Pastor Zach's Blog

Believing and Acting

September 12, 2016 at 5:15 am 1 comment

Last week in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof penned a column calling on his readers to rethink Christianity.  His thoughts are based on a new book by famed former Evangelical, professional provocateur, and author Brian McLaren.  Mr. Kristof summarizes the thrust of Mr. McLaren’s book by quoting a few lines:

“What would it mean for Christians to rediscover their faith not as a problematic system of beliefs but as a just and generous way of life, rooted in contemplation and expressed in compassion?” McLaren asks in “The Great Spiritual Migration.” “Could Christians migrate from defining their faith as a system of beliefs to expressing it as a loving way of life?”[1]

What is being argued for here is a wresting away of Christianity from a prescribed set of beliefs and a reinventing or a recapturing (depending on your perspective) of Christianity as a call to action.

Except, that’s not what’s really being argued for at all.

The reader is clued into this fact by the way in which Mr. McLaren describes traditional Christian beliefs.  He asks, “What would it mean for Christians to rediscover their faith not as a problematic system of beliefs?”  It turns out that the trouble with traditional Christianity is not that it espouses beliefs, but that it espouses beliefs that are, in Mr. McLaren’s words, “problematic.”  Mr. Kristof notes a couple of these “problematic” beliefs in the opening of his column:

Jesus never mentioned gays or abortion but focused on the sick and the poor, yet some Christian leaders have prospered by demonizing gays.

This is only the second sentence of his article, but Christian beliefs concerning human sexuality and abortion have already made an appearance.  I should note that it is indisputably a problem – both theologically and humanitarianly – to, as Mr. Kristof puts it, “demonize gays.”  But I can’t help but wonder what he means by “demonizing gays.”  Does he mean treating a whole group of people as sub-human?  Or does he mean calling sexual activity outside of a marriage between a husband and a wife sin?  To do the first is to be vicious and wrong.  The do the second is to tell the truth.

Ultimately, any attempt to portray Christianity as a series of actions as opposed to a set of beliefs is bound to fail because such an attempt simply does not reflect the way of Jesus.  Jesus was committed both to doing and to doctrine. This is why Jesus taught on a whole host of doctrinal issues such as money, worship, the nature and character of Scripture, the end times, His divinity, and yes, even human sexuality.

There is an old phrase, coined by Prosper of Aquitaine in the fifth century, that has long been used to describe much of the worship life of the Church: Lex orandi, lex credendi.  “The law of praying is the law of believing.”  The idea behind this phrase is that a person learns how and what to believe in worship.  In other words, the worship life of the Church is meant to form and inform the faith life of Christians.

But there is a second part to this slogan: Lex credendi, lex vivendi.  “The law of believing is the law of living.”  That is, what a person believes necessarily forms and informs what a person does.  This is why the apostle Paul can exhort a young pastor named Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16).  Paul knows that doctrine and doing go hand in hand.

Mr. Kristof and Mr. McLaren know that doctrine and doing are, in reality, inseparable. This is why, even as they issue a call to action while wryly downplaying the value of doctrinal standards, they cannot help but point to and act on their own theological commitments.  Their beef, even if it is presented otherwise, is not with the fact that Christians believe, but with what Christians believe.  I would simply remind them that, eventually, if we act on what we believe as Christians, people will want to know why we do what we do.  And we should have an answer to give to them even as Scripture has given an answer to us.  And for that, doctrine still matters.

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[1] Nicholas Kristof, “What Religion Would Jesus Belong To?” The New York Times (9.3.2016).

Entry filed under: Current Trends. Tags: Brian McLaren, Christianity, Creeds, Deeds, Doctrine, New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, Spirituality, The Great Spiritual Migration.