Thursday, April 26, 2007
Christian Spirituality rather than Christianity
Last week a friend asked me why I always talk of Christian Spirituality rather than Christianity. I have been trying to work out how to articulate a response, and hit up a section of the Book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller that articulates it better than I could.
For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me. And I could not in good conscience tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me. I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing. And I wasn't experiencing Christianity. It didn't do anything for me at all. It felt like maths, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn't mysterious; it wasn't God reaching out to do wonderful things in my life. And if I would have shared Christianity with somebody, it would have felt mostly like I was trying to get somebody to agree with me rather than meet God. I could no longer share anything about Christianity, but I loved talking about Jesus and the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with Him.
Tony the Beat Poet says the church is like a wounded animal these days. He says we used to have power and influence, but now we don't, and so many of our leaders are upset about this and acting like spoilt children, mad because they can't have their way. They disguise their actions to look as though they are standing on principle, but it isn't that, Tony says, it's bitterness. They want to take their ball and go home because they have to sit it out on the bench off pitch. Tony and I agreed that what God wants us to do is to sit on the bench in humility and turn the other check like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power.
For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me. And I could not in good conscience tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me. I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing. And I wasn't experiencing Christianity. It didn't do anything for me at all. It felt like maths, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn't mysterious; it wasn't God reaching out to do wonderful things in my life. And if I would have shared Christianity with somebody, it would have felt mostly like I was trying to get somebody to agree with me rather than meet God. I could no longer share anything about Christianity, but I loved talking about Jesus and the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with Him.
Tony the Beat Poet says the church is like a wounded animal these days. He says we used to have power and influence, but now we don't, and so many of our leaders are upset about this and acting like spoilt children, mad because they can't have their way. They disguise their actions to look as though they are standing on principle, but it isn't that, Tony says, it's bitterness. They want to take their ball and go home because they have to sit it out on the bench off pitch. Tony and I agreed that what God wants us to do is to sit on the bench in humility and turn the other check like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power.
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