Being the science-type myself, i have constructed a much smaller theory that (for now) i will call black box theory. It doesn't explain everything, but is useful for illustrating a lot of my thoughts. Best of all it has a really simple diagram.
It's a basic Venn diagram representing society. The green oval shape represents the people who believe in God, and who earnestly attempt to follow the principles of Jesus. The black box represents, well .. let's say 'churchgoers'. So what do we notice about the diagram:
1. The Black Box is far smaller the Green Area
Religion is a question in the census. In my area, there are over 8000 Christians, but only 7 churches of 100 or less. The national stats are Christians 72% Churchgoers 9%.
2. People can be in the Green without being in the Black Box
Despite the tendency of some churches to draw a straight line between pew-sitting and holiness, Jesus never called anyone to weekly attendance in a pointy-roofed building. In fact some of the people he criticised the most were the most 'religious' - and some of the people he had the most respect for were the people who were turned away by the religious folk.
How does this hurt? Quite often, people (or churches) in the black box act as if there was no green area - it's either the black box or the abyss. For a person in the green area, there's the hurt of the negative judgement (which, coming from so-called christians, hardly endears the person to the idea of Christian community). Also, people in this area are left with no assistance in their endeavour to follow Jesus better - because everything is geared for the black box people. None of this does any good for the kingdom of God.
I'll talk more about Black Box theory in future entries (see the black box topic) because it does help explain a great deal of stuff. But for now i just wanted to introduce the concept.
