"But what would I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I became a Christian, what would that look like for me at 9am on Monday morning, or when I wake up tomorrow, what practical difference would it make? You say 'trust in Jesus', or 'believe' like it's something I can just do, but what does the doing of it look like? Pray? I can pray, I can say the words, I've spoken them out before addressed to a so called God but what difference did it make? I'm not trying to sound facetious, I'm trying to understand. Tell me what to DO."
This statement and these questions made by a materialist friend of mine has stayed with me. It's an honest question. In a world of techniques and discipline, with the Whim Hoff Method and the Seven Pillars, and the Eightfold Path and Mindfulness, what is the Christian way?
Moral reform often seems to be the answer people expect to hear. Evidence that a person has embarked on the Christian way is, that they clean up their act. If that's the case, on day one of becoming a Christian is it just the case that a person must simply try to live better? Is that what the Christian Way is?
What about when a person isn't particularly immoral in the first place? How much better do they need to be the day after the decision? Or, the opposite, what if their immorality is all they've known; what if they've never even heard about God's standard of morality?
Another answer to the question 'what is the Christian way?' is the issuing of the command: 'believe in Jesus'.
'Wake up each day and believe in Jesus.'
'Put your faith in Jesus.'
'Trust Jesus.'
What lifestyle follows those practises and what am I meant to believe in him for?
Also,
has it ever occurred to you how truly strange a command that is? I cannot will belief through force of effort, instead belief seems to arise out of conviction and conviction seems derived through reason and experience. To a strict materialist even the very idea of belief sounds too sentimental, besides I seem to breathe in and out regardless of whether I trust in Jesus or not and my day unfolds before me in much the same way no matter if I begin it by saying a pray or not.
Often: belief, faith and trust, are presented as entry requirements that establish a person upon the Christian Way, the entry point, and then moral reform the bread and butter of that way.
For one seeking and trying to grasp what it would require of them to become a follower of Christ it can still seem hard to get a handle on.
How does one believe in or come to trust in Jesus and what are the evidences of that belief? How would I know if I've done it or not? We often present the Christian message in terms of either forgiveness of sin or admission into heaven, but that makes it seem less like a 'way' and more like a 'moment'. Is the Christian way a daily decision or a once off decision?
Even so, how does a person know if they've put their faith in Jesus? What does it mean to take ones faith and put it in Jesus? This is a strange image since it pictures us all walking around daily with tokens called 'faith' making decisions about where to place them. That doesn't seem to accord with reality where belief seems more reflexive and instinctual than premeditated.
There are some beliefs that we seem to take time to consider, like when we purchase a new car or decide to step inside an aeroplane. Those decisions, we tell ourselves, are based on research and rationality. Faith in Jesus can be like buying a car, a matter of investigating the perks and benefits of one guru over another and making your choice. But even those decisions, decisions we tell ourselves have been thought through and arrived at in good conscience, are more based on social plausibility than we'd like to admit. It isn't my personal genius but my social status, lifestyle and disposable wealth that makes me choose which car to buy.
Getting on a plane is about one of the most dangerous things a person can do and yet I must be honest and confess that I've never done the maths myself. I haven't studied aeronautical engineering, and I have no idea how or why the tube of metal stays in the sky. I could quote some terms like 'drag' and 'lift' and I could work to convince myself I know how flight works, but that still doesn't explain the basis for my confidence. I got on a plane because well, others do it; so it must be ok.
The question is, what happens before belief?
In trying to question the faith behind my decision to get on the aeroplane I'm better off asking not 'how did you come to trust the plane?' but rather 'why did you want or need to travel at all?' It's in answering this question that I begin to unearth my actual beliefs, my motivating impulses. Answering this question would lead me to say something like: 'I believed a week of sunbathing on a beach in Altinkum would bring me joy.' In other words, I came to take my life in my hands and trust a plane because it promised to bring me what I wanted.
This is true for all manner of dangerous decisions we make or strict disciplines we impose on ourselves. If I believe that jumping off a bridge with an elasticated chord tied to my ankles will bring me joy, I'll do it, if the pay off doesn't seem worth the risk I won't.
If I believe I'd be happier if I was slimmer or fitter then I'll deny myself what I genuinely desire and I'll inflict pain on my body.
If I want a harmonious and integrated home life I'll deny myself the demands of my couch and help out round the house.
We will all sacrifice to achieve an end greater than the discomfort we have to go through to get there.
Does Jesus offer me something I want?
If he does then I'll accept social derision and awkward religion for the sake of it.
Having said that, the command 'believe in Jesus' isn't offered as a sales pitch offering me a channel to get something I desire, it's much more ultimate than that.
Jesus said 'I am the truth', and truth doesn't require belief to confirm it. He said 'I am the way' having in mind a mode of living and a way of being. He said 'I am the life' and in so doing made every other religious guide, death by comparison.
Yes, but what do I actually need to do?!
The question posed by my friend is going to form the basis of a series of weekly articles aimed at trying to find, in practical terms, exactly what a life of devotion to Christ looks like.
What is a Christian life as distinct from a pagan one?
How does a Christian start their day or eat their breakfast?
How does a Christian live up to the claim of being a mini Christ?
What is the Christian way?