Ninth Post - Lent 2017 with C. S. Lewis (Membership)

"No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as "what a man does with his solitude." It was the Wesleys, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life - that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual's hour of leisure - is at once paradoxical, dangerous, and natural"
- C. S. Lewis, "Membership"

Having finished Lewis's address "The Weight of Glory" I now turn to another of his addresses in the book (just for the record the volume I am using is "The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses" which you can find here). Here Lewis takes me into the realm of being a public Christian. 

I'm not going to go into Lewis' second paragraph directly, if you want to know his full argument you can grab a copy of the book from the link provided or you can find it online. Instead I am going to just provide my thoughts on the idea of one's religious as a private affair. Honestly, I have never understood this. For the Christian that idea is no where found in the New Testament. Hebrews 10:24, 25 is very clear, we are to gather together to encourage one another ever onward in showing love and doing good deeds. At a minimum our religion is public in that we are supposed to gather together publicly. Nowhere are we told to go off into our secret space to worship God. After all, if you can't bother to gather together to worship God with God's children, how are you ever going to be able to spend eternity with them?!

But that one is pretty easy. Most people have absolutely no problem with people being public Christians a couple of hours on Sunday (or Saturday depending on your beliefs). But what about the rest of the week? Here is where I find being a solitary Christian completely incomprehensible and I will expand my thoughts to pretty much any religion. It boils down to this... if your religion isn't part of your life, impacting the way you think and the way you act, what good is it? Writing these works I am immediately drawn to James 2:14 - 20 where I am told that belief isn't enough to be well-rounded, that if it doesn't influence our actions and demonstrate that our beliefs point to a better way of life then it is ineffective (or as the KJV puts it, "dead"). But here is where it gets touchy. If we are going to act in the public sphere as a Christian we damned better be sure we know what we do is aligned with what it means to be a Christian. Unfortunately people cloak their own prejudices with the veneer of a "higher purpose" to try to make it easier to swallow. They often forget passages like Ephesians 4:29:

" Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Even stronger is Psalms 17:27 - 28:

" The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,and discerning if they hold their tongues."

I am a Christian 24 hours a day, even days a week. I am a Christian at church, at home, at work, when with friends and with enemies. I cannot be a solitary practitioner nor can I be a private practitioner, but I can be a thoughtful practitioner of the faith I follow... well, in the faith that draws me closer to the One who loves with with an endless love. How can I do anything less?