Saturday, September 28, 2019


Finding a church can be very difficult, the following parable is a good example why.

  "The idea of affirming a church as true includes the idea that you think that church is true for all, and to think that one church teaches the truth implies that you necessarily judge any church which contradicts its teaching as incorrect. Yet this need not be the case, as we can illustrate via the parable where two camels are being led to market. 
One camel is loaded down with salt while the other is weighed down with cotton. On the way to the market they encounter a river which has burst its banks from a rainstorm the night before and has flooded the road. At one particularly deep part the camels are almost completely submerged. When they finally get to the other side, the camel with the salt on its back has gained a renewed sense of strength, as the water has largely dissolved the salt. However, the camel with the cotton collapses in exhaustion, for the cotton has absorbed much of the water.
  In this parable we see how the same stream was experienced in two markedly different ways that depended upon the burdens that each camel brought to it. In the same way, one church may help one person to become more Christlike, while oppressing another; the idea of a single congregation being judged right or wrong in some universal way is naive." Peter Rollins 

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