Catatonic Christianity

“There’s nothing worse than catatonic Christians standing still in a world of falling people.”

I pull this quote from Godology because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.

I think Christianity has three major components. There’s the upward component–a personal relationship with God. In many ways, postmodernity has primed our generation for this aspect of Christianity in that it places so much emphasis on experience and relationships. Protestantism, particularly the evangelical tradition that was birthed in the John Wesley and George Whitefield revivals in the eighteenth century, has emphasized knowing God up close and personally. This is the heart of faith–the emotionality of Christianity. Sometimes it can turn into a kind of fanaticism, but it doesn’t have to. When we really understand Jesus’ reconciliatory mission, it does foster emotion. That God would die so we can live. It’s impossible to really understand this without feeling it’s truth. The Christian faith cannot be sequestered as only an academic exercise. It must breath; it must live. Evangelicalism values this aspect of Christianity. They value what the puritans used to call “vital religion.” Soul religion. Life faith, so to speak.

But there’s also the inward component of Christianity–spiritual disciplines. Authors like Richard Foster, Eugene Peterson, and Henri Nouwen have greatly underscored the importance of living a spiritually disciplined life. St John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and others show us how to develop our interior life. Jesus spent nights alone in prayer with his father, and he teaches us that intimacy with God must be nourished and maintained. This is one of the reasons I included a spiritual discipline in each chapter. Spiritual disciplines help us live intentional lives. They refine us and reform us. They create within us a hunger that can be satisfied only by God.

But there’s also an outward component to Christianity. Being Christ to the world. Living in sacred community. Reaching out to others. Now it’s easy, when living out a social gospel, to forget the gospel part. All social and no gospel is not what Jesus demonstrated. It’s not what Paul or James taught. We must have the gospel in our social efforts, lest our endeavors become only humanitarian. Jesus healed the soul through the body. He met spiritual needs through physical measures. He was concerned with both–the body and the soul.

Catatonic Christianity is when Christians see a need and do not respond. It’s been a problem in many Christian traditions, not least some of the monastic traditions that separated themselves from the world without really engaging it. It’s great to see a new generation of Christians taking seriously Christ’s command to feed the hungry and clothe the naked–to be the light of God in a dark and dying world.

Each one of the three components of the Christian faith–the upward, inward, and outward–feeds off the other. And together they contribute to a Christianity that is as relevant as it is edifying.

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