness.
If I come across a religion that tells me that these ideas are outdated, outmoded, unnecessary, embarassingly backward, I know that I do not want to practice that religion; I don't think anybody should practice that religion. (The same is true, actually, of a government.) That's because some things do not change, so our attitude toward them, and our observance of them, shouldn't change. Saying, "OK, it was accepted in the past, but we know better now" doesn't sway me.
In general (although this isn't a hard and fast rule), practices change; doctrine shouldn't.
Many practices will change, and those changes don't mean that anyone is, or was, wrong. But some things are wrong, and time, popular opinion and other societal changes don't make wrong things, like false witness, right.
Sometimes I hear from people who are waiting for changes that they think should come, or those who feel wounded by changes that have come, and they talk about how pained and unhappy and angry they feel. The entire church (or all humanity), they think, should so obviously be doing things the way that makes sense to them. I understand that their pain is real, but I don't think that's the fault of any religion or its adherents. It's a problem with unrealistic expectations. How many times were you in tears as a child, or have you watched your child be in tears, because you couldn't have a pony, had to take a bath, had to do homework? That's what that pain looks like to God. He's lived many centuries longer than we have, so He has perspective and experience that we don't. He hurts because we hurt and He loves us, but not because He's doing things wrong and we children would do it better.
So, in summary, change is inevitable - but not all change. Makes sense?
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