"Believe" vs "Belove"
So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.'" ~Mark 7:5-7
Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers. ~ 1 Timothy 4:15-16
One concept that keeps coming up for me throughout this year is the idea of orthopraxy vs orthodoxy. Simply put, it's about "right action" versus "right belief". It seems to me that Christianity, more than any other religion that I know about, puts more emphasis on its adherents accepting certain concepts on an intellectual level. I may be oversimplifying, but it seems to me that the other two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Islam, are much more focused on doing the right things than believing in the right things. Most especially in evangelical Christianity, there is an emphasis on the idea that you don't have to do anything to be saved, you just have to "believe in the Lord Jesus". So what does that mean exactly?
I think in our modern minds, to "believe" means to accept something as intellectually true. According to this definition, that means that we need to look at statements such as the Nicene Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty... etc" and ask ourselves, "do I accept this as a true statement?" One of the most exhausting things in Christian history is our history of fighting with each other over points of doctrine, like which words in the creeds should or shouldn't be there. Some people believed - accepted intellectually based on philosophical and theological speculation - that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son" whereas others believed the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. And boom, there you have one of the earliest schisms in the church, over three words in a creed.
But what if "belief" was about something other than intellectual acceptance? This is something that I explored in the conclusion to my senior thesis earlier this year. I read an amazing essay which was taken from a book called Christianity After Religion by Diana Butler Bass, and I used this particular quotation in my thesis:
…in early English, to “believe” was to “belove” something or someone as an act of trust or loyalty. Belief was not an intellectual opinion… In previous centuries, belief had nothing to do with one’s weighing of evidence or intellectual choice. Belief was not a doctrinal test. Instead, belief was more like a marriage vow – “I do” as a pledge of faithfulness and loving service to and with the other. Indeed, in early English usage, you could not hold, claim, or possess a belief about God, but you could cherish, love, trust in, or devote yourself to God.
When thinking about the word "believe" in this way, what you're saying when you believe in Jesus is that you are pledging yourself to follow in his footsteps because you love and trust in him. In this approach, you don't have to have it all figured out before you decide to follow. The apostles certainly didn't, but they still dropped everything they had to follow Jesus. They couldn't wrap their minds around what was going on, but their hearts were captured and they knew they couldn't NOT follow him from that point on. Mary didn't have it all figured out when she said "yes" to God either. She did a lot of pondering after the fact, but in the moment of the Annunciation, she didn't spend a lot of time worrying about the particulars before she said "be it unto me according to your word." The "belief" of the earliest followers of Jesus was more like "belove".
I understand the tendency to want to have something all figured out before you try actually doing it. I'm an overthinker, so I feel this impulse myself. We don't want to get it "wrong". But how can we "get it wrong" in choosing to follow God's will? One way is to spend a lot of time debating minutae about it so that we don't get around to actually doing it.
I've mentioned this quote before, by C.S. Lewis, "Theology is simply the part of religion that requires brains." I love learning it and talking about it. But if, in doing so, I ignore a person in need right in front of me, I'm not following Jesus. Another quote, which has been attributed to various people is "our lives may be the only Scripture some people ever read." If we are seen following Christ in our actions, I think it will be much more likely that people will see that and want to know more.
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.'" ~Mark 7:5-7
Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers. ~ 1 Timothy 4:15-16
One concept that keeps coming up for me throughout this year is the idea of orthopraxy vs orthodoxy. Simply put, it's about "right action" versus "right belief". It seems to me that Christianity, more than any other religion that I know about, puts more emphasis on its adherents accepting certain concepts on an intellectual level. I may be oversimplifying, but it seems to me that the other two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Islam, are much more focused on doing the right things than believing in the right things. Most especially in evangelical Christianity, there is an emphasis on the idea that you don't have to do anything to be saved, you just have to "believe in the Lord Jesus". So what does that mean exactly?
I think in our modern minds, to "believe" means to accept something as intellectually true. According to this definition, that means that we need to look at statements such as the Nicene Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty... etc" and ask ourselves, "do I accept this as a true statement?" One of the most exhausting things in Christian history is our history of fighting with each other over points of doctrine, like which words in the creeds should or shouldn't be there. Some people believed - accepted intellectually based on philosophical and theological speculation - that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son" whereas others believed the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. And boom, there you have one of the earliest schisms in the church, over three words in a creed.
But what if "belief" was about something other than intellectual acceptance? This is something that I explored in the conclusion to my senior thesis earlier this year. I read an amazing essay which was taken from a book called Christianity After Religion by Diana Butler Bass, and I used this particular quotation in my thesis:
…in early English, to “believe” was to “belove” something or someone as an act of trust or loyalty. Belief was not an intellectual opinion… In previous centuries, belief had nothing to do with one’s weighing of evidence or intellectual choice. Belief was not a doctrinal test. Instead, belief was more like a marriage vow – “I do” as a pledge of faithfulness and loving service to and with the other. Indeed, in early English usage, you could not hold, claim, or possess a belief about God, but you could cherish, love, trust in, or devote yourself to God.
detail from orthodox icon of the descent of the Holy Spirit
When thinking about the word "believe" in this way, what you're saying when you believe in Jesus is that you are pledging yourself to follow in his footsteps because you love and trust in him. In this approach, you don't have to have it all figured out before you decide to follow. The apostles certainly didn't, but they still dropped everything they had to follow Jesus. They couldn't wrap their minds around what was going on, but their hearts were captured and they knew they couldn't NOT follow him from that point on. Mary didn't have it all figured out when she said "yes" to God either. She did a lot of pondering after the fact, but in the moment of the Annunciation, she didn't spend a lot of time worrying about the particulars before she said "be it unto me according to your word." The "belief" of the earliest followers of Jesus was more like "belove".
I understand the tendency to want to have something all figured out before you try actually doing it. I'm an overthinker, so I feel this impulse myself. We don't want to get it "wrong". But how can we "get it wrong" in choosing to follow God's will? One way is to spend a lot of time debating minutae about it so that we don't get around to actually doing it.
I've mentioned this quote before, by C.S. Lewis, "Theology is simply the part of religion that requires brains." I love learning it and talking about it. But if, in doing so, I ignore a person in need right in front of me, I'm not following Jesus. Another quote, which has been attributed to various people is "our lives may be the only Scripture some people ever read." If we are seen following Christ in our actions, I think it will be much more likely that people will see that and want to know more.
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