In our book Christianity 2.0, the case is made that Christianity needs to stop being a movement of dogma and instead become a movement of faith. The amount of church dogma (things that Christians are required to believe) is simply too much, and it turns off people who would otherwise be interested in joining the religion.
Christians should be required to believe in the divinity of Christ and in the Resurrection (for if these two things are not true, then Christianity would be a fraud). But these should be the only absolute musts. For everything else, we should simply agree to disagree.
There are an estimated 2.4 billion Christians in the world. They all believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. This is simply amazing when you consider that Jesus lived over two thousand years ago, and we have no photographs or video of him or his Resurrection. All we have are the scriptures of the New Testament which were written decades after his lifetime. And despite such “thin” evidence, Christians still believe. This really is a miracle. But we push people away when we start piling on more and more required beliefs.
Of course, there are many Christians who take the wrong path. They adopt heretical ideas and engage in false practices. But trying to impose dogma on people hasn’t been successful in stopping these things from happening. While we can certainly have debates about what is right and wrong, we ultimately need to stop trying to control what happens and surrender this problem to God.
Christians should be required to believe in the divinity of Christ and in the Resurrection (for if these two things are not true, then Christianity would be a fraud). But these should be the only absolute musts. For everything else, we should simply agree to disagree.
There are an estimated 2.4 billion Christians in the world. They all believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. This is simply amazing when you consider that Jesus lived over two thousand years ago, and we have no photographs or video of him or his Resurrection. All we have are the scriptures of the New Testament which were written decades after his lifetime. And despite such “thin” evidence, Christians still believe. This really is a miracle. But we push people away when we start piling on more and more required beliefs.
Of course, there are many Christians who take the wrong path. They adopt heretical ideas and engage in false practices. But trying to impose dogma on people hasn’t been successful in stopping these things from happening. While we can certainly have debates about what is right and wrong, we ultimately need to stop trying to control what happens and surrender this problem to God.