Confessions of a Calminian (Part 7)

My sisters and I were scattered from teen years down to cute girly chaos. The four of us, accompanied by my mother, were a bit of an amoeba in the grocery store: our long hair, constant chatter, and organized girly chaos. A couple approached us whom we had never seen prior in our small town. And out of the blue, the woman asked, “Are you Mennonite?” This was not the first time my sisters and I had been suspected as being Mennonite, although we were not. And we still laugh about it, because I was the only one of the sisters who ever went through a “dresses only” phase. But I guess I must have made up for the rest of them during my season of insistence upon that idea.

As was our custom, we’d shake our heads and smile, trying not to laugh while supposing that said persons knew very little of Mennonites.

“Then what are you?’ she asked, assuming that we were Christians. How she knew, I’m still not certain. It was quite difficult to answer her question. Throughout my childhood, my family had moved a lot and had repeatedly attended roughly fourteen churches, and had accompanied my dad as he had preached in several more besides. I had a fairly transient childhood, and though close knit and content enough, my sisters and I were often the “new kids” to most Sunday schools. We had attended so many denominations, we had adopted our own answer to the lady’s question: “We’re Bible believing Christians”, my mom answered. 

“But which church is the best?” the lady persisted. She did not seem to be getting what we were trying to say. I don’t remember how we answered. Likely, something along the lines of, “Any church that believes what the Bible says”.

That’s the approach my family had taken towards theology, not so much taking a side or setting ourselves in a theological camp as much as studying out any given issue in the context of the full counsel of Scripture and trying to determine, as a family, what God was saying. 

And I acknowledge that there is a world of debate concerning biblical interpretation. My family had always taken an extremely literal approach to interpretation, because, if you’re going to take the full counsel of the Word on an issue in order to determine your theology, you have to be literal if you actually believe that God meant what He said in the Bible.

As I’ve become an adult and have joined my husband to begin our own family, I still don’t see any alternative to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Rather than taking a side on theology, I would much rather let Scripture speak for itself and just listen. 

And it’s actually a hybrid of Calvinism and Arminianism that really proved to me that I was still savable as I wrestled with the idea of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Although, the wonderful thing is that, as we’ve already seen, one could be completely aligning with one camp over the other and still come to the exact same conclusion: that if you want to be saved, you can be.

I only venture to share my “hybrid” in an effort to offer my testimony as a means to bring some comfort to one who struggles with the same fear as me.

There is one thing about theology that I know for sure and certain: there is so much that I don’t know! I don’t have all the answers, not by a long shot. My dad used to say that the only person who ever had perfect theology was Jesus. I always thought my dad’s sermons were solid, but perhaps that was because he was humble enough to admit that he didn’t know everything. What he did know beyond a shadow of a doubt (as did my two great-uncles, grandpa, and great-grandpa - who were all preachers) is that we can take what the Bible says literally, and amid all our human error, the Word is infallible, pure, and trustworthy. Beyond that, we look no further. God’s Holy Spirit is more than able to reveal the truths of Scripture to willing and humble hearts.

I’ve been so thankful to have been part of the larger body of Christ: Baptist churches, Wesleyan fellowships, homechurches, tiny missionary church plants, Pentecostal assemblies, the Mennonite Brethren church, and Evangelical Free churches - they’ve all been beautiful. 

Sometimes, it was slightly awkward when we’d go to a new church and experience Christanese cultural whiplash. The most comedic one was when we went from a Southern Baptist mission plant (all dresses and hymns and very calm) to a vibrant Pentecostal church. I showed up in my long dress and subtle head covering - and it was hands in the air, testimonies, speaking in tongues, dancing, and hugs - lots and lots of hugs! And I adapted. It was good for me. I learned not to be afraid of outward, biblical expressions of praise.

And so it was with each church my family attended: a wonderful new kind of growing experience. Have I always agreed with everything that was spoken in each congregation? By no means. 

Sometimes, my family would get home from church and have an unraveling family devotional where we’d talk about why we didn’t agree with such and such that was said at church because of what this passage or that passage actually said in context - that sort of thing. Maybe something was very conservative. Maybe very charismatic. Maybe it was just new to us and we needed to do some digging because maybe we needed to be challenged in our thinking and learn from other Christians. I learned a lot - we all did. 

And I learned that I’m not always right. Just because something is outside of my comfort zone doesn’t mean that it’s outside of the Scripture zone. I think all the churches can learn a lot from each other. And when something isn't in the Scripture zone, well, don’t be afraid to toss it out, but make sure you’re still loving your siblings in Jesus as you do so. So my church upbringing was more like a patchwork quilt than a sheet of linen, but I always did have consistency through my larger family of preachers. I wholeheartedly trusted Scott (my dad), Doug (my grandpa), and Randy and Rick (two of my great-uncles). It was because I saw how they lived and knew how much they trusted the Bible. And I’d suppose that they did not always agree with each other on absolutely every thread of theology. But because they trusted the Bible, I trusted them.

And when you move a lot as a family and are involved in any kind of ministry or missions, you begin to think less and less about denominations and more and more about whether or not what people are saying actually aligns with the context of any given Biblical text. It’s enough to find other Christians who are partnering to share the gospel.

So that’s my round-about way of explaining why some of the points in this book may be from different theological camps. This is how the Lord helped me heal from years of deep-set fear. And again, any “side” of theology will get to the same conclusion regarding blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But specifically, this is how the Lord led me there.