I’ve actually found a struggle in writing these posts: What
do I call my faith? It is
Christianity? The Christian
religion? My faith? My relationship with Jesus? My spirituality?
“Christianity” connects me to the entire history of
professed Christ-followers, both the good and the bad, the right and the
wrong. Oh, and it connects me to Christ,
but I feel the linguistic link between “Christianity” and “Christ” has been
strained through the misuse and abuse of the Christian banner.
“Religion” connects me to all who follow a faith tradition,
no matter what that faith tradition is.
But, a religion can be a system of beliefs, symbols, and rituals. Those are important to my “faith” but is that
a box too small?
“My faith” is personal, it is mine. But, does that disconnect me from the rest of
the church/Body of Christ (another complicated naming). And, is that trust (faith) connected to the church,
the history, the beliefs, to Jesus?
“My spirituality” is also personal, disconnected. It correctly connects my life to the
spiritual, but what does that even mean?
Spirituality is an amorphous term, and not really native to my tongue.
“My relationship with Jesus” is also personal, connected to
Jesus (or at least the Jesus I have a relationship with, even if that is not
the true Jesus). But, it is disconnected
to history, theology, and the community.
In the end, I will probably use a combination of terms to
refer to my life as I connect myself in beliefs, practice, and community to the
people seeking to follow the Jesus proclaimed in Scripture (Old and New
Testaments) and in the historical Body of Christ struggling with sin throughout
our human lives. This is Christianity,
my faith, my relationship with the One who died and rose again for my sake.
God help me!
Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.
ReplyDelete-Oswald Chambers.
I do not know who Oswald is, but this quote is something my brain can hold. As your questions are rattling around in my head lately, I may notice more things that make me say, "Ahhhh, yes!" when finally something clicks. But also, I feel looking faith so closely in the eyes makes me lose focus and it starts to seem like jibberish, like when you say a word too many times. Not that we shouldn't examine it close up. But we should step back once in a while and kind of look at it simply.
For me, I like to use the word Christian only in that I am a follower or Christ. I guess most of what the church has done with that word is their deal, not mine. But I am connected to the Lutheran Church now, and was raised Catholic (but was always Catholic Lite in my head). If the Lutheran Church were doing something I knew about and disagreed with, I would have a problem with this, because it would reflect on me and influence what my kids were growing in their hearts about religion, and therefore, Jesus, probably. They would connect the two. But we have disconnected the Catholic Church from Jesus in our home because of all the bad things that we perceive that Church as doing or has done. This is not really a good thing, I suppose, but it is teaching my kids to not equate the church and its failings with Jesus. I think I have to read your words again sometime and try to make some things click in my head, because, yes, the connections between faith and Jesus and church and history and words are so complicated. Seek and we'll find: He promises this!