Five deeply de-Christian doctrines

Philip Ritchie tagged me with this meme on which topic lots of fellow bloggers have already posted (see here and here, for example). The problem with memes is responding quickly enough partly because if you're slow, like me, at doing so all the people you would tag have already been tagged and partly because others have then said all that you would want to say. Anyway, here's my response to this one:

List five doctrines that are taught within the Christian church that you believe to be deeply de-Christian.

1. The prosperity gospel - all those church adverts claiming to transform us from losers into into prosperous, healthy overcomers are simply buying into the spirit of capitalism not the Spirit of Christ. Jesus told us to take up our cross not our cheque books in order to follow him and to become servants not superstars.

2. Faith causes healing - this doctrine arrogantly locates the source of any healing that does occur in the faith of human beings rather than the grace of God and condemns all those who are not healed as lacking in faith.

3. "This world is not my home, I'm just a'passing through, my treasure's all laid up somewhere beyond the blue" or "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace" - Oh no they won't, the things of earth will grow more precious and more significant in the light of his glory and grace that's why he taught us to pray, 'Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven'. This doctrine is brilliantly demolished in Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope; read it and create signs of the coming kingdom (heaven on earth) in the here and now.

4. Systematic theologies - God has not chosen to communicate with us systematically instead his communication is diverse and diffuse - creation, incarnation, scripture etc. To try to tidy up God's revelation into harmonious, systematic categories is to say that we know better than God and distorts the diverse revelation which he has gifted to us. To live in God we need to live with the creative tensions of his revelation instead of resolving it all to our liking.

5. The lingual trumps the visual - the idea that words are more important than images in Christianity which underpins arguments such as that scripture is the Word of God (not Christ), that evangelism is more important than social action, and that art to be Christian must have a message. But the Word become flesh and lived among us, faith without works is dead, and the greatest artistic creation ever - the universe itself - did not come emblazoned with a message from its sponsor.

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Extreme - Peacemaker Die.