Absolute Essentials – VIII

So I ask you, what things in faith are so absolute that without them your faith crumbles? What is the unshakeable foundation of your faith?

This week I have connected with a wide variety of Christians, people who believe in Jesus and who all believe that this Jesus is our God and Lord. Some of these Believers call themselves Pentecostals or Charismatics. Others are Evangelicals who hold to a (slightly) different understanding of the workings of the Spirit in our lives. For some, the doctrine of eternal security is as essential as “tongues as the initial evidence” is for the Pentecostals in my corner. And I have one friend who celebrates her Evangelical faith in the pageantry of the Catholic tradition. For another friend, the day of worship is Saturday. For still others, no one day is different from any other.

Some Christian friends champion conservative social and political causes. Other Christian friends champion peace and justice issues which put them to the “left” of many of their fellow Believers. I even have a few Believer friends who are still members of the Communist party.

Some Christians have a creed of 5 or 16 or 24 points. Other Christians say their only creed is the Bible (and how they interpret it, of course).

Most of us can get beyond these basic differences to the point that we can see these other people in heaven someday, albeit in a different part of heaven. We joke, a bit awkwardly, about this and cling to what we know, trusting that we are right and that somehow the other person will come into the fuller light.

But I wonder at that. Don’t we all need to come into the fuller light? Isn’t that what the walk of faith is all about, never assuming we have arrived, always moving forward, pursuing truth to the nth degree? Why do we compare ourselves with each other as if we have arrived more than they have, instead of urging each other on with the truth that maybe, just maybe, God speaks to each of us and we have much to learn from one another and, of course, from God?

I think about my own faith. What is the foundation on which it rests? Is it a faith that is safe only if scientific inquiry and discovery is kept at bay? Is it a faith that is secure only if politically correct thought and speech is maintained? Is it a faith that is sound only if protected from contact with the world?

Can my faith survive if evolutionary theory is advanced as a scientific model for understanding the natural world? I wonder, does my faith require exactly 2 million children of Jacob exiting from Egypt through the Red Sea? What if God works in my friend differently than He has in me – does that make one of us suspect? I’m sorry if these questions unnerve you. I ask such questions because long, long ago I discovered that my faith was not based on either these questions or their answers.

I do believe that there are some essentials to the Christian faith, the defining line being what you do with Jesus – is he or is he not the Christ, our risen Lord, and the revealer of God to us? I do believe that Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit of God as a guide and as the One who empowers us to trust and obey God. I do believe that the Scriptures as we have them today are trustworthy and are useful, as the Apostle Paul says, for “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” And I do believe Jesus has provided the Community of Faith – the Church – to strengthen us in our faith and to help us fulfill our destiny in Christ.

Start there and hang on to that core and you won’t go wrong, no matter what questions come up.

What I’ve been saying is not meant to be an exhaustive study of what is truth. Nor does it mean that other Believers will necessarily agree with me or that I am not a true Believer if they don’t. It only means that the Word, the Spirit and the Church all point to Jesus Christ as the center of our faith, on which everything else rests. And that all too often we worry about things which are not of real concern.

Which is more important, that our children close their ears to evolutionary teaching or that they open their eyes to Jesus? Which is more important, that we keep our nation and our churches free of gays and abortionists or that we point everyone, including them, to Jesus? Which is more important, that Christians vote a certain party line or that they ask themselves what Jesus wants them to do at this moment in time? In the end, simple as it sounds, Jesus defines my faith.