But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
Bob Dylan

I was so much older then. When I was young.
Eric Burdon and The Animals

Well, this is not really going to be a reflection on growing younger as one grows older, though I like both of these songs. I do want to reflect on an interesting shift in my mind, and I think in the minds of others, over time, about Christian faith and life. If I were to give these remarks a title, I would call them “The Pendulum of Practice.”

When I was younger, in my teenage years, just after a fairly dramatic religious experience within Christian faith, I thought and felt that the essence of being a Christian was experiential. I thought that the essence of being a Christian had to do with what one thought and how one felt. Yes, there were things to do in being a Christian. At the time the list had to do with reading the Bible, praying, worshipping with others, sharing my faith, avoiding some obvious sins, and doing good (though this could be a little vague). While these were important, they were in some sense secondary to the experiential. I even looked down on those whose idea of being a Christian was primarily focused on attending church and being a good person. I would have said they were missing something essential, were possibly not even genuine Christians. In some ways, I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. (Of course these songs use “younger” as metaphor for more open-minded, and “older” as a metaphor for being more close-minded and resistant to change – I think I’ve probably changed my mind about the appropriateness of those metaphors, too!)

I don’t think I was alone in privileging thought and experience over practice. When I went to seminary, the kinds of things I was reading seemed more focused on thought and experience than on practices and disciplines. To be a Christian was to grapple with certain ideas, to have one’s frame of reference for life be determined by the language of Christian Scripture and Christian faith. There was a sense that to be a Christian meant having one’s life shaped and formed in certain ways, but the shaping and forming had to do with letting one’s mind and imagination lead one’s living.

More recently in my life, the pendulum has swung. Practices matter. One’s life is formed not simply by exercises in thinking differently, but by practices and disciplines. I look much more favorably on the day to day practices of Christian living – Bible reading, prayer, worshipping in community, intentional acts of compassion and justice, authentically sharing one’s faith. Some might argue that as a clergy person, of course this shift makes sense. I want people to attend church, and so my definition of being Christian is more favorable toward church attendance. Sure, I like to see people in church, but there are deeper reasons for this pendulum swing in my thinking.

Over time, I have arrived at a richer and more complex understanding of the human person and the formation of a life. Yes, our thinking is important, our imagination matters, but there is not a simple one-way street between thought and action. We don’t simply think something then do it. What we do also forms our lives and shapes our character. I have arrived at this place through a deeper understanding of psychology, philosophy, ethics and religious traditions. Across religions, practices are an essential part of those traditions, and one has to take that seriously. Buddhism, for example, is not just a way of looking at the world, but involves moral and meditative practices. One can study its ideas, but one only gets so far in understanding Buddhism that way. To understand it more adequately is to see the importance of practice. The same holds true for Christians. I see this richer understanding of Christian faith, life and practice reflected more adequately in more recent writings in theology and ethics and church life. The pendulum has swung not just for me.

Now the pendulum has not swung completely to the place where I see Christianity as only a series of practices. It is a way of thinking, feeling, and practicing that forms a life. And the formation of life is in a certain direction – the direction of love. In one place Paul writes, “let all that you do be done in love” (I Corinthians 16:14). Of course, this formation of a life in love is a response to the God who we claim first loved us. If one’s Bible reading and church going and good-deed doing, don’t also form a person in love, something is missing. The experiential dimension remains important. But the answer to such a dilemma in our lives is not simply to go off and have some experience (though that can happen) it is often to continue the practices and seek some new ways to understand them, deepen them, combine them.

I love the old joke about the visitor to New York city who asks a local policeman, “How can I get to Carnegie Hall?” The policeman responds, “Practice, practice, practice.” I have come to see that as an important way to think about the Christian life.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David