This morning’s cartoon, The Fruitbowl’s Empty, intends to say that belief does not produce fruit. It seems to me that it matters not what people believe, but what they love and what they hate, that produces fruit. People can believe anything, even the most ridiculous, and do good. People can believe anything, even the most orthodox, and do evil.
I know so many people who leave the church, not because of what is believed, but because of the pettiness and judgmentalism of those who believe it. On the other hand, people will join communities or churches regardless of what is believed because they feel loved and cared for. Belief seems unable to guarantee that people will do good.
Truth is important to me. But I sometimes wonder if it would be possible to regard beliefs as a playing field, a place of exploration, experiment and discovery. I’ve come to the conclusion a long time ago that our unity is not in beliefs. Even having the same mind as Christ is about humbling ourselves and pouring ourselves out, not about beliefs.
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David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
“I know so many people who leave the church, not because of what is believed, but because of the pettiness and judgmentalism of those who believe it.” This describes me perfectly. Makes me feel pretty lost though…sheesh.
I think beliefs are really important. I think it IS belief that shapes what we do. However, as the wonderful song by Tree63 puts it: “If we believe but we still do not follow – then maybe we don’t believe”.
Paul constantly appeals to people to change their minds – or change their motives – in order to change their behaviour. Do not live according to the flesh (gk. sarx – and all that comes with that!) but according to the spirit. That is, be driven by the spirit, not by what drove you before. It’s not so much what you do, but WHY are you doing it?
Furthermore, being transformed is a matter of a renewing of the mind i.e. what you really believe. I think the biggest problem is that we don’t really believe what we say they believe! If I allow myself to be genuinely changed by God – to have my life directed by him, and to “put off my old self” while becoming the new creation that God is making me into – then my behaviour will change. No longer am I stuck trying to make my body do things that my mind isn’t dedicated to – I stop “doing what I don’t want to do” as Paul puts it.
I hope I can change, and stop playing at being a follower of Jesus.
Sorry, typo:
*what we say WE believe
Sorry!!
“I know so many people who leave the church, not because of what is believed, but because of the pettiness and judgmentalism of those who believe it.”
That could have been written for me too.
I found out that doctrine is more important to churchgoers than relationships. Once you don’t go along with their program, you are fairly easily dispensed with. Relationships are NOT the most important thing. That’s why I kept going to church-was FOR the relationships. Wasn’t as important to them. They were nice people that I liked, but I came to see their real allegiance. I was disappointed. So I left.
And re fruit, although I’ve met many very nice and sincere people in churches over the years, I have found them to be like all other people-a combination of good and bad traits, common stuff like all humanity. I didn’t particularly notice any fruits of the spirit.
I am in agreement with Lewis: our true beliefs produce the fruit. Frankly, this is a terrifying and convicting notion, for all too often my behavior does not match what I say I believe. But then, this is the point: if our behavior does not match what we say we believe, then we do not believe what we say we believe.
The real wrench in the works is that we cannot directly change our deep beliefs. Can’t be done. We can only change them indirectly, by increasing our understanding, confessing when our behaviors don’t match up, and practicing disciplines that teach our hearts God’s ways. It’s a long, tough process.
Written with wonderful clarity…..a crystal-clear fruit bowl.
I think common values, combatability of culture, having things in common-that type of thing is what brings people together. I think it’s much more about who you socialize well with and your personality than your religious beliefs. I think politics is part of it-similar politics brings people together. Being the same race brings people together.
Your family background-what they value-affects your fruits. I’m assuming we’re talking about the fruits of the spirit here. I think it’s mainly personality. I don’t think Christians have a change in their basic personality traits. If they’re naturally cheerful, joyful, or whatever, that continues. If they tend toward depression, anxiety-that continues.
Has anyone ever seen these fruits of the spirit in a real human being?
I want to clarify-sorry to keep posting so much! My two posts above sound like they contradict each other. I think similar religious doctrine helps hold people together, but they have many other commonalities that are the real things that hold them together.
I think many people quickly come to see that church people are not people with all these warm and fuzzy qualities-they are disappointed to find them to be just regular people.
If you go to church and think “Wow, all these Christians with all this fruit of the spirit in their lives..” Yeah, right!
I think that the kind of believing that God asks us to do is trusting in him not just believing facts about him. I kind of see this to be like sitting on a chair. If I trust in the chair, that it will hold me, I will put my full weight on it. Then I get to rest.
