Modern evangelicalism of the last 200 years has trashed or perverted the relation of God to this world in which we live and have our being. In so doing, the specific intent of the Bible revelation has been hidden from us. Those who say that sin, in all its forms, is the central roadblock to God access are liars. The Bible doesn’t so speak. The Bible says that a lack of loving concern for others, all others, is the only so-called sin that damages the God-Man relationship in this world of ours.
One of my
spiritual heroes was the Reverend John Wesley (1703 to 1791). Because of one eight-word
verse in the Bible, taken out of context, his memory has been largely misinterpreted
and debased by the evangelical mindset. Matthew 5: 48 reads “Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
Evangelicalism uses these few words to condemned all God believers to a
life of spiritual failure for none of us are or ever will be perfect.
Should we
not ask, what may be the motive of such theologizing? The motive is power over
the people. Everyone is guilty of some sin or other somewhere and evangelicalism
offers partial relief, within its own cultural context. Thus, the pulpiteers of
evangelicalism are impartial guilt merchants. For them, playing the guilt card feathers their nest in very practical terms. The church of my birth, crazily, from it’s beginning in 1906 had a long list of “don’ts”
that somehow proved authentic spirituality.
John Wesley
has been called the man of one book, the Bible. His understanding of Scripture
wasn’t perfect but it was better than most other interpreters. Rev. Wesley
makes the following comment in his book, “Explanatory Notes upon the New
Testament”, Epworth Press, p. 35. Speaking of Matthew 5: 48, “So the original
runs, referring to all that holiness which is described in the foregoing
verses, which our Lord in the beginning of the chapter recommends as happiness,
and in the close of it as perfection.” The
only so-called sin in this passage is a lack of love or acceptance of all others,
friend or foe. Perfect love does not
judge any other persons as beyond the boundless love of God and therefore the love and acceptance of all
God believers. The context of this verse is King.
Why not ask of your theology, how does it measure up with the Old Testament and Jesus command to
love God and our neighbors? Could our theology also be in the appendix?
G. Goslaw
Landers, ca.
