Every Sunday morning, millions of people attend the Church of St. Starbucks. The Sunday paper is their prayer book and hymnal.
Some orthodox believers don’t seem to care that they will will never even get the chance to convert these folks to their version of Christianity unless somehow they can first get them to pay attention to the claims of orthodoxy. But that’s a very tough sell in this day and age.
Instead of fighting each other, the orthodox and the so-called revisionists ought to be cooperating. They should work together in reaching out to the parishioners of St. Starbucks, both existing and prospective. The latter category especially includes our young people.
We could think of it as tag-team evangelization.
The reappraisers could work on getting skeptics, rationalists, and other doubters in the door. We can do this by showing them that the core beliefs of Christianity — monotheism plus the Great Commandment — make good, rational sense.
And for doubters who are already in the pews, but not solidly anchored there, the reappraisers can work on keeping them in the pews.
All this is best done by reappraisers who are committed to and passionate about their faith. Passion sells. Unfortunately, it’s too often missing from reappraisers.
Once the doubters are in the door, the orthodox reasserters can take their shot. They can try to persuade the doubters to take the next step(s), to full-blown orthodoxy.
Some doubters will indeed proceed all the way to orthodoxy in their faith journey. Others won’t. That’s OK. Half a loaf, and all that. It makes a lot more sense than continually fighting among ourselves over who’s right.
My experience, sadly, is that many of the orthodox will never agree about half a loaf. For them, it’s all or nothing.
Many in each faction forget that none of us knows all the truth. It’s almost axiomatic that none of us knows everything, and some of what we think we know is likely to be wrong.
If we trust in God, and try to stay open to his truth – no matter what that turns out to be – we can trust that, in his good time, our views will converge on the “real” truth.
To adapt a comment of David Paillin: Those who insist that some particular set of beliefs absolutely must represent the “real” truth, for all time, are worshipping human wishes instead of ultimate reality.
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