Faith as a Value base

Walk the talk

If you have read other entries on this blog, you will probably already becoming aware that I am a bit suspicious of ideology.  What I mean by ideology is the arrogant assumption that the way you see the world is the way the world is, and the way you see God is the way God is.

I love these Lyrics from “Stand Up Comedy” from U2′s album “No line on the horizon”:

I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I’m getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady

I wonder whether that might be a good definition of fundamentalism: People who have lost sight of hope, faith and love and instead, certain of their view of the world, are busy helping God do his work like he is some powerless little old lady.

I contrast that picture with the picture of Wisdom presented in Proverbs 8:32-36 (MSG):

“So, my dear friends, listen carefully;
those who embrace these my ways are most blessed.
Mark a life of discipline and live wisely;
don’t squander your precious life.
Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me,
awake and ready for me each morning,
alert and responsive as I start my day’s work.
When you find me, you find life, real life,
to say nothing of God’s good pleasure.
But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul;
when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.”

For the Hebrew people Wisdom most literally meant, “Seeing the world through God’s eyes”, and in this passage we see wisdom indicating that life comes through discipline.. through making choices not just thinking about things.

One of the most precious part’s of Fusion’s training is a thing we call “Revolutionary Values”. It is probably the most simple part of our training. We take a subject and look at all the bible verses we can find about that subject, and then ask “How would my life change if I took these verses seriously?”. In my view that is the revolutionary question of faith, that transforms ideology into a value base and Character.

Some of the topics we look at are things like:

• Encouragement
• Feedback
• Forgiveness and Grace
• Getting to know the Holy Spirit
• Giving
• Hospitality
• Humility
• Love and Sexuality
• Speech
• Money
• Prayer
• Self Control
• Separation and Holiness
• Suffering
• Sabbath
• the Word of life

What I love about topics like these is that you can never “have it together”; these topics will continually challenge you at whatever point of life you are at, and if they don’t, well, “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady”.