Spirituality Column #450
June 30, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

After 30 years away from church, one day I arrived back in church.

And something clicked.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, I became very serious about figuring out why Jesus mattered, because suddenly and unexpectedly He did.

My reaction to the message of Faith, Hope and Love (1 Corinthians 13) being preached that Sunday 14 years ago was quiet tears.  Larger than squishy emotion, larger than wonderful preacher Russ Blowers’ words, was a flame that lit in my soul.

All of a sudden I was a Christian, and what was missing from me at that moment was any knowledge of what that meant.

So, I came back the next week, and the next, took a “new Christian” class, began reading, really reading, the Bible, was baptized, started going to worship on Sunday and Bible study on Wednesday, became more and more involved in prayer, study, reflection, reading and church ministries which continues to this day.

Was I a better person?  No.  We are all sinners, in or out of church.  There are thoughtful people who do good things who do not believe in Christ, and there are pious multitudes of bad eggs nested inside the church doors.  And multi vice versa.  I get it.

But even a sinner can take Christian learning and relationship seriously, and I have.  Along my way, I’ve noticed some often-missed faith-life truths.  For example:

In my Episcopalian youth, I got the “church service” thing but not the relationship-with-Jesus thing.  Standing liturgies (written church services) provide a sureness of conformity and a splendidness of words. But beware not to miss the richness of human creativity and divine relationship one experiences by reading the Bible first-hand and praying personal prayers.

During those 30 non-church years I experienced plenty of “big” things that surely enhanced life’s meaning.  But I missed entirely that the biggest of all “big” things is the Creator God Himself, and that all meaning resides in His creative, redeeming Son Jesus.  The births of our children and great career moments are big, but nothing is as sure, as promising, as glorious, as hopeful or as long-haul significant as Jesus Christ.

And what’s missing from today’s Evangelical church?  There exists little appreciation for church history and scant respect for church traditions the liturgy so ably protects.  Christian history predates Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, the Great Awakenings, the Protestant Reformation and the Great Schism of Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

There exist 2,000 years of depth – of thought, freedom and creativity – that prove to me this Jesus thing is supremely important; that it is life itself.

My prayer is that nobody misses it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) focuses first on the Person of Christ.  Get that, and you’re not going to miss much.

Spirituality Column #311
October 30, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

I am a Jesus-believing sinner at the foot of the Cross who hesitates when marking the “religious preference” box on personal information questionnaires.

“Roman Catholic,” “Orthodox,” “Protestant,” and maybe a blank beside “Other,” typically are the Christian choices.  Rarely – in fact I think never – have I seen a box that simply says “Christian.”   Since “Christian” is all I really want to be, whenever possible I check “Other” and write in “Christian.”  It’s minor mischief that makes me smile.  Here endeth the rebellion.

This is not to disrespect those who check a different box.  I deeply appreciate Christianity’s rich and diverse doctrinal history – John 1:14, Christ on the Cross, Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension, the Pentecost, the Apostles, the Revelation, the church fathers, the canonization of the Bible, the heresies, Rome, Constantinople, Orthodoxy, the Council of Nicaea, the Great Schism, the Reformation, the Great Awakenings, the Evangelical Movement and on up to Humanae Vitae, the modern Popes, televangelism (for better or worse), and contemporary worship.

It is of great intellectual comfort to my own faith knowing that smart, spiritual humans have been thinking, interpreting, praying and writing about Christian doctrine for 2,000 years.  What I encounter on any given day as a Christian, including any given Sunday at worship, may be refreshing, enlightening, and new.  But I know that Christianity is old, that God is eternal, and that Jesus is more than an idea.  Jesus, the person who is also God, is the perfect and complete image of God’s original plan for a Creation that glorifies.

Fallen humans are errantly prone to heap superfluous constructs – i.e., legalisms – upon otherwise simple faith in Christ; faith that should lift us atop God’s foundational glory of love, grace, mercy, freedom, and joy.  Too often that faith becomes buried beneath worldly systems and suffocated by sin, fear, guilt, works, and sadness.

I mourn for churches that sacrifice the truth of the Bible for the weight of tradition, and lament churches that perilously ignore tradition while over-worshipping expedient scripture paraphrases.  I shake my head when churches promote worldly and off-point dogmas of “Jesus as Homeboy” or the “Prosperity Gospel of Me and My Needs.”  The “living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9) created, loves and pursues humanity.  We are to love God, pursue His truth in Christ, and share that truth, that spirit, in love and service, with others.  Christ should be the center of all.

By believing in Christ, I am not burdened with having to believe in anything else.

All I have to do is mark “Christian.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wanted to avoid the timely and tendentious topics of Halloween tomorrow and the election next week.  “Boo” if you must, but absolutely – for Heaven’s sake – vote.