I see a time

I have been taken to task for my radical stand for Christianity. The questions come from the believers I share a weekly study with. I am told I am too harsh and expect too much. I received a mail, to which I replied as from my heart, rough and raw.

These words express much of the foundation of my belief that there is coming a time when those people who believe there is a God who has definite standards and that we are called to put those standards into practice, will be rejected for what they believe, and the extreme way they believe it.

Christianity is a faith that can only be in one of two states: either you believe the whole story or you don’t. If you believe, then there is only one way this belief can be seen for what it really is: by the actions that come about as a result of the belief, ie what you do.

If some things are communicated in parables, stories given to illustrate a complex concept, then one can see that the essence of the story is grasp the complexity including the nuances and put the completeness of the concept into practice. If other concepts are communicated in plain language, for example, like in Luke Chapter 6, then it makes sense to me that these things are not considered difficult or complex to understand, they simply need to be done.

It also makes sense to me that one must take the plain language commands to be the first step, the baby steps, and that baby steps are only to be wobbled on, as a human baby wobbles, for a maximum period of the year it takes for a human child to learn to walk. Thereafter, the life of the believer must reflect a habitual putting into practice of these basic principles, and a striving to incarnate the more difficult concepts proposed in the parables.

Either one must believe extremely, or one is not living the faith, and therefore is in danger of doing all that they do do for nothing. Extreme here means extreme following of the extremes of an all powerful, all demanding God. If it says give to all who ask, it means give to all who ask. If it says do, then do. If the plain words say the doing is to consist of visiting prisoners and the sick, then one should find the believer doing just that as a matter of course. If there is the command to feed the hungry, take care of the fatherless or the widow, then that should be a given. If an openly stated exhortation impels the believer to focus entirely on those who have not experienced the fullness of God, even at the expense of losing all, including life, then any time spent crying out for personal blessing is surely missing the point?