MaryBeth LaMont

“Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.”

Rabbi Abraham Heschel (1907-1972) wrote the above words many decades ago. Yet still they seem to hit home much too closely today. To sum up Rabbi Heschel’s quote from my perspective, it would seem we too often see being a person of faith as primarily a state of identity. We are Christians (or Jews or Muslims, or whomever). We are. Christian is a form of identity. It is a noun.

Certainly Christianity is a form of identity as is Judaism, Islam, and other faiths. Christian can be either a noun or adjective. I am a Christian. I try to live a Christian lifestyle. Noun and adjective.

Yet being a Christian seems to also require that Christian faith be turned into a verb; that is, into doing, into action. While many might agree and see Christian as primarily a verb, an action, that too is insufficient. From where, from whom does our action spring?

These are important questions. It matters greatly in what kind of God we believe and what kind of God motivates our deeds. There is a reason Christians have different thoughts about the hot topics of today and the hot topics of days past. Christians have differing views of who God is. Too often the God we see reflects too much of ourselves and too little of God. Most Christians, for example, agree God can be angry. However we disagree over what and over whom God is angry.

This is where creeds, worship, and the discipline of the faith are useful. This is where the past can at times be instructive both in a good and not good way. This is where a faith community is helpful, in fact necessary, if the God who continues to be revealed to us is to be more than a God who is like ourselves in our current state of life. People of faith need to rub shoulders with others in the faith. People of faith need to rub shoulders with those outside the faith. Notice how you may have found agreement in the quote above, yet that quote comes from someone outside the Christian faith.

God does reveal a bit of God’s self in creeds and worship, the rituals and routines of faith. God does reveal a bit of God’s self through those around us, inside and outside the church. God also reveals God’s self as we turn our Christian identity into a verb and serve and do. How often have we jumped in to help in some instance only to discover we got more out of the service than we put into it?

Faith identity, ritual, belief, present, past, and future all have their place. But that is the point, isn’t it? They have their place. They are not alone definitive of what it means to be a Christian, to be a follower (follower is a word implying following, doing). The Christian faith is not merely to be believed. It is to be lived. It is to be a part of all our life. In living that faith belief and faith itself often are strengthened. Yet God doesn’t save our spirit or our faith. God saves us.