Hillsong, Doctrine and the rest of it

I know some people who get their knickers in a right old knot over somethings they reckon are "unacceptable!!" within the church. There's a lot of muttering and many soap-box proclamations on why X is wrong when they do this, or why Y was wrong when they did that. The church seems so divided on itself, both in micro and macro levels...it's sad really.

I have what I call a "flexi" attitude towards such conflicts...live and let live, if you will. So not all churches agree with the way Hillsong goes about with its emotion-engaging, motivational-style way of running church. The slaggers seem unable (well those I've encountered anyway) to take the good with the bad. Maybe that style of church isn't your cup of tea. Fine. It works for some (believe it or not!!), maybe not you. But slaggers seem INTENT on exposing eeeeevery liiiiiiitle tiiiiiny flaw and making a song and dance about it.

I'm using Hillsong as an example, because eeeeeveryone (Christian or not) seems to have heard of them. But even in my own home church...I'm related to some of THE biggest slaggers our church has ever seen. Ok, so I can't prove the veracity of that statement...but they're always unhappy with SOMETHING!! "Oh, Pastor X said this, can you believe it!!" or, "Oh, we already told Pastor X that he shouldn't say that, and he said it again!!" And not content with just picking up every little snippet of doctrine they see as inconsistent with their own, they have to blah on about it to other members of the church. It really pisses me off...I mean, they may have the best of intentions (I'm sure they do), but especially for younger Christians...it's just not helpful.

First of all, the finer points of Christian doctrine are open to interpretation, depending on your background. Who the HECK appointed them the official bad doctrine police?? Especially when things are grey...people are entitled to their own opinions. And second of all, do the finer points really matter!? I suppose I'm parting ways with a few people here, but I think that to walk closely with God and to have a genuine relationship with Him...nitty gritty bits of doctrine are more the icing on the cake, rather than the whole substance. I mean, if you contrast, say Peter and Paul. Peter was a fisherman with nil education. Paul was a pharisee with the whole gamete of Jewish legal education behind him. They both went on to make huge impacts in the world for God. Even today...God is moving in far flung places of the world where they have maybe one bible between a whole bunch of people, who don't pray complicated prayers but who are simply hungry for Him. Heck, if the presence of God was dependent on your doctrinal understanding then there's no way we'd hear of such awesome encounters in China, or Africa.

I think all this goes to show that, yeah, a theological education can give you a good academic grounding in your faith, but at the end of the day, it's your attitude and your heart that matters most to God. Do you really want to know Him? Do you really want to see Him move in your church? Is He the sole focus of your worship? How true it is that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.