Is My Religion a Relic?

Ya, Ya, I realize that some headlines are intended to startle as much as they to inform. The other morning, I read several on the suspicious social media front page, which did both. One announced that religion doesn’t lead to a healthier society.  Another headlining the “fact” that prayer doesn’t heal the sick.  The last read that the North Korean Christians face execution, constantly.  While the first two headlines piqued my interest, the actual claims themselves didn't hold their intention of shock; only a bit of mere intrigue. In my opinion, whatever a scientific study can say about prayer, it usually says more about the formula it is trying to measure and very little about the God before whom, I, the prayerful stand. Likewise, there are many things that can be said about healthy societies and the impact of religion, but it was Jesus who perhaps said it best: in Luke 5: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” 

On the other hand, the last headline actually did startle me, as the article continued what the title began: “To be Christian in North Korea is really seen as treason against their whole political system—a system built to deify the leader.” Thus, the current regime “has a history of persecuting believers in the most savage of ways, including public execution.” I thought, wouldn't such an article startle anyone who is at ease in any belief to reflection. I’m asking myself; how sacred is the faith of one who is willing to face execution for it? How treasured is the Bible that must be buried in the backyard for protection? And why is it so easy from my place of comfort to forget those who are persecuted even when the rule of faith I follow is supposedly the same?

For the early persecuted church, the Rule of Faith, or regula fidei, was the essential message, the fixed gospel through which they saw the world. It was the foundation that set the Christian apart and often put them in danger: profession of one God, salvation in Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was also the foundation on which they stood when all else was stripped away. In the life of a confessing Christian, the Rule of Faith was seen as the normative compendium, the communal account of the story that held the individual through daily trials and united them with the believing community. The Rule was not a rival of the Scriptures; on the contrary, it was the worldview that emerged from Scripture, but also the worldview with which they approached the Scriptures, their lives, communities, and afflictions.

I realize that when I was young, even in my fifties, I was averse to rules and intent on independence, but now, in my seventy fourth year, am I so quick to deem the regula fidei a relic—and hence an irrelevancy—of the early church? Apparently to men and women persecuted in North Korea, the regula fidei, is at the very heart of the Story for which they suffer and the rule by which they live. To them I owe the startling reminder: I am not an island of spiritual autonomy, but a pilgrim who thinks, lives, and serves with the truth and power of a thoughtful chorus.

What’s wrong with my thinking along this line of reasoning?  I know in my head that to be Christian is to follow God’s Way in the world, a Way that compels me to move along with it. For some this will mean persecution, even martyrdom; for me, it seems to mean laboring to avoid becoming at ease in Zion, moving to the beat of a drum that may take me where I don’t want to go.  But movement forward will require; as recorded in the gospels of Mark 15 and Luke 23: “As they led [Jesus] away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha which means the place of a skull.”

Father, God, Thank You for showing me that the regula fidei is the heart of a startling story, a story that has turned the world and my thinking, both, on their heads and empowers a different kingdom.  Thank You for Your help in my realization that it is something quite like Your heart, which brings rhythm to my chaotic mind up into my personal mission.

Amen