What's in a Word?

Last week I came across a new blog for me, Power of Suggestion. Author Charles and I had a brief conversation via his comments, and a little later he sent me an email.

“I took your invitation to look around your blog, and while it seems we disagree quite a bit on the solutions to the church’s problems, we agree more than I expected to about the nature of those problems.”

Charles then suggested we try a little give and take on our blogs. We both agree that the meaning we ascribe to words is critical in dialogue, so Charles thought a few definitions might be in order. He’s started us off with 3 words: Faith, Salvation, and Christianity. Man, this guy doesn’t mess around! What follows is an attempt to define those words. In true postmodern fashion I’m defining the words as I use them. (I should also note that I don’t pretend to speak for the emerging church crowd, for the progressive crowd, or for the liberal crowd. I have no doubt that some of my thoughts would horrify all of the above.) Charles is going to define these words on his own blog, and through the magic of editing I’ll link to his post below. (We’ve both tried this kind of thing before with varying degrees of failure, so we’ve agreed to proceed slowly. There will be no hard feelings if this doesn’t work out.)

With all that said, here we go…

Faith: The Greek noun pistis (from the New Testament) can mean belief, trust, confidence, and can also mean faithfulness. Faith itself is actually difficult for me to contemplate because it forms my worldview – it’s the air I breathe if you will. I have faith because on most days God’s existence is self-evident. I also have a quasi tongue-in-cheek definition:

Faith is believing in God even on those days when you know He doesn’t exist.

Here I’m really revealing some of my views on a life of faith. Having faith doesn’t preclude us from questions, from doubts, and from anger. And I think God is OK with that. (See Ryan’s post on belief that I referenced earlier for a much more eloquent reflection on this.) As ironic as it sounds, on some days my faith is the only thing that keeps me believing.

Salvation: Nice one Charles. You’re hitting all the words that I used to have firm definitions for, and now hold loosely. Let me take a crack at this anyway.

There was a time when I would have said that salvation was what we received when we came to believe in Christ. It implied a state: I was lost, then found; out, then in. Today I see it as representative of much more of a journey. I no longer believe that the salvation that comes to us is salvation from hell. Like most matters of following Jesus, I believe salvation is much more about life before we die than life after death. We are saved from a life held ransom to the power of sin, a life lived according to the world, in direct opposition to a life lived according to the Kingdom of God. We're saved from a life of being part of the problem and brought into life as part of the solution. I’m probably more comfortable with the word transformation, or even conversion.  This conversion is a life-long one, learning to love my neighbour more and more, to put others first more and more, to follow Jesus’ teachings more and more. In other words, learning to lose my own life.

Come to think of it, the Two Paths quote that I posted just earlier today sums up my view well.

Christianity: Obviously, Christianity is known as the religion of those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. However, I view Christianity as a religion that never should have been.

It’s my view that Jesus came to put an end to religion--as defined as any system or rules, rituals and regulations that we use to try and get right with God—and to teach us how to live. (My friend Bruxy Cavey has written an outstanding book on the subject.) What did we do in response? Well, we made a religion out of him (Christianity) that doesn’t really require that we do much of anything he taught. This is irony at its finest.

The religion Christianity has done a lot of good and it’s done a lot of harm. And now the term has been so broadly used, and so politicized, that at best it is becoming meaningless. At worst I think our bastardization of the word is doing a lot of damage to the cause of Christ. Personally I’ve almost completely jettisoned the word. I don’t want to be a Christian; I want to be a Follower of Jesus. To be honest, on some days I think any resemblance of one term to the other is strictly coincidental.

And yet, I was a “good Christian” long before I grasped the concept of following Jesus, so it’s a term that I will always have some appreciation for. That’s just one more paradox that I’m comfortable holding onto.

So there we are, my best attempt to nail down some words that have all shifted in meaning for me, and which I see now as being fluid. I look forward to reading Charles' thoughts on these labels. Thanks for the invitation, and the interaction.

Comments

[beth]

ah, mike, i'll take your 'systematic' postmodernism anyday! have fun!