What You Believe or What You Do?

This morning, I want to share with you a lengthy quote from E. Stanley Jones. Jones was a Methodist missionary to India who wrote several influential books and whose efforts in evangelism were phenomenal and whose methods were far ahead of his time. He also had a keen eye on Christianity as it is practiced as opposed to the description of the Christian faith in the Scripture. This quote is taken from his book on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

“As the Apostles’ Creed now stands you can accept every word of it and leave the essential self untouched. Suppose we had written it in our creeds and had repeated each time with conviction: ‘The Sermon on the Mount and in its way of life, and I intend, God helping me, to embody it.’ What would have happened? I feel sure that if this had been our main emphasis, the history of Christendom would have been different. With emphasis on doctrines which left unaffected our way of life the Christian Church could accept Constantine as its prize convert. And yet Constantine, after this alleged conversion, murdered his conquered colleague and brother-in-law Licinius; sentenced to death his eleven-year-old nephew, killed his eldest son, Crispus; brought about the death of his second wife; took the nails that were supposed to come from the cross of Christ and used one in his war helmet and another on the bridle of his war horse. Yet he was canonized by the Greek Church and his memory celebrated as ‘equal to the apostles.’ He talked and presided at the opening of the Council of Nicea, which was called to frame a creed, and he was hailed as a ‘bishop of bishops.’ Could this have happened if the men who had gathered there had made the Sermon on the Mount an essential part of the Creed. It had no place in it, so Constantine could be at home. What had happened was that the Christian Church had been conquered by a pagan warrior. And the church allowed itself to be thus conquered, for this ideal of Christ did not have possession of its soul. For the same reason, a bishop could kick another to death in the cathedral of Constantinople to prove his orthodoxy, and the Monophysites of Alexander could cry, ‘As thou hast divided, so shalt thou be divided,’ and then proceed to butcher those who believed in the dual nature of Christ in order to prove that the nature of Christ was one and indivisible.” -- E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Mount: a Working Philosophy of Life.

Well, E. Stanley Jones has challenged me. I hope these words are challenging to you as well. What we believe is so important. But what we do with what we believe is even more so.

Comments

[Chris Howlett]

Hadn't heard of Rollins. Thanks for the reference. I definitely want to check out his "Orthodox Heretic."

[Seth]

Thanks for the quote Chris.
Peter Rollins is one that has stimulated my thinking recently along these things, or raised questions at least, about "correct beliefs" versus "believing correctly".