Army of Priests

“We believe a person will gain access to heaven because he is knowledgeable about theology, because he can win at a game of religious trivia. And we may believe a person will find heaven because she is very spiritual and lights incense and candles and takes bubble baths and reads books that speak of centring her inner self; and some of us believe a person is a Christian because he believes five ideas that Jesus communicated here and there in Scripture, though never completely at one time and in one place; and some people believe they are Christians because they do good things and associate themselves with some kind of Christian morality; and some people believe they are Christians because they are Americans. If any of these models are true, people who read the bible before we systematically broke it down, and, for that matter, people who believed in Jesus before the printing press or before the birth of Western Civilization, are at an extreme disadvantage. It makes you wonder if we have fashioned a gospel around our culture and technology and social economy rather than around the person of Jesus Christ.” (Donald Murrow in Searching for God knows what)

I love that quote. It’s controversial and it is offensive and it forces you to think. A lot of people have a lot of weird ideas of what a “Christian” is. Several hundred “bible believing” organisations believe you aren’t even saved unless you are one of their members. Some people believe you have to do some sacraments or get baptised or pray a special prayer. That last one never sat well. One moment you’re heading to hell then you just say a little prayer and viola you’re going to heaven all expenses paid. I never prayed that prayer. I just kind of grew into Christianity.

We often say that “Christianity is a relationship not a religion” but our theologies and methodologies do not reflect that. For all intents and purposes Christianity, as practised today, is a religion – a set of spiritual things and ideas that a group of people does/believes.

Things that do not make you Christian

I am weary of using the word “Christian” because it describes a group of religions and as such is a corrupted label. But bear with me.

• Knowledge does not make you Christian. James 2:19 says it best: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” Let’s face it; there are quite a few atheists and quite a few demons who know the facts of the Christian faith much better than we do. The demons even know it is true and believe it better than we do. It is a real shame that most of evangelism these days is based around trying to convert someone to their way of thinking when Christianity involves so much more than thought. Knowledge is a starting point. The free grace/easy believism position taught by most evangelicals makes no sense to me.
• Works do not make you Christian. Going to church does not make you Christian any more than going to the zoo makes me a monkey. Atheists are very good at reading their bibles and Muslims can picket abortion clinics just as well as we can. Casting out demons won’t get you to heaven (Mathew 7:21-23).
• Saying some prayer does not make you a Christian.
• Getting baptised does not make you a Christian.
• Voting for some politician does not make you Christian.
• Belonging to some organisation does not make you Christian.
• Going to a Billy Graham crusade does not make you Christian.
• Calling yourself Christian does not make you Christian.

You might agree with me on all those points, but think for a second on how much of Christianity fits into them. I’ve almost covered the whole religion! Most of Christianity as practised is nice people surviving in the world as they rush from one program to the next which are in turn designed to ensure they do not waver from a set of special ideas. Sunday Morning: Church, Sunday Night: Church, Monday Night: Prayer Meeting, Tuesday Night: Worship Practise, Wednesday Night: Bible Study, Thursday Night: Leadership Meeting, Friday Night: Youth, Saturday: Men’s or Woman’s group.

It’s one giant exercise in missing the point.

The Point

Every now and then I hear a pastor giving a sermon designed to make the congregation perhaps think about having a “relationship with God”. It boggles the mind. But it is fully expected. Relationship with God is an idea that is tacked on to our religion rather than being the focus of it. Once you have accepted the correct doctrines, said the little prayer, joined a church, and developed habits of reading your bible and petitioning God for stuff you can begin to consider having this relationship thing.

There has been a growing move in recent years to reshape our theology and methodology around relationship. Most people who do understand it’s important don’t really have a systematic theology for understanding it. Derek Flood wrote an article that first got me thinking about what a relational theology might look like. A theology based not on legal ideas but a person and his emotional, ferocious story. It would take some time to outline my ideas but here are some thoughts to ponder:

• What if the entire point of your existence was a love relationship with Christ?
• What if sin is not so much disobedience as it is adultery?
• What if everything God has done has been designed to restore our relationship?
• What if a Christian is simply someone who has a love relationship with Jesus Christ?
• What does a “Love Relationship” mean? How does it change you? Can you truly love God without being transformed? What does it look like?
• What if Church was meant to be a big organism with a larger scale love relationship with God?
• What if faith is more about rebuilding trust with the God you abandoned than knowing stuff?
• What if the bible is meant to be more of a letter rather than just a field manual?
• What comes first: loving God or faith or works?

Wouldn’t a Christianity that took these questions seriously look different? You can’t love God without knowing him. You can’t love God without expressing that through works.

Evangelism

Once we start thinking in terms of relationship with God being the thing that makes you Christian our methodology has to change. Evangelism in particular will need to change. How do we evangelise so that we are introducing people to God rather than just convincing them of some ideas? Obviously they do need to know some stuff or they can’t have that relationship at all. They need to know what God was like but then that is just teaching them about God. What they really need is to experience God. That builds relationship. So how do we evangelise as to help people fall in love? A lot of people have, but only many years after they were first “converted”. The fact is most “converts” never build that relationship. That means that our methods are very inefficient.

What are your thoughts?