Take It Personal Part 4: The Intellect

If I ever visit your house, apologies in advance. If there's a bookshelf in the living room, chances are I will be zoning out for my first five minutes in the room.

I'll be eyeing that shelf. Seeing what's on it. Looking for similarities, looking for books you have I wish I'd read. Looking for books you have I don't think highly of (remember, I started this warning with an apology). And based on what I see, I will almost assuredly make some judgment of you, your personality, and your compatibility with me as a friend.

I am certainly prone to this, but I think it is common amongst American and Western Christians in general. We don't just do this to evaluate people, but also to project faith or the lack there of. I'd label this practice: informationism.

This is the fourth in a set of six . . . or seven examining common faith surrogates. I contend that Biblical faith is placed most highly and primarily in a person, Christ, and that while all people have faith in something, many Christians have placed their faith in a number of things other than Christ. My hope is that Christians would have their presuppositions challenged and that outsiders of Christianity would gain a greater picture of what true Christianity is, but moreso, what it is not. Namely, that it is not the political, the cultural, the family, the collective, or today, a set of thoughts.

Informationism would teach that the core of Christianity can be found in a set of right beliefs (orthodoxy) and that faith is adopting and assenting to those beliefs. 

So hear this. I am nearing the completion of a yearlong theological training course. I do believe that there is such a thing as historic Christianity and orthodoxy  I believe theology is terribly important (I'd even say I love doctrine). I believe some theology is better than others (and that some is flat-out wrong). Further, I believe that there is false teaching masquerading as Christianity all over the place, but I'd also point out that informationism itself is a well-disguised form of this false teaching because true Christian faith can be placed no where but in a person, the person of Jesus Christ.

When it comes down to it, the mark of a follower of Christ is not who they've read. It's not what they can dialog. It's not what they can articulate or even what they can understand. 

It is who they follow.

A follower of Christ, a true believer, is someone who has been confronted by Jesus and chosen Him. One who has said, "Yes, I'll go with him."

The first few chapters of the Gospel of John illustrate this beautifully. In chapter one, the word follow is used liberally. Andrew and another begin to follow Jesus. Peter begins the follow Jesus. Philip and Nathanael begin to follow Jesus.

In chapter three, a Pharisee named Nicodemus comes to Jesus with a set of theological questions, Jesus' answer basically only confuses the matter, but we learn later on that Nicodemus begins to follow Jesus.

In chapter four, a Samaritan woman is met by Jesus at a well and she uses a theological question as a shield when Jesus brings up her questionable relationship history, but Jesus' response isn't about the question, instead he basically says, "I don't care where you worship, what matters is who you worship. And I'm God and I'm standing right before you. So, the ball's in your court . . ." (verse 22-26). (The Samaritan's were huge into tennis, so this idiom would have really spoken to her.)

And, my favorite, in chapter six, Jesus makes a passing reference to what sounds like cannibalism and blood-drinking, which scares off a good part of his crowd. But, it doesn't scare off everyone. Because some of them aren't committed to his miracles, his charisma, or his teaching, but they are committed to Him. Jesus asks his remaining followers if they too will leave and Peter nails it. I mean, absolutely perfect, because he was a man who got it.

Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Peter doesn't talk about rival or more palatable teaching, he doesn't bring up the challenge of the Trinity, he responds with what he knows, and what he knows is a who. It is a person. 

For faith to be real, it is about a person. Not teachings about or of a person. Part of the wonder of the Resurrection is that we don't relate to a God of a book, we don't relate to a God of the past, and we don't relate to a God who is distant, but a God who can be described as this: He is alive, He is present, and He indwells us even now.

Faith that is real must be marked by an intersection. A point where my story and His collided. A point where there was a commitment to follow Him or to not, there aren't half measures or empty intellectual assents here. It's follow me. Or follow elsewhere.

Let's be those who drop our nets.