Living the Christian Life

February 20, 2011 

A writer and frequent television panelist, while being interviewed in a program I was watching, made the statement that he chose to live the bohemian life.  This statement caused an uneasy sense and thought within me.  Why didn’t I choose to live the bohemian life?  What life did I choose to live?   Did I make the right choose?  Answering the question about what life I did choose to live was quick; I knew that the answer was that I chose to live the Christian life.

Then, I realized that the answer was an opportunity for me to explore in writing what living a Christian life means to me.  And, also through the writing, perhaps I could come to some understanding of why I did choose to live a Christian life rather than a bohemian life.   So this is the purpose of this essay – to put into words what I think about the Christian life with respect to the questions I ask above.

One conclusion that I come to that I will state right away is that choosing to live a Christian life or a bohemians life, or any life, is not really a single-choice event, but a continuum of choices, some of which were made for me, early in my life, and others I make each and every day from the past to the present to the future..  

I suspect those who choose to live the bohemian life, or whatever life they describe as living, likewise come to their life over such a continuum of choices.  This continuum represents a variety of choices that individuals can make in their lives.  It seems to me that this variability reflects the variability in the human condition and this variability is an enormous challenge that each has to deal with.   That Christianity exists is but a blessing in that it helps to sooth the tension and uncertainty that a variability of choices leads to.   Experience does count, and using the benefits of the knowing that experience gives is rational.   With Christianity there is such an experience of knowing and I am sure this has a lot to do with my why for choosing the Christian life.  I am very suspicious of choosing what might be considered the bohemian life for I am very suspicious of the ultimate worthiness of such a life.

I now list and write below some of what represents what I believe living a Christian life means to me.

1.  A disciple of Jesus.   I view the Christian life means following a set of teachings, and those teachings primarily come out of the recordings we have of what Jesus said and the subsequent valued (sustainable) interpretations of those recordings.   Living evolves from what we learn, our experiences, and what we learn is greatly influenced by the attention we pay to what we hear and read about what others say – their teachings.  As a Christian, I consider myself to be a disciple of Jesus and his teachings, and as such I need to and do accept his teachings.

2.  Love Others.   Do all human beings have a right to health, liberty, and happiness?   Why should I have any more a right to these conditions than anyone else?  I suspect that a very innate human response is for human beings to feel that other human beings do not have the same right, but a lesser right.  But this is not Christianity.   As a Christian, I must come to the conclusion that all human beings have the same rights to health, liberty, and happiness as I have.  For although certainly not unique to the Christian life, Christianity does teach to love others as we love ourselves.   I believe this is a general principle to guide us, but does not mean that all are to be loved regardless.  I believe the Christian sense of justice also informs us that some do deserve to be hated and despised, and that is it right to do so, in order for justice to be achieved.   Loving others is an integral part of justice and love and justice does not preclude hatred.  

3.  Call to Action.   A call to action is the rational and imaginative progression to loving others and to loving God.   Loving others is not sufficient if by doing so, actions are not taken.   Although I am sure my acts are very inconsequential when compared to the totality of needed action for all human beings to have a right to health, liberty, and happiness, nevertheless, my limited acts ace indeed monumental to me in living the Christian life.   A Christian life can represent an ideal, but only through action will that ideal have any value.

4.  Participate in a Christian Community.  I have always felt that I should attend church to live a Christian life.   To me this has been intuitive and innate.  By attending church, I feel I am participating in a Christian community.  When I try to find reasons for what seems intuitive, I conclude it has something to do with what I believe to be a truth, that God and Christ are within us, each of us, and therefore, as I seek out others who are trying as I am to find God and Christ, I will find God and Christ where the others are.   I feel that being a participant in a Christian community, if no more than weekly church attendance, is vital to finding God and Jesus in my life.

