Thursday, April 19, 2012

Academic vs Practical Christianity

Saw this on facebook yesterday

There are too many "how to" books out there. Many of them have a religious flavor. In this instance it is Christian. Wasn't Gary Chapman the guy who wrote some famous book about love languages? It was a best seller.

How useful and practical are these "how to" books. Do we end up just faking and passing it off as the real thing? We humans are great pretenders, often willfully blind and good at lying to ourselves. I am afraid the great religions has fallen into this trap.

The academic approach provides a lot of opportunities for talking about it without practicing. The practical path, you have nothing to talk about unless you practice.

"Walking close to the Lord" typically means religious activities like reading/studying your Bible, prayer, attending worship service, participating in the Holy Communion, I guess showing the seven traits of a loving person too; I think whatever a devout Christian does. The two younger brothers of the SHK properties were described as devout Christians. Now how and what should I make of it?

As far as I can tell, outside Christianity most people can only perceive Christians as nominal or devout. I think this is true of any religion as well.

On the other hand, the lover of God like Mother Teresa just love in the name of the Lord, transcending religion, race and creed.


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