{"id":893,"date":"2018-05-14T22:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T02:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=893"},"modified":"2018-05-14T22:00:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T02:00:36","slug":"who-gets-to-say-what-a-christian-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/who-gets-to-say-what-a-christian-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Gets to Say What a Christian Is?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Salon.com posted an interesting opinion piece suggesting that the religious right was ‘shrinking itself’ and that its overzealousness was driving people away. Take a moment to read it:\u00a0https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/05\/14\/how-the-religious-right-is-shrinking-itself-overzealous-christianity-is-driving-people-away\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of me wants to respond with a “no duh” but the other part wants to examine the issue a little further. If you think of faith in terms of stages of development then you see that the religious right speaks to those whose thinking is concretized, whose \u00a0world view is \u00a0black and white, and who are afraid they will be caught and punished for their misdeeds.<\/p>\n

I’m not the first one to think of this. There is a terrific book entitled\u00a0Stages of Faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning\u00a0<\/em>by James W. Fowler. Read it if you get a chance – it’s not as dry as it might sound. His premise is that in the same ways we develop psychologically (think Erikson’s\u00a0Identity and the Life Cycle<\/em>) we develop spiritually.<\/p>\n

The religious right tends to be stuck in an early developmental stage. For example, when asked why not to do something – that it would be breaking a rule, earlier stages of development would say something like: because I don’t want to get caught, or I don’t want to get in trouble, or I don’t want to be punished. Later stages of development say rather, I don’t want to do it because it is wrong or I don’t want to do it because it diminishes me or another or I don’t want to do it because it interferes with my relationship with Godde .<\/p>\n

Christianity, like other religions, has means of spiritual deepening and growth that transcends our more youthful understandings. So I am not saying that those earlier understandings are bad or evil, but that they are developmentally stunted for those who want to mature in their faith. There comes a time when a childlike understanding doesn’t satisfy spiritual longing.<\/p>\n

I am a Christian. If my faith couldn’t stretch my heart and mind and soul I’m not sure I would want to be one. If you have been driven away from the church by the religious right there is still a place for you in the Christian faith. Christianity is bigger than the smallness of their understandings. It may be uncomfortable at first and sureness will be replaced by possibilities and uncertainty – but it is worth it. In the same way we cannot let Trump define America, we cannot allow the religious right define Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salon.com posted an interesting opinion piece suggesting that the religious right was ‘shrinking itself’ and that its overzealousness was driving people away. Take a moment to read it:\u00a0https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/05\/14\/how-the-religious-right-is-shrinking-itself-overzealous-christianity-is-driving-people-away\/ Part of me wants to respond with a “no duh” but the other part wants to examine the issue a little further. If you think of faith … Continue reading Who Gets to Say What a Christian Is?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7,13,8,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}