What is Our Christianity

It may seem an odd question to ask, but what is our Christianity? I am not speaking here of institutional methodology. Before that question lies this more important question of fundamentals. On the one hand as Christians we are individual: faith is between me and God. Justification is singular since the time of the Jews. Yet, we are called to come together and somehow to interact with other individuals. Here is the institution. There seem to be two important junctures in this process. The first is the tenets of our individual belief with God. Before anything else comes what we believe and here is where I either am or am not a Christian. Even if we choose Christianity, however, the question is not finished. Now comes that messy institutional question: how should I relate to other self-proclaimed individual Christians. What is my relationship to others who wish to, and freely can, take the name of Christian?

The second question, of how I relate to other questions, is colored completely by the first. As much as we would all strive to see a unified body, as long as people answer question one differently there will be no unity. How, therefore, do we achieve a body in a fragmented implementation of the message of the New Testament? Is not the ultimate position to reduce ourselves back down to individuals standing before the Almighty God? Yet we have rejected this position. And we have simultaneously rejected the possibility of unity. What option is left?

The option is the mishmash we have before us: the Christian smorgasbord of variety, a flavor for every desire; if taken to its extreme we are back to complete individuality. But can we bend ourselves to the will of the collective desire of the Church? What even is the collective desire of the Church? One, I suppose, could argue that it is the institutional structure. For Catholics this would be there Pope and the hierarchy -- bending one’s will to meet the needs of the Church. Yet the Church, even the Catholic Church, changes position. So even here, how should one ‘lobby’ the Church? If one looses the lobby what does this mean?

One solution to this issue is to accept every individual as is. This would be our postmodern brethren in some respects. Nobody can find consensus so every individual can mush together what helps him. Of course, then what defines Christianity? If it is everything, then it is nothing. So we must impose structure at some level as Christians. There are some things we agree upon that are “Christian” and others which are “non-Christian.” Of course, who exactly is ‘we’? And by defining ‘we’ have we not defined ourselves?

For every “externally focused” outward looking Church the world is filled with pre-Christians and we are attempting to lasso them into ourselves. We have started to do this quite well. In the process we have lost who we are. We have left behind what defines us and ties us together! Christians should gather together for the purpose of Christianity. Not for any other purpose. Then, as one becomes a Christian he will become part of our dysfunctional body. But at least we will know what that body is. This is not a smorgasbord. As much as I want others to become part of my family, they have to be willing to be adopted. They have to accept what it means to be ‘us.’

And I think it is in this process whereby people accept certain tenets that allow them to enter our extended Christian family. It will define who we are, even while others attempt to deconstruct us. If deconstructed we will be atomized! Left wandering in the desert, only this time, alone. As wrong as our structures can get, we need them. And the structures require us. Within that interaction is what it means to be Christian.