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Application Based Christianity

November 25th, 2009 by Janette

I recently heard a sermon (don’t worry, it wasn’t Dan’s and this is not a really passive-agressive way of telling him) where it seemed like a self-help solution to life. The preacher said that so many people are turned off from the religion of their past because of its strict rules and rituals (agreed) but that true Christianity was not one of rules but of a life of love and compassion. He used a verse from the Bible to back up his point – “faith expressing itself through love” – but in using that verse, focused only on the expression of the faith (on the life of love), and not on the faith itself. (Side note: Has he not in this simply created another rule to live by? This time its simply couched in verbiage that is acceptable to our culture – love not duty, compassion not ritual. But love and compassion without the faith which it all comes from, is really just another rule – and therefore another way by which we mistakenly think we can earn our acceptance before God.)

I find this fascination with the bottom-line pervades our Christian culture. We want to get to the point – “ok, tell me what to do!” we exclaim at the end of a sermon.  We jump past descriptions of the Gospel, past studies on the nature of God, past deeper looks at the person of Christ and ask, “what does this mean for me?” or “how should I now act?” Don’t get me wrong, these questions are crucial. If we don’t ask them, we are missing out. I’ll be one of the first in line to say that our faith in Christ should radically change our lives and if it doesn’t, we have a problem. But if we ask these application questions too quickly and jump straight there before really dwelling on the former, will we not also lose much? We will miss out on simple awe and wonder, on true worship and meditation, on a deep internalized motivation, on insight into the deeper things of God. And while we can potentially see changes in our lives without those things, I doubt those changes will be long-lasting.

I want to be someone who loves to see the Gospel radically change my life. But I don’t want to side-step everything that will get me there and by so doing, miss out on the point. Christianity is not about application or about a lifestyle, that is simply a healthy and vibrant expression of a much greater reality of a life gripped by the realities of who God is and all he has done for us. Let us spend much time there first.