Dogma and Truth

Over the past few months, I have had an experience in preaching and teaching at church that is a little hard to express. But, I am going to try. Because, I find myself drifting in and out of meaningful speech and interaction, and I am beginning to get a feeling for what is going on. As I am preaching, I will be honestly speaking, and then I drift back into traditional, doctrinal language, and the sense of meaning disappears for me. I don't know what happens for those listening to me.

I am not saying that all traditional speech is meaningless, because sometimes the old language, the old creed is very, very meaningful, and says it so much better than contemporary language can. But, there is just this stock of trite, worn out religious phrases that just kill my soul when I say them, and may be numbing the souls of those I am speaking to or with.

Dogma and truth. Orthodox teaching and present experience. How are they related?

I think what really bothers me is when I start taking up this attitude as a preacher (I rarely do this as a teacher) that I have some sort of special knowledge of God or that I can tell people just what the Lord intends. I am not saying I do that a lot, but I fall into as it seems to be the expectation of Protestant preachers. The best preaching I do is when I feel "undone" by the truth of God and humbled to a pile of ashes and unable to do anything but connect with the humanity of others and the deep mystery of our Holy God. I will have to say that there are a few times when I do feel a clear, positive voice and message to assure others of God's goodness and justice, and I don't mind voicing that. But, so much other preaching is just play acting in church. We gather before a mystery on Sundays for worship. A mystery that has brought all that is into being. We gather before the mystery of God who has taken interest in our plight for some reason, and even chosen to bear it with us. There is not a whole lot else to claim to know beyond that. But, there are praises to sing, and prayers to be said, without presumption and there are cries for help to be expressed as well.

I keep remembering what the Quakers taught, at least in their early days, which was that a person should not get caught up in "notions (thoughts about religion and God)," but should stick close to their genuine experience of the Holy. They used to say: "Stay low in the Seed." The Seed meant for them the inner Christ, which they believed was planted in every human being. You had to be very still to hear this inner teacher. You had to be very humble or the inner Christ wouldn't speak. And, when you had heard a true inner word, you were very careful to not speak beyond what you had experienced, and you were very careful to not speak it unless it was truly called for.

The Quakers were more afraid of speaking bullshit than failing to speak about God. That really seems the opposite of Protestant Christianity. Most of Protestantism is more afraid of not speaking about God, and very little worried about speaking bullshit about God.