Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others by Todd Hunter
I’ve by no means ever thought of myself as a writer. I’ve always sincerely thought that writing was what exceptionally intelligent and gifted people did. Guys like Wright, Willard, Peterson and Foster; and ladies like Lamott, BB Taylor, MM Thompson, Murphy and Kroeger. As I look back, I’ve always considered myself to be a reader—an end user of what others put in writing. I love, and have constantly been fascinated by discovering the implications of what others write and then moving from implications to applications, to put good ideas to real use. In summary, by self-analysis, I’ve been an activist; a doer, a church planter, not an original thinker. Actually, though, I’ve come to see, that the activist-thinker dualism has not been entirely true of me.
“Why,” you may wonder, “is he starting this article with some self-revealing biography?” The answer is that I want you to grasp a bit of my history so that you will be able to understand the connection I’ve come to see between belief and practice. These are the things I have finally started writing about the last few years.
Though I have written many magazine articles and contributed chapters to books, for me writing started in earnest during my Doctor of Ministry work at George Fox Seminary in Portland, Oregon. My thesis was: Re-hearing the Gospel: Toward Improved Practices in Evangelism and Discipleship.It is not a great piece of literature. I would not run down to your local library to get a copy sent to you—as if any one would actually do that. I guess I am just trying to save myself a little blog-world embarrassment!
But the title does give you a window into my thinking over the past five or so years. I’ve been wondering: what is the connection between belief and practice? The name of this article is the title of my first book published by IVP. It is due out February 1. I am just now finishing the first draft of a second book with IVP. The working title is: Re-Practicing Christianity: What To You When Your Faith Has Stopped Working For You.
Todd’s Own Christianity Beyond Belief
Okay. Let’s summarize these meanderings so far. I’ve tried over the years to believe as rightly as I can. I’ve got thousands of books in my library that scream: “Todd is telling the truth!” But in recent years I have become aware that I could do better on both elements of the synergy between belief and practice.
For instance, I have been capable of passing a standard theological exam for 30 years. But interacting more deeply regarding the Kingdom of God through people like Willard and Wright, is forcing me to try some new practices that are not natural to me. This in turn leads me to the spiritual formation people for help in transforming my broken parts into something that is useful for God in his work of love and restoration for the least, the last and left out.
The more I dig into this pattern—and remember I am an end user, so I do it for myself first—the more I see the essential connection between belief –> transformation –> practices… practices that others experience as for their good. In my experience, this process is like the old analogy about an ancient plow pulled by oxen: on the first pass over the field the plow just barley makes a line in the dirt. But as the ox is carefully steered so that the plow passes over the exact same line, there is after the second pass, a slight rut. After several additional passes there is a clear groove. Finally, after many passes the soil is fully ready for seed that will bear fruit.
The ancient ox and antique plow suggests itself to me as the way things work best. When I learn something fresh, the new thought can be original in one of two ways. One, “I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Or two, “This info/idea/concept is going deeper into my life.” Both are fine, but for veteran Christians like most of the
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readers of Next-Wave, I have a feeling the latter is more our experience. We learn something—either new or deeper—which in search of obedience sends us to our grace-enabled work of spiritual transformation which leads to a life, a way of practicing our faith that is good for others.
I’ve developed a mental outline that I use to keep me on track—in the sense of the ox and plow. It is the way I conceive of “What it means to be a Christian:”
- I am seeking to be the cooperative friend of Jesus—following Jesus as his apprentice, that I can be an ambassador of the Kingdom
- To live a consistent life of creative goodness—I practice the presence so that I can be alert to the people and events of my life. If I am not present and alert, I cannot be an agent of good.
- Through the power of the Holy Spirit—it is the Spirit that enables all the above. He gives the character to care about others, the gifts, the power and the authority to actually serve others in practical ways.
- For the sake of others: none of this is to be done for the sake of mere personal piety. God created humans, and later Israel and the church to join with him in creative care for his creation.
Those four simple thoughts are my mental framework for daily life. They are the practices associated with thirty years of believing Bible stuff. To live those bullet points out in the rhythms and routines of my actual life, I feel the constant need to apprentice myself to Jesus through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. To get to a Christianity that is beyond belief, I find myself using this process over and over and over again as a rule for Christian spirituality:
Belief –> Transformation –> Practices –> Deeper Belief That Only Practices Can Bring –> Deeper Needs For Transformation –> More Effective, More Life-Giving Practices.
Can you picture such a rhythm for your life? If you can visualize it, give it try.
And let me know how it goes!
Todd Hunter is the author of Christianity Beyond Belief (February 2009) and Director of West Coast Church Planting for The Anglican Mission in the Americas. Todd also founded Three is Enough, a small group movement that makes spiritual formation doable.