I'm thinking that perhaps, just maybe a light has gone on in my brain - albeit a a low wattage one. OK so here goes - when you meet someone and fall in love you take a chance with them. You might try to gain as many facts as you can...."Is he a sociopath?' "Is his OCD bearable?" and various other personal and social tests. You may spend hours discussing with your friends "What was he like at school?", "Do I like his friends?" "Do we share interests?" "Will he put up with me?" but ultimately there comes a point where you know there is chemistry and you just take a leap of faith and maybe that's all I need to do with Jesus - I've read and discussed and analysed and perhaps now it is time to take a leap of faith - the chemistry's there, a significant number of my friends whose opinion I value are there, our lifestyles are compatible - I've been going to Church for over a year. So maybe it's time to stop asking questions and make that commitment to the man - Jesus.
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Modern Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity, does tend to see the Christian committment as a "moment of decision" or (in Kierkegaard's phrase) a "leap of faith".
ReplyDeleteBut I've been impressed with Rowan William's alternative way of looking at this (in "A Ray of Darkness") when he says that the important paradigm in the New Testament (and indeed the Old) is not so much "my decision" as "the call". Prophets receive a call to follow God. Jesus calls the disciples. Paul speaks of being called by Jesus.
Now that's not to say there is not a decision to follow, but it is not as momentus as I think Evangelical Christianity makes out. It is the following that is important, and that is a matter of perserverance, of trusting in the call to follow, even if at times the path seems unclear. How much did the apostles know when they began their journey? But it was the journey that was important, despite setbacks - look at Peter's denial, or James and John having no idea about what they were asking about being seated at their Lord's right hand in glory. Or complaining about another person healing to Jesus. Time and again, they got it wrong, but what they did do was to keep faith with the call to follow.