I was at a conference recently where Carl Medearis, one of the keynote speakers, asked us a fill in the blank question, which was this:
A Hindu is to Hinduism
as a Muslim is to Islam
as a Buddhist is to Buddhism
as a Christian is to ______________
What would you put in the blank?
If you’re a Christian, it’s likely that you said “Christianity,”
…which is the wrong answer.
We talk a lot about how to be a “better Christian”. We spend a lot of time thinking and talking about what a Christian should do: go to church, not cuss so much, vote Republican, join a Bible study group, have different priorities, be nice, be happy. We work hard to clarify Christian theology and doctrine, to fight for Christian morals, and to make sure we follow Christian practices in our worship gatherings. Most of all, many Christians look forward to going to Heaven when we die, to spending eternity in a place where we’ll never get sick, never grow old, never experience pain, be reunited with loved ones who have died, maybe even do work – but it will be life giving, joyful, creative work.
The problem with all of that is that Jesus is only a small part of it. You can do a lot of those things without Jesus. That picture of Heaven doesn’t change if you remove Jesus from it. Yes, proper theology is important, it’s important for us to think rightly about God, certain practices in worship are important, and even morals are important, but those aren’t central.
A deeper issue is that it’s easy to develop our own ideas about those other things and then craft for ourselves a version of Jesus that fits with our ideas, when it should be the other way around. It might surprise us to learn that maybe Jesus would disagree with some of our ideas and our ways. The Gospels are full of accounts of good religious people getting bent out of shape about things Jesus did, things that no “good” person would be caught dead doing. Jesus kept the religious people guessing.
Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus wasn’t a Christian? We haven’t been called to follow Christianity, but to follow Jesus, and there is a difference. While Christianity is a religion (for lack of a better term) centered around Jesus, so many other things have become wrapped up in that word, and following something that is centered on Jesus is still different than following Jesus Himself.
Jesus’ intent was not to start a new religion – the religion that we Christians are so bent on following. Following Christianity may not be that far off the mark (or it may be a lot) but missing the mark is still missing the mark. Jesus never said “Come, be good Christians.” He simply said “Come, follow Me.”
Questions:
Do you tend to think more about following Jesus, or about following Christianity?
Do these ideas challenge how you think about Christianity, or make you uncomfortable?
How might you think, talk, and act differently if stopped trying to be a Christian and started simply following Jesus?
