What Kind of Christian

May 2009

by Patricia Lull

We live in an age of verification. Almost daily, I am asked for a password or a PIN number. Recently, to pump gas into my car I had to punch in my zip code. Similar things happen when I call to schedule appointments or order merchandise. You likely can share your own list of both comical and serious inquiries that are meant to verify your identity. We have to prove that we really are who we say we are.

It is much rarer to be asked why we are who we say we are. Why am I the kind of Christian who prays and reads the Bible daily, worships weekly, tithes my money and talent, and sets aside time throughout the year to step back and reflect on my relationship with God? What motivates me to practice my faith in these ways? Those answers are far more complex than the simple four-digit code I use to get cash from an ATM.

Some might think that my habits make me a real Christian, as opposed to a nominal Christian. I find it hard to draw that line and am willing to trust God to know the motives, the experiences, and the challenges that influence the lives of Christians, including some who are seen much less often than I am at Sunday worship. How we live out our faith matters, but determining who is a real Christian and who is not seems to be more God’s business than mine.

God matters

As I write, I think of my seven nieces and nephews, their spouses and partners, their friends, and the many younger adults I know whose lives intrigue me—even if they are not devoted to God in quite the same way I am. You probably know some people like that, too.

I invite you to use this article to start a conversation with the people you care about the most. What do you want your children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, neighbors, and co-workers to know about the shape of your life as a Christian?

Let me tell you why my Christian life has this particular shape. I am ordained. I work at a seminary. Though some might call me “hard core” in my convictions, no one pays me to be a Christian. That’s my baptismal identity, not my occupation. I groan like everyone else when the alarm clock rings early on a Sunday morning. I can think of lots of other ways to spend the time and the money I invest in my congregation. I don’t always find it easy to pray or to take time to read the Bible. But here are the reasons I live my life as I do.

At the deepest level of my being, I believe that God matters. From childhood I have had a deep certainty that there is a God. I was carried to my baptism by parents who wanted my life to be wrapped in the same promise of grace that sustained them. I was surrounded that day and have been surrounded every Sunday since by real people with real faith. I am certain that the weekly practice of gathering with the baptized has changed me more than I know.

It may be that I am gifted with a religious disposition, because I have always been interested in questions about God. I am drawn to discussions of the many ways in which human beings respond to their experience of the holy. I know that not everyone shares that native interest or curiosity. For some, the discovery that God matters can come out of the blue. Those are the dramatic stories of conversion. Being a lifelong Christian may seem a lot less glamorous, but that is where my story begins.

Sunday after Sunday

A few weeks ago a woman in our congregation learned that she was seriously ill. I was as stunned by the news as her family and friends were. She has been in my prayers each morning since I learned of her illness. I do not know her all that well, but I know that the weight of sickness and worry is on her young shoulders. Because we are members of the same community of faith, her struggles concern me, too.

This past Sunday I looked across the aisle where she sat with her family. As she sang the liturgy, her voice joined our common cry for mercy, peace, and healing in the world. If you did not know her, you would not guess how critically ill she is. If you did know her, you would have to wonder what it means for her to hold others in prayer. It was one of those amazing revelations that come from worshiping with the same people Sunday after Sunday. Bearing each other’s burdens isn’t just a concept; it is something I have learned to incorporate into my life.

When I am sad or weary, when my own life is full of grief or discouragement, the community of faith cares for me. I have been carried by the prayers and generosity of others at several critical times in my life. When I am strong and self-assured, the same community invites me to care about more than my own wellbeing. Churches are made up of real people with challenges, flaws, and failings, but I go to worship each week because I don’t know how to be me without being part of the we that is the church.

Some might say that my worship attendance is a habit, and it is. It is a good, life-giving habit that immerses my life in a community of faith that understands the connection between Sunday worship and the rest of the week. If I drive to church with thoughts of work and family swimming in my head, I drive home from church knowing that many of those thoughts have been reframed by the sermon I just heard, or the Lord’s Supper, or the hymns, or the conversation during coffee hour. What happens on Sunday changes how I live the other days of the week.

Witness and wisdom

Over the five decades of my life, the church has helped me think about a variety of issues: war, civil rights, nuclear arms, Jewish-Christian relations, poverty, homelessness, sexuality and gender, global economics, immigration, and environmental concerns. On each of those topics my perspective was shaped—and often reshaped—by listening to the views of others within a community of faith. Lively parish discussions have not replaced my reading and study on such topics, but knowing real Christians with different views has cooled my claim to have the only right answer. It has made me much better at listening to the perspectives of others.

I can say the same about a disciplined reading of the Bible. Often my own thinking has been turned around by a story from Scripture that caused me to look at a situation from another perspective. My heart has been lifted by a verse or a psalm that reassures me of God’s steadfast love for me and this creation. Most importantly, my understanding of the world and what it means to be a human being has been profoundly shaped by the biblical narrative. Why would I expect it to be otherwise? After all, this is God’s word, and coming into daily contact with God’s witness and wisdom is bound to have a discernable effect on my life.

The Christian teaching that most challenges me is Christ’s mandate that we forgive others as we have been forgiven. Forgiveness is hard work. It would not be on my mind so much were I not reminded Sunday by Sunday of God’s grace and mercy toward me. Over the years, I have listened to many stories of disappointment with the behavior of Christians—behavior that falls far short of this commandment.

I don’t deny that the experience of many people has been clouded by church communities driven by a narrow, judgmental spirit. I am simply saying that my experience has been overwhelmingly on the side of receiving grace and forgiveness.

The embrace of faith

Why do I pattern my life on a weekly rhythm of worship, open my heart to the prayers and persuasion of others, and continue the habits of Bible reading and Christian living instilled in me during my childhood now that I am an adult? While I have never belonged to a perfect congregation, I have enjoyed the privilege of belonging to some remarkable communities of faith. Half have been large and half modest in size. All have been led by thoughtful pastors and wise lay leaders, whom I perceived to be people of durable faith and joy. In most, the music and liturgical style have matched my own preferences, but I do not think this kind of Christian witness depends primarily on aesthetic sensibilities. Maybe it is best to say that some of what draws me into being the kind of Christian I am is a mystery even to me.

I began by saying that I have always believed that God matters. If God matters, then some of God’s ways are likely not to be my ways at all. I believe that God has the means to reach out to me through the strange and surprising—as well as the familiar and the common—when it comes to an actual community of faith.

I try to listen carefully to those who tell me why they have stopped attending church or why they seek a kind of churchless Christianity. I understand much of those critiques— weariness with stale language, disappointment with the lack of vibrant preaching, the church’s disengagement from the issues of the day, or simply a longing for a community of people of one’s own generation. All those are reasonable.

Rarely do I hear people lament the lack of transcendence or sacramental mystery as their reason for being loosely connected to a congregation. I wonder if we have come to assume that holiness is no longer a part of churchly life.

It happens that I am a Christian who is a Lutheran. While I could articulate how a Lutheran identity has shaped my experience as a Christian, I suspect that this part of my story is shared by Christians of every sort—and not only in the United States.

If there’s any motivation to add to the ones I have named, it is this: I have been profoundly moved by the Christians I have come to know from other countries and cultures. Whether we share a spoken language or not, we have been able to pray and worship, study and feast together within the embrace of a common faith in Jesus Christ. This communion is a joy I wish for everyone I know. That’s the kind of Christian I am.

Patricia Lull serves as dean of students at Luther Seminary. She is a member of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn., where she volunteers as an affiliated pastor. Her nieces and nephews live in California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. She can be reached at plull@luthersem.edu. She invites you to respond to her article—to tell her why you live out your Christian faith in the way that you do.