When you’re a newcomer to a group or a hobby, perhaps one of the first things you start to think of is, “What are the rules? What’s the stuff that I need to avoid saying or doing?” These aren’t bad questions in themeselves as it shows a sense of wanting to be part of the in-group and conforming to the rules and standards set by the group; you want to be an asset to the team, not a liability.

Asking what the rules are also makes sense when you’re new because you don’t have a lot of nuance or discernment when it comes to the overall goal you’re trying to achieve. At least at first.

Think about any tutorial or class you’ve enrolled in and followed the instructor to the letter. He may give you these rules, principles, and maybe even a mnemonic or an acronym to help reinforce something.

The Problem

The problem, however, is when you are expected to go beyond that stage as you grow, but for one reason or another, you stay bound to the rules and mnemonics and make those the goal, or at least believe that the only means by which you could ever achieve that goal.

In programming, things like TDD, “Clean Code”, and SOLID are those of the sort that some developers ideologically adhere to. If you don’t do one or more of the aforementioned, they think, your project is guaranteed to be doomed, regardless of other factors like team size, project type, open-or-closed source, etc.

What was at one time something that legitimately helped them now hinders them. If you go against “best practices” or “common industry patterns/techniques”, a line has been crossed. You’re “doing it wrong”.

The guardians in their youth have now become their gatekeepers in their latter days.

It is the same with modern Christianity.

The Opposite of Living

…Is stagnant. Let me explain.

Throughout the Bible, God is depicted as being and providing living water:

For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water. - Jer 2

“Those who depart from Me Shall be written in the earth, Because they have forsaken the Lord, The fountain of living waters.” - Jer 17

And in that day it shall be That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. - Zech 14

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” - John 4

We also have people being described in terms of living water:

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed…A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. - Song 4

…but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." - John 4

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water - John 7

But here’s an anti-example, the Laodicean church in Rev 3:

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

It is (I think?) a common understanding that Christ’s message to that church has a reference to the cold and hot waters that flowed from Colossae and Hierapolis, waters that would be refreshing, comforting, or curative. And yet, the church isn’t any of those things, but rather lukewarm, or to put it another way, stagnant.

They were not founts of living, roaring, vivacious waters that ought to be characteristic of any Christian, but rather they were like standing water, lukewarm, nasty, vomit-inducing, and no doubt breeds those mini-vampires known as mosquitoes.

This imagery compounds when we consider the description of Eden, the place where God and man commune together, and the rivers that flow out of it which water the nations.

When we are stagnant about anything, whether it be programming or more importantly the Christian Way of life, we sometimes don’t realize it. The Laodiceans thought they were rich and needed nothing–they were not oriented toward The Way, The Truth, and the Life and were called out by our Lord to repent.

Without a powerful experience or an intentional process of self-reflection to rouse him out of his slumber, The Stagnant Ones will not only remain in their paradigm, but will attempt to preserve and defend it at all cost.

Ideological Possession

These paradigms, all these -isms and -ists that have multiplied over the course of history, are mind viruses. “Are you Calvinist or Arminian?” “Are you infralapsarian or supralapsarian?” “Are you a monergist or a synergist?” “Do you hold to this creed from this people group from this epoch or this other one from another group and epoch?”

(Side-note: Of all the theological terms out there, “monergism” may be the most tiring, self-serving one, especially when paired with the attitude of, “If you’re not this word we made up, you have man-exalting theology, not God-exalting theology like ours!”)

All these are false binaries and are made to keep people in an arena of artificial thinking. The Bible then is reduced down to a list of prooftexts to satiate one’s a priori paradigm rather than allowing the Scriptures to modify and change it.

Talking to the ideologically-possessed is merely talking to an avatar of the ideology, not an actual person with actual thoughts. There really is no need to talk to such people, at least on those topics they’re sadly beholden to, as you can just read whatever book or preacher that’s the originator of the system and be done with it.

(And it just dawned on me as I’m writing this that perhaps this is why so many will simply post a link to a book or a 5 hour lecture online when asked to defend their viewpoint. They can’t/won’t defend their points, and rather than linking material for the sake of providing resoruces, they do it as if to say, “Well, debunk this guy and then I’ll listen. Maybe. Probably not, but it’s a nice liability shield and hopefully it’ll distract you so I can stay in my bubble!” I’ve seen this with both Christian and non-Christian alike, primarily on social media.)

It is this sort of so-called “knowledge” that Paul says in 1 Cor 8:

We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.

The Way of Water

Be like water…not the stagnant kind of course! But rather abide in Christ as Christ abides in you, not merely having beliefs, but being and becoming more and more conformed to the image of the Son of God who is blessed forever.

And do not “kick against the goads” but like a kingly heart, when the holy river that is the Lord’s hand that you’re in turns, train such that you may be adept in being in tune with it with all joy, grace, and patience endurance.

And if that whole bit sounds a little too Eastern/mystical for your taste, it is worth noting that Christianity was born out of a Mediterranean/Ancient Near East culture, not a Western rationalistic, post-Enlightenment one.