I guess the theory is pretty simple, you find a set of beliefs or principles that you feel comfortable with and can be guided by. Sure, some of them are challenging but they’re all coming from a good place and the general idea is for you to be a better person, right? So yeah, who would argue that it’s a bad idea to not steal, not lie, not commit murder and so on? It’s a good thing to treat others as you’d like to be treated and there’s real nobility in the idea of turning the other cheek, isn’t there?

So the idea is that if you hold to these beliefs, this faith, that your life will then be transformed in such an amazing and captivating way that everyone around you will immediately notice the difference in you. Not only will they notice, they will be astounded and better yet, they’ll want to be like that too. They’ll ask you how it happened, they’ll beg to know your secret, won’t they?

But is that really how it works? I mean, the ideas, the principles, the beliefs well they’re still good and noble and pure and whatnot. I think. But there’s a huge difference between believing in these things and living according to them. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’d be ridiculously unfair to expect anybody to be perfect, but how often do we even live up to some of these ideals?

How often instead do we warp and twist the ideals to justify the way that we live? Isn’t it easier to say that we’re ‘working’ on the harder things and to claim that we’re forgiven for our weaknesses? Surely that’s easier than actually trying to live up to the things we say we believe in? And who’s to know the difference really? Nobody can judge us, can they? So why not just pick some things that are easy to do and even easier to identify so that we know who’s on board, who really gets it and then we don’t have to hassle each other with troublesome ideas like giving all our riches to the poor.

For example, what if we mixed faith with politics and then made all sorts of things ‘moral’ issues? That’d be a good way to tell who was in which camp yeah? We could politicise things and then crusade against them, that way nobody would have time to figure out if we were helping the sick or visiting the prisoners, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.

See, if we really worked at it, we could make our faith be transformed to fit our lives. That’d be so much easier than letting our lives be radically transformed. After all, my place is pretty comfortable and I’m thinking about taking a holiday overseas this year. What about you?

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