Christianity without 2000 years of history getting in the way

Sometimes I look at Jesus' life in the Bible and wonder how we ended up where we are. When you look at the life of Jesus there can seem to be a disconnect between what we see there and what we see all around us. As you see a big churches and church politics all around us. As you see Christianity which is built around structures and a few weekly meetings you can think how did we end up here. But I suppose the question is well where should we end up? What would Christians do if they didn't have 2000 years of history getting in the way?

Well I think perhaps the clearest answer to this question comes in Acts 2

'So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.'

So what do we have here? Well we have the first Christians. People have just heard the gospel. They've just come to believe that  Jesus died for their sins and accept the forgiveness he gives but now what? They have no church they can join, no tradition to fall into. Just the gospel and the Holy Spirit so what do they do? well they do the things the gospel naturally drives them to do so.

1 - They devote themselves to understanding the gospel more - When you first taste the gospel and experience it's power and release it is only natural that you want to know more of it, understand it better and so you devote yourself to learning more.
2 - They eat together - eating together is not only a natural way to spend time with people but also a sign of acceptance. As those who have all received the gospel into their lives it is natural they would long to spend time together and accept all people as those who have been rescued by a work of God not human achievement.
3 - They pray - As they understand and experience more of the gospel in their lives then of course they want to talk to the God who they can now approach in absolute confidence that he loves them and accepts them
4 - They saw and were in awe of God's incredible work - As you see the gospel work itself out in a myriad of ways it is only natural that you respond to God in awe as a God who works in incredible ways.
5 - They saw each others needs and cared for them - As those who recognise that when they could do nothing about their need of forgiveness and a new heart God stepped in and met that need it is only natural that they would then be driven out to do this for each other.
6 - They met formally (in the temple) and informally (in their homes) - Meeting formally was a natural way to all grow and learn together but the gospel naturally impacts all of life and therefore it can never be constricted simply to occasional meetings but must be a part of day by day life. Meeting with each other regularly in their homes was the norm as the gospel impacts this.

You see these early Christians didn't need 2000 years of Church history to do this stuff the gospel naturally drove them to it. Therefore what will create this kind of Christian community? Well the gospel. I don't need to tell people they need to learn more about the gospel but rather as they experience it of course they will want to learn more. It is the pearl of immense value which you seel everything to get. Of course you want more of it. I don't need to tell people to meet each others needs, or to attend church meetings, or to meet together - As the gospel goes deep into our hearts then this is what we will do. It wasn't the church or tradition which made these early Christians do this - they didn't exist. They simply heard the gospel and responded the only rational way anyone would.

The thin line between everything and nothing

So this month I read North and South again. It is a good read although I need to be careful how gushing I am as it is in essence a period romance story. One of the characters in it is a miner who doesn't seem to believe in heaven or God or any of that. He says his concern is this world not anything else. At one point when questioned on this he says that no-one really believes it. People may say they do, people may even convince themselves that they do but throughout a week they don't seem any different. They don't really believe it any more than him. He articulates what I've heard so many people say before. If Christianity is true how coming it seems to make no difference (or very little difference) in people's lives? It's a good question and one of the answers is that churches are full of hypocrites who say one thing but don't live it. Another is that all Christians fail to live consistently with what they believe the same as everyone else in the planet. However, I think the chief reason is something different. I think the reason people think this is because there is a very thin line between everything and nothing. Let me explain.

People want to see life changing but what they imagine is that a life changed would involve obvious things. So if every Christian gave up work and instead just volunteered for a charity that would then look obviously different. But of course the danger is that life outside of this still looks the same. You see Christianity doesn't call for Christians to adopt obvious isolated changes. Christianity doesn't call on you to stop eating meat, or only wear brown or give all your money away or anything that small. Christianity asks you to live for a different purpose. Christianity asks you to worship something different. Now these changes are more fundamental but less obvious.

Christianity doesn't ask you to stop working but it does require you to approach work in a dramatically different way. Work is no longer about simply earning money, status and respect but is instead to be about loving people wall, loving creation well, working hard with the gifts God's given you. I still go to the same job as before but my entire outlook is different. This might look like nothing but it should be everything.

Christianity doesn't require you to get married but it requires you to view the whole situation in a different way. If single I view this not as an excuse for selfishness but as a gift from God freeing me up to love and serve him and other people in unique ways. If married I view it as a chance to reflect something of God's love in the way that I love and sacrificially give myself for my spouse. When married I am able to love and serve God and others in a different way. This might look like nothing but it is in fact everything.

