Is Your Theology Oppressive or Liberating?

Is Your Theology Oppressive or Liberating?                                                         Kelly Durant

Peter 1:1615 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

2. As time goes on usually there is progress and advancements in most things that make you wonder, how did people live before? How was it done in the old days? For example, for transportation for centuries people rode in carts drawn by horses, but then the first car was made. It was complicated and uncomfortable with several gear shifters that had to be pulled to drive it. You also had to get out and crank the front of the motor to start it, and it would not go much faster than 40 mph. Today however, any modern car is luxurious by comparison with air conditioning, automatic windows, sound systems, gps systems etc.

So everything has a progressive science behind it and today I will comment on how the same can be attributed to theology. When the first apostles evangelized Jerusalem and all Judea, as in the Book of Acts, the men preaching had no background study in theology, no diploma from a Christian University, and some could not even read or write very well. Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.  The conclusion here is being with Jesus and having the Holy Spirit does through you and me what mere education cannot! Their obedience brought them power and liberation from the oppressive, hypocritical, condemning religions of their era.

As a matter of fact, for hundreds of years later most followers of Jesus never got to read what you get to read in the Bible today, they only had a few of Paul’s letters copied, and maybe some had the books of Moses, and others had possession of other Jewish writings as discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  So today we are privileged to have the Canon (Bible) prepared as we do now backed by dozens of thousands of intelligent theological material. Also the knowledge of ‘good and evil’ is augmented and anyone can “google” to read books that were prohibited from the Bible. But when you know God’s heart, when you have the Holy Spirit for discernment, you can determine why the ancients chose to ban certain books due to their inconsistencies with the holiness of God found in the scriptures as relayed from the prophets of God.  

3. After Rome was converted to Christianity by Constantine soon after 300 AD, many Christians came together to unite on the basic points of what Christians should agree upon. Many people believed on Jesus without ever reading the Bible (as the reading of the Bible was only permitted by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church) until Martin Luther, the reformer came along 1,200 years later and translated the Bible into German so that any believer could read it. The Church wanted his head for heresy but God raised up people to protect him in hiding. Many translators of the Bible were persecuted or martyred such as the English translators John Wycliffe and William Tyndale. Be thankful you can open the Bible and read it as millions before could not!

So the early Christian believers only had bits and pieces they could learn from through the predominant oppressive church stepping on the water hose preventing the flow of the truth. How many of you ever learned the Nicene Creed growing up? It was the only doctrine many Christians got to learn after it was introduced in the year 325 AD and they revised in 381 AD. The Nicene Creed is still used today and I want to review it as it is still forms a basis of theology for all Christian believers. Compare it to The Salvation Army’s 11 doctrines as we cover this, and you can conclude how for hundreds of years, millions of believers learned a fairly sound theology of faith, but it was just the basics.

  Nicean Creed: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

                      And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

                   Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

                  And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. (Note, last sentence of 381 AD version omitted for further discussion for a later date).

4. After Martin Luther’s liberating blessing of expanding a full knowledge of Christ through Protestantism, the Bible as a collection of books written by the major and minor prophets with the disciples and Paul’s letters finally were compiled together.  And finally the Holy Scriptures arrived in the hands of any common person who wanted to read them! Christians were liberated by Luther’s more complete theology which included the ‘Sola fide’ declaration (Latin: by faith alone).

The problem was this, the established church for over a millennium maintained that salvation was obtainable only through faith in their church, and through their hierarchy of privileged elect men who placed unreachable demands upon the believers. For example, for salvation, for forgiveness of your sins, for saving a dead relative’s soul out of hell, for a series of sacraments, a monetary amount was required as a means for paying the priesthood to pray to God to convince God of doing the favor. Is it not sad how many people have been deceived by trusting their eternal soul’s fate in the power of others without ever verifying the truth of God for their selves! (See The 95 Thesis) The flawed doctrine emphasis then (still existing today!) is that salvation through Christ, or ‘faith alone’ in Him is not enough, that you need the priesthood’s blessings of their church as well.  How deceptive, right? Sola fide revolutionized Christian theology over 500 years ago! Only Jesus saves!

So Martin helped free captives from many false doctrines with the truth that only Jesus saves (Eph2:8,9) The doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus, is an indispensable contribution within our progress of Christian theology. Do you see how we must honor those who risked their lives to fight for the exposure of the truth in God’s Word? Many millions have died defending the truth of the Holy Scriptures being persecuted by violent deceptive ones who claimed that only they had the truth! Governments oppress truth the same way. But the more truth one knows, the more liberation one has from potential oppressors, but then persecution comes to you for possessing the truth! Today, the truth of God is being brutally oppressed!

5. Going forward, soon after this liberation of Luther the pendulum swung back into oppression again with John Calvin. Even though he had many positive things to contribute to Christianity, certain theological views he had were not consistent with an overall compilation of scripture. Here we see an example of how one verse can derail you if not thinking holistically.

His predestination doctrine states that God’s elect were chosen from the beginning, this implies that God created certain people to be predestined for salvation and some others to be predestined for eternal condemnation in hell fire. Say what? Does this not seem absurd that a God of love would create humans with the final end to destroy their souls? In other words, you no longer need ‘to go into all the world and preach the gospel’ because the elect will be saved without your sharing of the gospel.

This contradicts Jesus command of Mark 16:15 to preach to everyone! This false doctrine proves that his interpretation of that issue was not guided by the Holy Spirit, or even common sense for that matter! He was, in my opinion, on a pride trip of knowledge to show he knew more about Bible doctrine than others. He should have heeded the scripture that says in James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.  This is only one example, but in many denominations many erroneous theological interpretations exist.