5.  Life-Long Learning and Thinking.   I have come to believe that a major problem existing in some Christian churches is a lack of emphasis on seeking.  There is not enough emphasis on continuing to learn and continuing to think and continuing to seek the truths of Christianity.  Certainly there is some activity towards education and seeking, but it has never been as satisfactory to my personally as I would like.   For too many in the Christian community (although certainly not for all), too much emphasis is on “good feelings", a blind acceptance of “knowing the lord”, rather than on seeking understanding and truth.   Too much emphasis on good feelings and “knowing (accepting unquestionably) the lord”, I think, leads to a trance-like, brain–washed acceptance, rather than an active and healthy skepticism.  Many of the world’s human tragedies have been because of just such a blind acceptance of ill-conceived notions.  In my opinion, the correct approach to counter these ill-conceived notions is to be in a constant state of seeking, questioning, critical thinking and learning of the truth of Christ, on the existence of God, and how I (we) connect with Christ and God.  And, by such an approach, as individuals, communities, and nations, we will avoid a very dangerous state characterized by irrational and harmful actions.   That as human beings we are able to have such an approach to life-long learning and thinking to what God and Christ means represents unique transformative opportunities for our lives.   I believe the truth of Christianity will ultimately lead to the best for all, whether Christian or not, but to reach that best we need to live a life of life-long learning and thinking.

6.  Dealing with Decisions.   I have made a lot of bad decisions, some of which were immoral and unethical and sinful in Christian terms.  But, I believe I have, while not eliminated the immoral, unethical, and sinful decisions, certainly have decreased those types of decisions by developing an ability that I think has come to me through my pursuit of Christianity, of asking what would Jesus decide, does the decision that I am about to make reflect good judgment, in light of and in perspective to being a disciple of Christ.   My exposure to Christianity, I believe, has greatly increased my sensitivity to dealing with decisions in terms of the good or bad judgments they represents.

7.  Dealing with Struggles, Pain, and Suffering.   My life experience has been one of recurring struggles, pain, difficulties and disappointments, lost opportunities - in other words suffering.   I know that I am not along, and I know it could have been and can yet be a lot worst, and that many do have it worst, for whom I feel bad.   Through Christianly, I have come to learn that there are the Easter Fridays of my life as Good Friday was to Jesus’ life.   I believe that through his Good Friday, and the subsequent Easter Sunday, Jesus demonstrates that suffering is not without hope, that “bad things” do happen to “good people” and it will always be so, but on the other side of all of this, there is Easter Sunday – the ability within us to resurrect, the ability to deal with Easter Friday events of our lives – the pains, the struggles, the disappointments, the lost opportunities, the lost lives.   God and Jesus are present when bad things happen, but they don’t cause them, they don’t prevent them, causing bad things are not part of their plan, but they are there to help us cope.   Yes, Easter Fridays are present in my life, but I must continue to live, and the teachings of Christianity help me to deal and live with them.

8.  Being Humble and Living with Humility.   I think approaching life’s events and experiences and oneself thinking humbly and with humility is a much better approach than with pride and conceit and certainty and an elevated impression of oneself.   Humbleness and humility, I believe, is a primary characteristic of what it means to be Christian.  Pride and conceit and certainty and an elevated self impression stand in the way of reflection, a call to action, learning and growing, and of resurrection that is the Christian life.   As a Christian, one needs to have doubts about one’s self, about life, about the events of life, and humbleness and humility defines what this doubt looks like.  We can look to Jesus for such humbleness and humility.  We will in reading of his life, his teachings, reading between the lines of his life find humbleness and a humility that should guide us.

9.  A Christian Life Leads to Righteousness and Justice.  There may be no other condition in life more important than righteousness and justice.   Good Christianity is Christianity that is in constant struggle and process to make things right (achieve righteousness).  A critical component of righteousness is justice.  The ultimate goal of the human condition, it seems to me, is righteousness and justice.  If righteousness and justice is present, what could be a better state of the human condition? I cannot think of any other state, values, characteristics that would be more important for the human condition, to be more identified with what should be than that of righteousness and justice.  I think this is why righteousness and justice is such a predominant description of what God is, in the Old Testament and elsewhere.  When we say, love God, I believe we mean love righteousness and justice.  But, what is righteousness and justice?   Righteousness and justice are targets, moving and always ahead of us.  For me, the best way to find these targets and to define them is through living the Christian life.