That kind of trust does produce fruit like in Jeremiah 17
7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
I think everyone is more-or-less saying the same kind of thing.
The problem comes when we realise that, in many instances, we can’t choose what we believe. I can SAY I believe something, but that makes no difference whatsoever to whether I actually DO believe it.
Like telling an atheist to “just believe” in God. Of course, they could go to church every week, take communion, place their warm hand on a bible and declare they believe every letter of it, even pastor the church – but that doesn’t mean they actually believe it.
It seems to me that, in order to be “transformed”, we have to trust God. That, I can choose to do. Truth is though, my experience tells me that it’s not that easy.
It’s never about “doing things”. As Paul concludes in his wonderful chapter on love in the letter to the Corinthians, without love all my actions are worth nothing (even if that includes giving all I have to the poor and surrendering my life…)
In other words….New wine doesn’t guarantee new wineskins
I agree with Ruth. In the New Testament, the Greek pistis is usually translated “faith”, which in modern English we usually understand as meaning “belief” – but in modern English, “trust” would be a better equivalent for pistis. Trusting in God does bear fruit, because it frees us to act better. Belief in the sense of assenting to propositions can be very sterile.
Amen brother.
Challenging statement. Maybe the issue isn’t about the “beliefs we’ve always held,” but more about the “meta-beliefs”–the beliefs about the beliefs.
And to faithlessinfatima, I think (“I believe” ; ) ) the converse is also true:
New wineskins don’t guarantee new wine.
I have been thinking about this lately and figure that believeing and doing are co-dependant with one another. The belief about Jesus comes first but then surely it is outworked in love to other people to become a complete expression, as James describes in the New Testament?
@Lewis, sort of,
It is true, in many instances we can’t choose what we believe. But, the whole process of education is grounded on placing, and then modifying, or in some cases replacing beliefs. A scientist can choose to belief in one theory, but there have been recorded instances of scientists changing their mind or their belief once stronger evidence is uncovered. A theologian can believe in a wrathful God that wages a war of good and evil but then completely abandon such an idea as hell because it is not consistent with an all-loving God.
I would venture to say that choosing what we believe is still very alive and active. Indeed it is in some cases too active because it allows us to deny or ignore certain things and feel justified in NOT changing. Hence we are allowed to believe in something but act inconsistently with that belief (as you already point out).
As far as Paul goes, well I’m a bit of a critic of the guy, although I admit this is a slightly groundless prejudice of my own (easy on me please, I’m working on my beliefs too, all right
)
I disagree with him in that “without love all my actions are worth nothing”. From the perspective of the poor that I “give all I have” to, is the gesture worth nothing? From the perspective of the patient in need of blood or the people I save while ’surrendering my life’, is the action worth nothing?
The behaviour itself IS the most important thing, not the intention or belief or the trust involved that it will be taken in a good way. And I say this because the behaviour itself IS the love. This is the only interpretation of Paul I could come to an understanding of — the action I take cannot even be backed by a belief or trust or feeling or intention of love, it has to be love itself, or it is worth nothing.
To paraphrase NP (well, more like put words in his blog): Belief seems sometimes UNNECESSARY to get people to do good.
I love this: But I sometimes wonder if it would be possible to regard beliefs as a playing field, a place of exploration, experiment and discovery.
I think it’s true that people leave the church over pettiness and judgmentalism. I left 10 years ago, but it wasn’t over pettiness. I still felt the church was an absolutely vital place for people. I think my biggest issue was that such a big wedge had developed between the progressive and conservative churches after the bombing of the World Trade Center that there was no space in between. I had already started making a heavy inquiry into Christianity the year before, and what I think I needed most was just time to figure out what I believed, minus the demands of everyone else telling me what I should believe (progressive or conservative). I was heavily invested in the beliefs of others and didn’t fully realize it. Beliefs were serious, serious stuff! Not a playing field.
What I think the break from church really turned out to be was a sort of unlearning which I suppose will be ongoing! There is always another onion layer that gets exposed once one is peeled. But I feel much more comfortable hanging out with people and their beliefs now because I’m not so heavily invested in them anymore. It just doesn’t seem so serious anymore. But it took a good 10 years before I genuinely felt that it was OK just to play!! Still working on that!