Now Christians sometimes use the lack of laws as an excuse to do nothing but in reality when the Spirit lives inside of you everything may look the same on first glance but actually on closer inspection of motives and passions you will see that nothing is actually the same as it was. Maybe before you say why doesn';t more change you should just take the time and look a little closer and see if actually although they do the same stuff their outlook, passions and therefore fruits are changed dramatically.

Always with the drama

"An idea for a short story about um people in Manhattan who uh are constantly creating these real, uh, unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves 'cause it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about, uh, the universe."

This is a quote by Woody Allen from the film Manhattan which I watched again last night. In typical Woody Allen manner he manages to not only be consistently funny but also to cut through so much of the society he lives in. This quote which appears at the end of the film basically sums up so much of my life and so much of the life I see around me. I fill my life with little things to worry about - promotions at work, financial management, holiday planning, football manager etc etc etc and I just move from one of these to the other. I'm fairly sure I'm not alone. I see enough people around me who always seem to be able to find something to worry about, something to complain about.

Maybe Woody Allen is right maybe we fill our lives with these things as it gives us something smaller and a bit more manageable to deal with instead of actually being forced to face up to the really big questions which are necessary for any of the little questions to be approached.

The question we need to answer before we answer 'How hard should I push for promotion' is what is the purpose of life. Until we've got an answer to this we lack the framework needed to decide how important a promotion is. The question we need to answer before we decide how we interact with other people is what does positive interaction with other people look like. The question we need to answer before we decide how to spend the time from now until we die is whether death is the end and whether what we do with our life has any impact on this.

So we take the small issues, make them big and attempt to deal with these all the time using these as a means of never facing up to the really big questions. We create life dramas to help us avoid facing up to the big questions but without facing up to the big questions maybe we're doomed to keep creating these real unnecessary, neurotic problems for ourselves.

The call of the wild

So for book club this month we read 'The call of the wild' which was a hit mainly because it was short and therefore for the first time in the history of my time at the group everyone present had actually read the book (a pre-requisite you would have thought for most book clubs).

The call of the wild follows the story of a dog (Buck) from civilised domesticated pet to wild wolf through a journey of savagery, abuse and pretty extreme difficulty. You might be tempted to think of the incredible journey (remade into the greatly inferior Homeward Bound) but don't. This book is a story of the nature of things. It asks the question what are we at our most base level? What are we when you strip away social conditioning and controlling influences? It is a story of what it would look like to follow our hearts.

This study of nature highlights the following things
1 - Pride is a powerful driving force which lies at the heart of all things. Pride drives is Buck's greatest driver it is the thing which drives him to great acts.
2 - The great acts caused by pride are not always good. Pride creates a desire for mastery and control. An abusive and bullying side to his personality.
3 - There is an irrational destructiveness in all being human and animal. Both kill, hurt and abuse at times merely because they can rather than because they have to.
4 - Behaviour can be controlled. Buck can control the behaviour of those around him through force and manipulation and the humans can control his behaviour through the same.
5 - But only the power which comes through really loving something can transform the heart. Only that can change the attitudes, the outlook and make you want to act a different way.

There is a lot more to be said about this book. But whenever I come back to any study of nature I see the gospel story told again and again. A story of a deep routed destructiveness which we can try to fight against but never quite win. The story of how only an equally deep routed love can actually transform the way we view the world.

The gospel is not a story which says you're bad so be better.
It's a story which says you are both truly wonderful (made in God's image) but broken (prideful and destructive). It's a story which says behaviour modification (being better) can't solve the problem and so instead presents you with a God who loves you. A God who loves you enough to die for you and it as you respond to this love with love of your own you find your heart won and a new and stronger passion, even than the call of your nature, starts to drive not just your behaviour but your entire attitude.

No matter where you look God's creation can't help but tell his story.

Negative holiness

So recently I've been spending a bit of time trying to identify what Christian growth looks like and it has led me to re-engage with an old problem with the way it is too often viewed.

What does a good day as a Christian look like? What does a day which I'm happy with look like. Well generally a good day is one which I don't look back on and identify loads and loads of things which I shouldn't have done. It's a day when I look back and don't cringe at the unkind word I said, don't wonder how much damage my selfish actions have caused, don't despair at my impatience, irrationality and anger. A good day is one where I haven't been unkind, impatient, harsh, unloving or cross.

Sounds ok doesn't it? Well the problem is that we are not simply called to not be unkind but to be kind. We are not simply called not to be impatient but to be patient. We are not simply called not to be cross but to be self controlled. You get the idea - we are called to be gentle and loving rather than just manage not to be harsh and unloving.

How you measure your holiness or growth really matters. If we measure on the basis of us managing to not do the stuff we're not meant to do then we will pull away from people. The best way to limit our unkindness, impatience etc is to limit our exposure to other people. After all it's easy to not be unkind if we don't see anyone all day.

