Some small reflections...

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I remember once many years ago seeing a book in a bookstore with the title How to be a Christian without being Religious. I confess I cannot review this book, as I didn't have the money to buy it then, and somehow never got around to investigating it further. However, I remember being intrigued by the title, by (what I'm sure the author intended to be) the apparent contradiction -- aren't Christians supposed to be religious?

I also remember more recently a trial for heresy in the Episcopal church, which tried to distinguish (a resolution which has not yet been made) between doctrines and core doctrines, and determined that there is no heresy against doctrines, only core doctrines. A finer and finer distinction all the time seems to be made. This is not unique to that church, however, as Methodists, Roman Catholic, Lutherans, Baptists and others continue to struggle with increasingly finer definitions and distinctions.

So, what is it to be a Christian? What is a Christian life? What practices or doctrines, religious or not, core or not, must one have to be considered, or to consider oneself, a Christian?

I have no easy answers. The Book of Common Prayer has a simple summary of the law:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Similar statements exist in many denominations. Is this a sufficient statement? Perhaps, but what does it mean to love God so completely? What does it mean to love one's neighbour as oneself?

The baptismal covenant gets a little more specific, talking about renouncing Satan, evil powers, sinful desires, and promising to love, trust, and obey Christ as the saviour. But volumes can be (and have been) written defining what each of these means.

I guess for myself, the Christian life forms out of my experiences in church and community, out of my studies and out of my prayers, through a complex and fairly indescribable synthesis of these things, through (what I hope to be) the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This governs not only my actions toward others (a moral dimension) but my thoughts and actions toward God and myself, my emotions and moods, my thoughts and feelings. This does not mean I become a perfect person. One of my favourite lines in the BCP comes from the renewal of baptismal vows:

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

I always notice on this line that it doesn't say if you fall into sin, but whenever you fall into sin. That is to be expected of any human. But it is also expected of any Christian to have a willingness to admit sin, and seek the Lord, in whatever form that may take, for guidance and right action.

Following this quickly is the statement:

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Care and concern for the community, and each individual in the community, is paramount to my idea of being a Christian.

These things taken together form my view of ministry in a Christian sense. To be a minister to help bring out the gifts God has planted in every individual, to in essence be a minister to ministers, and in return being sustained by the ministry of others in return. To proclaim the love of God, the worthiness of God's servants as part of creation which was declared good, but not without our faults that need to be overcome, through worship and prayer, community and individual practices, and a listening attitude that respects the stories of all people. To listen and look for God in each person. And finally, to speak to and with God, sometimes into the silence.