6. With this doctrine in place we see the need for another liberator, correct? And who do you think God raised up? John Westley. He created Methodism, which were Biblical doctrinal basics on how to progress in knowledge and maturity, being ‘sanctified’ in the faith through holy living. He preached over 40,000 sermons in his life establishing hundreds of churches countering the predestination misconception that some are born sanctified and others are born condemned with the ‘whosoever will’ emphasis in his doctrine. We know ‘whosoever will’ from John 3:16. We know that God will save even the most horrible vile sinner no matter their past sins if they will repent and then begin a new life of Godly or holy living. This is basic Christianity 101 that keeps coming under attack and subverted. Salvation and sanctification are there for anyone but people need to learn about it through you and me in order to get it!

Satan is always infiltrating the Christian Church influencing it to be governed by oppressive leaders, false doctrines, and compromises of cultural subversions so that the effectiveness of the church is nil producing hypocrisy instead. So with a lack of ‘holiness’ in the faith visible in the people in the church, undecided observers may conclude that people in the churches are not authentic but rather self-serving.  Hypocrisy never is a value considered to be worthy of anyone’s dedication yet shockingly enough many ‘religious’ people today are blind to it. And don’t even mention to me about any holiness in other major world religions which I have studied and experienced; their corruption, abuse, and hypocrisy is worse than what you can even imagine within your limited Western mind experience!  

So moving forward from John Westley’s time, there was a fire for a few decades, but after the initial Methodist fire died out, after the first generations about the mid 1800’s a comfortable staleness set. So when there was a ‘laziness’ in the institutionalized Christian church, the Lord raised up William Booth to form a Christian Army to evangelize the world by serving and saving the worst of the worst. God seems to always stoke the cooling coals when they are dim so that the flames of Christian passion reignite to burn again to win souls.

7. William Booth created a new religious movement in 1865 that, in my opinion, has been the most effective church ever in alleviating suffering by providing homeless shelters and rehab centers, and while helping the poor, preaching to them to save their souls in the process.  Our doctrine is not much different from the Methodists holiness, but what is different is the application of it; the main element required is a love in action! A liberating holy love and compassion from your heart and mine for the needy and lost souls of the whole world! This is theology in practice proving ones sanctification in word and in deed!

So, this modern holiness movement teaches that you go through a ‘second work of grace’? Do you know what that means? It is a regeneration process of your soul. I like how it is expressed in Titus 3:5 “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,” In other words, at the moment you receive Jesus or soon afterwards, the Holy Spirit starts cleaning your heart over and over to the point that you will lose your desire for the sinful damaging things that you use to enjoy while living for the sinful flesh.

The danger we face today is the resurgence of another unholy oppressive Christianity without a liberating Christ! The church goer often attends a church trying to believe that they will go to heaven just because they belong to that certain more righteous church, or because they give money to gain the acceptance of the leaders. But take into account this was the similar condition of the church throughout the dark ages as covered earlier, and how sad it is when people barely know their Bibles and theology in its current developed state.  Many ‘believers’ often do little to obey Jesus serving as He did to proclaim to everyone the good news of God’s purifying holy love and salvation that comes ‘only’ through Jesus.  

8. Also, notice that the holiness church went through a phase (some are still stuck there) of defining what is holy and acceptable and what is not in the way of behavior, and this led to an extremist application of ‘dos and don’ts’. Certain ‘more holier than thou’ churches even declared that music played by bands in the church must be of Satan as people in the world dance, drink, and get crazy while hearing music. Imagine, this led to certain denominations making a rule of ‘no musical instruments’ permitted in the church!? The less extreme at least did allow only a piano, ha! Today, sacred dance, women preachers, and many things are prohibited by certain major denominations. So why does this happen? Holiness can be liberating, or it can be oppressive depending on whether the leaders are led by the spirit or led by the letter of the law. This narrows down to what theology is practiced.

So the problem is some Christian leaders of certain theologies keep getting doctrinally confused as to how they should enforce Christians to be acceptable or ‘holy’.  A change of heart must come from the inside, not the outside. True ‘Holiness’ will be a love for God and others so strong that it will produce a clean heart that is liberated, joyful, and compassionate.

9. I am glad the Salvation Army from the beginning believed in music bands, dancing with tambourines (which in the 1800’s mostly shunned gypsies played?!), and converting bars into places of worship! It is known some Salvation Army tunes were even copied from pub drinking songs with Christian words added! I am glad there were no strict copywrite laws back then!

So church history reveals much about God’s people, how they can be oppressive and abusive, or liberating and compassionate depending on whose theology they follow. It is as it was in the early church. 1 Corinthians 3:3-4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? It is a shame so many denominations and theologies divide us as Christians, and it is all because some are not up to date in their practice of a more complete and developed theology. It is also because Christians, despite having a vast wealth of historical knowledge available, are unwilling to read about it to learn a higher theological comprehension. 

Holiness in the end, is the love of God manifested in tangible acts! So how are you and I going to transmit that love? By living in a manner that reflects this pure liberating holiness doctrine of love, serving in order to have opportunity to win others with salvation! Have you been guilty of being a self-righteous, condemning, law enforcing controlling hypocrite practicing ungodly antiquated oppressive church doctrines?  Repent, let the Holy Spirit clean your heart right now, and ask God to help you to radically change so you love others into God’s kingdom! The more holy you are, the more Jesus conduct will be seen in you!