On the the other hand if we measure on the basis of us doing what we're called to do then we will work hard to connect with people and really share lives with them knowing that it is only possible to show kindness, gentleness, self control, love etc in this setting. The best way to show kindness, patience etc is to increase our exposure to people.

It is therefore possible that growth could involve an increase in unkindness, harshness, impatience etc as we connect with people and find that as we try to show kindness, gentleness and impatience we also increase the chances of us failing.

Until we redress this view of growth people will continue to detach and the church will not grow more like Jesus but simply maintain its respectable front whilst it happily stagnates. Negative holiness is not what we're called to.

Does Doctrine Matter

So the planets have aligned in a bizarre way and resulted in two freak activities beginning at the same point.
1. We've just started a series on Galatians at church
2. My wife and I (ten years behind the rest of the world) have started watching spooks

These two things beginning at the same point have forced me to again consider the question does doctrine matter? Let me explain.

In Spooks there is a particularly good episode where they are infiltrating an extremist Islamic group who are attempting to train young (15 year old) men to be suicide bombers. Few things have made me more angry than seeing lies being taught, lies being hammered home and resulting in a 15 year old boy throwing his life away in an act of meaningless violence. As you're watching this it's hard to argue that doctrine doesn't matter.

You see the truth you believe matters. If you believe the West is evil and that true spirituality comes through blowing yourself up then you tragically waste your life. This of course is all that doctrine is. Doctrine is simply the truth you believe and the truth you believe definitely matters.

It's easy to think that doctrine doesn't matter. That doctrine is just the dry theory used to divide but actually the truth you live for is hugely important. As you watch the extremists in spooks it would be hard to argue otherwise but perhaps in more normal life it looks a bit harder.

But you see if the truth that you believe is that life is about happiness and that happiness comes from the acquisition of money/stuff then you will live your life according to that code. Now that matters because if that's true then a life lived with that goal is the best chance you've got but if it's not true then a life lived with that goal will ultimately lead to a wasted life.

Whatever you live for whether it's true or not really matters because that ultimately will make the difference between a wasted life and a life lived to the max. This is something Christianity doesn't duck.
So in the Bible we read the statement that if Jesus' life, death and resurrection are not true then we are to be pitied because we are living our life on the basis of a lie.

So we come to Galatians and we see Paul passionate about confronting false teaching. Confronting lies which are being propagated. This can feel dry and aggressive but actually it is just a recognition that what you believe matters. Doctrine matters not because then you can win an argument, not because then you can be sound but because the truth we believe determines the things we pursue.

So the question we're all left with is what is the truth we can build our lives upon?

Do it anyway

Tell me what I said I'd never do

Tell me what I said I'd never say

Read me off a list of the things I used to not like but now I think are ok
Sometimes it's not subjective: wrong and right
Deep down you know it's downright wrong but you're invincible tonight
So you
Do it anyway
It's done
You did it

Ben Folds has a knack of stating quite perceptive truths in songs where you're not really looking for them and can easily miss them. This is a prime example of this.  

I've spent a bit of time over Christmas thinking about this issue of our inability to live up to our own standards and I guess this song is all about that experience we have. We make our internal rules in our heads - I will do X, I will do W but I will never do Y or Z
- X is o.k. but Y is definitely not
but then all of a sudden we find that we have done Y. It's the truth of life. Sometimes it's not subjective wrong or right. It's not something which other people think is wrong but we think is ok it's something which we think is wrong but which we do anyway. The big question is why is this? Why do we not even live up to the standards which we have decided? After all if we've decided them then surely it should only be natural for us to keep them.

I guess there are a number of reasons for this. Sometimes we just don't care, sometimes we want to feel bad, sometimes we simple capitulate to external pressures. However, I wonder if one of the key reasons is our desire to maintain control over our lives. As we desperately try to stay in control of our ever more chaotic lives all of a sudden someone at work says 'did you do that thing which I asked you to' you can feel control slipping out of your fingers so you say 'yes' and move on. Then on the way home you clip a car and you know you should stop but it didn't look like anything serious and you know it'll cost you a fortune and so you just keep driving. We may have decided that lying is wrong and that clipping a car and not stopping is wrong but when faced with the reality that this will threaten both my degree of control and appearance of control we just do it anyway.  

The truth is that if you make yourself the ruler of your own life you will surprise yourself with the things you are willing to do in order to desparately try to maintain that position. The Bible suggests that our desire to rule our own lives will always lead to these conflicts between the things we say we'd never do and the things we need to do to try to keep control. The Bible asserts that actually when we finally abandon that need for control and allow Jesus to rule our lives we ironically find freedom from the tyranny caused by trying to attain a control which is never more than an illusion.