Forget the Old and New, we need a Current Testament *

I think so many people fall into the trap of believing that Christianity ended in something like 132AD and that everything that has happened since has been man's inexhaustable attempts to screw it up. There have been no new additions to the Bible since about that time and therefore anything we add to Christian literature is bound to be considered human, not holy.

But, of course, we know that there have been some very profound things said about God and the nature of love and Christianity since then. You could have an entire section of a Current Testament devoted to the various sayings and prayers of St. Francis, and an entire gospel according to C.S. Lewis or Deitrich Bonhoffer. But even then, in writing, we might have a tendency to codify our religion (St. Francis said it, therefore it must be true) as opposed to living our religion.

If anything is true in our need for a Current Testament, its this - rather than writing it down, we perform it. The beginning may have been the Word, but currently its the Deed.

My thoughts have been traveling down these paths lately because I've been reading the Old Testament again and, at the same time, a current book of theology. Its put me into a kind of temporal flux where I'm seeing Christianity from its ancestry and its progeny at the same time - the ultimate before and after picture. As a result I've been struck by two competing, but harmonious thoughts.

My first thought came from the reading of Genesis about Abraham. In that story, Abraham has a son, Ishmael, that he basically discards into the wilderness. "Don't worry," God tells Abraham, "I will make him into a great nation as well." It struck me that the Islamic faith believe themselves descended from Ishmael and that the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac still don't get along after all these years. And yet, God promised each of them essentially the same thing. What if God had some intention for these two peoples that are much greater than anything we can possibly imagine? What if God sent us Jesus and them Mohammed? And what if there is some great reconciliation out there? This isn't to suggest that I am for the idea of a pluralistic view of God or that I accept a univeralistic view of God's grace. But I'm wondering, ultimately, if we don't all serve His view of the story and not our own - that there isn't some current chapter of the story that we're living and not reading.

My second thought follows the first, in some respect, in that it seems that there are a great many books out there right now that suggest that we've all got it wrong somehow - that there is a better way to worship God and we're not following it. Think about the plethora of "self-help" books out there for churches, congregations, or Christian individuals that each might as well be called, "Ten Ways To A More Religious You!" I'm currently reading one of them and I find the book compelling and interesting and, at times, convicting, but I was suddenly struck with the notion that this guy had no more of a clue about how religion should be done correctly than C.S. Lewis did. Ultimately, all of these "self-help" books are futile in that each of us will play our role in human history the way God intended (even if it means that we're going to read one of these books and be inspired by it to do... whatever.) God is writing the story and we are merely the characters involved.

I can't help but reading the old testament and new testament and think of the people in these books as characters, not living, breathing people. But then I have the same problem reading history books, or newspapers for that matter. Sometimes it's just hard to get out of one's own head. But the "characters" in the Bible and in history and in newspapers are real people, who breath, eat, drink, exist. And each of them has played some part in the world that was not of their choosing. Just like me. Their view of reality was/is the same as mine. They can only see what has happened behind them and can only predict what will come next and try to react to it. They will only know what is in their immediate presence as being fact. And even though most of them are long since dead, their lives form the soil that I walk upon, just as my life will one day form the soil of others yet to come.

And so we're left with an ongoing story of God - not a story of God in the past or a promise of God in the future, but a current story of God right now - an interactive story, a choose-your-own-adventure story, a living breathing testament to the one true God. And whether we are main characters or background characters or just window dressing to the main story, each of us is a part of this continuing story. Each of us is a part of the current testament to God.


* As testament is actually another word for covenant and therefore the designation actually means "Old Covenant with God, New Covenant with God" we don't really need a "Current Covenant with God". The Christ led one will suffice for us all. Therefore I use the term here more as a designation of time (as in Old Testament Times vs. New Testament Times).