Personality Is Not Faith or Orthodoxy

Among churches which are concerned with upholding a creed at times you will find the issue that the churches cannot distinguish between the creed and the culture of the church. It is interesting that in certain creedal churches those who have been raised in the church, who share in the personality of the church because they have been raised in the culture, are given a nearly complete pass in regards to orthodoxy.

It is interesting that in creedal churches some of the most worrisome expressions of faith come from those who have never been outside of that denomination. It is not that the denomination has failed in teaching the creed but rather the denomination is blind to the fact that those who have been raised in the denomination are at clear odds with the creed.

These people may be promoted to eldership without the bat of an eye even though they are at odds with the creed. Often it is not the easiest to see but no one ever questions them even when they say error because they have never not been in the church and feel like the other in the church.

And here is the great error. True religion is not something one is born into. True religion is not a shared culture of how we act on the surface. It is of course of great benefit to be born into a believing community and raised in a Christian way. But Christianity is not simply a lack of a rejection of what one has been taught by one's Christian family.

Christianity is a religion which must become personal and take root. It is not as if we are Christian simply by not leaving the church we grew up in and not rejecting its teaching. You see some people grow up in a church and remain and yet seem to have no active element to their faith.

They may remain because of community or all the good business networking connections they have gained. Or maybe other members of the church are clients. But faith is always active. Faith is a new beginning each person takes before God. It is necessarily more than a lack of a rejection of what one has been taught.

Our True Selves

Often our feeling about Christianity from the outside or inside is that it may destroy our personality. Christianity asks us to live in a certain why which limits our freedom and forces us to conform to principles.

It is often viewed that autonomy from religion is true freedom that preserves personhood, and therefore we are giving up freedom to accept religion.

The reality is that we find our true selves when we accept God. You see our personhood is based on the image of God in us which has been marred by the fall.

It is through our union with Christ through faith that the image of God in us which is marred slowly is restored.

God has always had man's happiness as a priority. We rarely see the fact that God has our happiness as a priority.

The problem of course is we see each moment in isolation and are lost in the thicket of the moment and cannot see the whole story of our life from start to finish as God can.

People often wonder why this or that happened. How can God use it. Often we can see this or that that God uses.

But he never shows us everything. We must always live by faith in his promises.