INCONSEQUENTIAL CHRISTIANITY
Christianity as a theory is, for the most part, inconsequential.
I was driving in rural Kentucky one day and I came across this old run down store. The front porch had been hit by a large truck years before, (I was told this by an elderly gentleman who was working on the building) the roof was sagging, and there was an entire section of the wall completely knocked down. I stopped to take some photos and was struck by an image. There, in an old worn latch was a pin, locking the door.
There was an eight foot hole immediately to the left of the door (which I walked in through) where the cinder block wall had collapsed, but the door was locked. At some point that little pin was significant. A man or woman placed it there with all confidence that it would protect their stuff, and in theory, it worked, but in the context that it’s in now, it has no application.
Some of my darkest days have been when I woke up with the knowledge that most of the things I believed and said I stood for were just concepts and theories that I was not actually living, and not only that I wasn’t living them, but that I hadn’t forged any avenues to apply them.
I have been a “professional” in the ministry field for a long time, years in fact. Those dark days were nestled right into this professional stage.
I had a great conversation with a young Bible college student. He has questions, like me (and probably you) about why we hold on to so many things that have nothing to do with the Bible and why we have so many theories and concepts that have absolutely no connection to real life. What gives me hope is the fact that he (and people like him) is thinking, thinking about what he believes and challenging its validity and, more importantly, its applicability.
It’s not so much that we are trying to disprove anything, what we’re trying to do is to prove that truth can be real in the context of our everyday lives, beyond a religious theory or a philosophical concept.
Religious institutions are as notorious about redefining context as communistic governments. Religion is really about resisting change. In fact the word religion comes from the Latin word “relegare” which means to “tie fast.” Many of the traditions that are accepted as normal within a religious culture can be traced back to a redefinition of context.
If we are going to see young men and women continue to follow Christ when they leave their parent’s homes and go off to college, when they take the wheel, so to speak, we are going to have to get rid of the cruise ship mentality. The church is not a cruise ship. It’s a tightly knit group of individual rafts that are controlled by their single passenger. This is less controllable for a religious leader and there is less recognition for “Captain Pastor,” but it is Christianity in everyday context.
