Beautiful, illogical, unstoppable Faith

"And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same" - "Little boxes" by Pete Seeger. 


The unstoppable faith
The fearful, reactionary “Christian” attitude has its source in doubt rather than love. It is relying on logic (which quickly disappoints because life and faith are not logical) and eventually self-righteous religious rhetoric which makes no sense to non-believers. We have to stand in the total and utter confidence that if our faith is indeed the only way to salvation, it will be proved to be so in the end, no matter what the world is saying about us, no matter how much we are being compared to and misrepresented by well-meaning but fearful (or sometimes downright evil) folk who claim to be Christian and try to keep their faith afloat with hot air. In Acts 5 when Peter and the apostles were brought before the Jewish council, they were in danger of being put to death, but a Pharisee named Gamaliel made a shrewd observation:  35 “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.” He then gave some examples of men of that time who had claimed to be “somebodies” leading revolts, but they all came to naught. He ends with: 38 “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Our faith can and will withstand everything that is hurled at it today, every act of ignorance and buffoonery practiced by non-Christians in the name of humanism and by errant, bigoted “Christians” in the name of Christ alike. We don’t have to rant and rave and get into quarrels about it, it just is. Christ’s authenticity has been acknowledged even by non-Christians who agree in principle with his teachings and spout patronising twaddle about concepts like forgiveness, turning the other cheek and other worthwhile principles, even though they try to skirt the issue of his divinity. Nominal Christianity, on the other hand, has used the divinity of Christ as a licence to ignore conveniently the true fundamentals of our faith.

Contemporary theologian and philosopher Richard Rohr puts this into perspective:

Christianity is a lifestyle — a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established “religion” (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s “personal Lord and Savior” or continue to receive Sacraments in good standing. The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.

The enemy of all life and growth is institutionalisation. Making our living faith a “religion,” contained in little boxes called “The Church” is stultifying and defeats the object of our commission to make disciples of the world. Such is the nature of a container in that it does not allow for anything that does not fit its particular shape. How can our diverse, organic faith reach a complex, diverse humanity outside of these prison boxes where people go each Sunday to sing, listen to an ear-tickling sermon  and pat each other on the back before returning home and putting their black Bibles away ‘til next Sunday? The lack of “lifestyle change” that Rohr mentions above is glaringly evident in this Sunday Christianity.