Francis Berger
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More Thoughts About Mature and Immature Christians

9/21/2022

3 Comments

 
The following is from a comment I left in response to yesterday's post on mature and immature Christians (some editing added): 

The irony of the mature-immature attitude framework is that Christians who believe in and emphasize the simplicity and clarity of Jesus's gift, the creative reality of God's divine purposes, and the personal "friendship" nature of the divine-human relationship appear to be the "immature"ones, while Christians who bury all of this beneath heaps of rational abstraction appear to be the "mature" ones.

Yet on closer inspection, the clarity of Jesus's gift, the creative reality of God's divine purposes, and the personal "friendship" nature of the divine-human relationship all entail a great deal of hard work, dedication, discipline, and tough choices, all of which stem from love.

In a nutshell, the friendship attitude toward God demands an ultra-high degree of commitment, discernment, and personal responsibility. For example, the need for repentance becomes infinitely more pressing and meaningful if one knows he has betrayed or disappointed a loving friend.

On the flip side, the abstract, rational philo-theological attitude toward God takes a great deal of discipline and hard work to study, learn, and internalize, but once it has been internalized, the real hard work, discipline, and tough choices inherent in being a Christian can be largely avoided and eschewed.

Moreover, this lack of commitment to personal responsibility makes rationalization much more accessible.

After all, it is much easier to withhold repentance from an abstraction than it is from a friend who loves you and whom you claim to love.
3 Comments
bruce charlton
9/22/2022 12:58:21

@Frank - I suppose I should point-out that the mature-immature Christian distinction is a rhetorical device; and has no real possibility of being adopted!

Nobody who isn't 'us' is ever going to call us 'mature', or themselves self-identify as 'immature'!

I guess this is a provocative, gadfly, tease, rather like Richard Dawkins calling atheists such as himself "Brights" (although, apparently, he did not invent the term - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement ). This caused some stir and controversy, but never caught-on except as a form of self-labelling.

In the meantime; I will stick with the division into Traditional (explicitly church-authority-led) and Romantic (explicitly personal-discernment-led) Christians - although I certainly agree that the real difference is nearly-always simply whether somebody publicly acknowledges that their *primary* Christian discernment is *always* a personal one; and that to make such an acknowledgment does seem to require some degree of spiritual 'maturity'...

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Francis Berger
9/22/2022 13:20:10

@ Bruce - You are right, of course. It is definitely a rhetorical device.

I am attempting to persuade readers to examine the topic from a certain perspective.

I am unlikely to stick to the terms I have used to describe the division. I just wanted to make a point from a different angle because I am under the impression that explicitly church-authority led Christians regard primary Christian discernment as a sign of immaturity (or egoism or rebelliousness or irresponsibility or "starting your own religion" or whatever).

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lea
9/23/2022 08:29:12

What does maturity even mean in the grand scheme of things. It is often a veiled reference to 'being more realistic' which is in turn a reference to being more in tune with the materialist reductionist worldview. What people reference to as love in that particular framework ironically gets stuck in notions of 'pleasing qualities' rather often, then moves on to try and provide grander meaning to those. 'Her smile' - insert poem. Every notion and quirk and particularity becomes part of this 'holy image'. At the same time the qualities of the rest of the world get reduced to background noise.

There used to be times when we could have relationships and a family without rendering everything else strictly secondary.

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