|
|||
How Simple Should Christianity Be? « Glory to God for All Things
One could object that it’s easy for a priest (or pastor) to say that “Christianity is everything or it is nothing.” It’s all they know, for the most part. But one could easily say that they became pastors because they realized this. That’s true in my case. You could also object that Fr. Stephen is opposed to simplicity because his tradition is complex. There’s a reason why byzantine is an adjective. You could object that minimalism is good. It’s good to cut out the chaff, the ornamentation, the baroque filigrees over life. Use what is needed. No more, no less. It’s an attractive philosophy. I spent a good part of last week watching the water well rig operating. Dozens of levers grouped together and hidden within the machinery. Pumps and engines and hydraulic values running like kudzu over more valves and lines and pistons. Cables. Lots of cables. I would wager there may be a redundancy or two for backup and safety. But not one extra, unused mechanism. Not one appendix of machinery on the entire rig. And that’s just a machine to dig a hole in the ground. Possibly Related posts:
 Sunday, August 30th, 2009 | Tags: life, minimalism, quotation, Theology | Category: Theology |
One comment1 comment to How Simple Should Christianity Be? « Glory to God for All Things |
     |
||
|
Copyright © 2010 This Side of the Pulpit - All Rights Reserved 154 queries. 0.602 seconds. |
|||
Rather than a “simple vs. complex” view of things, I would rather say that Christianity is “Deep”, not “shallow.” The Nicene Creed is relatively “simple” – children of 3 or 4 can have it memorized. However, it is deep, there is much behind those few words, depths of wonder that will take all eternity to plumb.
The problem isn’t so much that we want a simple Christianity, it’s that we want a shallow Christianity. Legalism is shallow – give me my checklist so I can do 10 quick things and be done. Loving your neighbor is deep. Antinomianism is shallow – nothing really matters, so I can do what I want. Striving to sumbit yourself to God is deep, for He is deep.
There are many things in the Christian faith which are simple and straight forward – Christ Jesus died for me. Jesus is Lord. Simple. But there is great depth there – and our society today loves that which is shallow and tawdry.
But the beautiful thing about depth is that it is allows for the individual to constantly grow, yet never grow beyond either neighbor and become prideful. Whether one’s knowledge is deeper, it’s still the same 1 faith, 1 Lord, 1 Baptism, etc. That is the beauty of the Christian faith.