“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
We fail at Christianity when we think it covers only attending group meetings to listen to speeches, memorization of information about the speeches, and obedience to rules that keeps us only going to group meetings and listening to speeches. If that is what Christianity is, then it is not difficult at all, for it requires nothing of you but your body sitting passively.
Christianity is about what you do with your life, and how you affect others with the love you display and the acts of mercy you do.
If your Christianity is not affecting those around you, and is not satisfying to you, perhaps the issue is not with Christianity but with your weak grasp of what it is all about. It is far more difficult to be a Christian, because it is more than just saying. It is doing.
It is the Kingdom of God among us. Not just talking about it.
Hey! You really do have a blog! Why did I not know this? Or did I know it and then I forgot??? WHERE ARE MY TEETH!!!??
Heh. Good to see you again.
Note that you have no power here… 😉
To me, being a Christian is living your life in a way that is consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus. When you strip away all the trappings of “Christianity” and “the church,” and focus on the sayings and acts of Jesus, one comes to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus was, in the modern vernacular, a liberal. The best proof of this is the Sermon on the Mount, though there are many other place in the Bible where this comes out. He stresses in the Sermon we have a moral obligation to care for the sick, the hungry, and the less fortunate. It is a moral imperative to help those who need help.
Jesus was not into institutions. He had no concern for setting up a church; his followers did that later.
Jesus discouraged public displays of faith. In fact, he was harsh on those who made a big show of praying in public. He said to go to a private place to pray.
Jesus was hard on the wealthy of his time. In the Gospel of Mark, he tells an inquisitive young man (thought by some scholars to be Mark himself) to give up all his worldly possessions. Tough words.
So, what does all this mean? It means keeping the life and words of Jesus always front and center. It means living a life in accordance with the Sermon on Mount and the many other Bible passages in which the message is absolutely straightforward–help others who are less fortunate, any way you can.
Finally, it means keeping the role of the church in perspective. In fact, the church is wherever two or three gather in the name of the Lord. Hardly an august institution!
This is not an easy message. It is not an easy life. But, to me, this is what it means to be a Christian.