The framework of worldview

Any idea or concept can only make sense or “works” within the culture/context/worldview in which it is conceived or fabricated.  Of course, a “foreign” idea will most likely be irrational, ridiculous or just “stupid” outside of its home worldview. So, it should come as no surprise that the world will “hate”, “find irrational” or reject the ideas, concepts and practices of the Christian worldview, as these things are completely foreign to worldly thinking.

But this does not necessarily mean that truth cannot be found outside of the Christian worldview.  Because people are almost always inconsistent within their embraced beliefs or practices, they will, inevitably believe or practice something that actually originates from within Christianity, as all men are made in the image of God and therefore will, in some senses, be drawn toward truth.

Those things, of which people are personally concerned, they will remain concerned with, even after becoming a Christian. The content stays the same, but the framework changes.  The form of the concern may change and the answer for the concern may change, but the concern remains.

But this does not take into account the problem of inconsistency.  Because no one is ever perfectly consistent in their beliefs, one may embrace a belief or practice that is inconsistent with their own stated beliefs, simply because they have not thought through the foundations or implications of such a belief.  This is why it is so important to ask questions.  If there is a belief or practice within the framework of your beliefs (Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox, Roman Catholic or otherwise), that you don't understand or doesn't seem to make sense, ask the question.  It very well could be that you have uncovered an inconsistency within  that system or within yourself.  Find the answer and adjust your beliefs accordingly.

On a personal note, I have found that the beliefs and practices of Eastern Orthodoxy is the only system that can stand under any and all scrutiny.

Sacrifice

One can come to understand what is important in someone’s life by observing the sacrifices that they make. This is similar to the act of observing how one spends one’s time and one’s money but it is looking from the reverse perspective. We can look at the stellar successes of many people and cannot but feel envy (to some degree, not necessarily sinful) for that success. But we must understand that someone made great sacrifices, some of them simply wrong to make, in order to gain that success. Whether they be moral sacrifices, financial sacrifices, or otherwise, sacrifices were made.

The question is, what sacrifices should we be willing to make to achieve our goals? Do we sacrifice our conscience? Do we sacrifice the other-centeredness to which we, as Christians, are called? Do we neglect the health of our souls? Do we neglect or ignore eternity to make gains in the here and now? Do we think that we can squeak by on almost borderline morality?
One can speak of narcissism here or Machiavellianism or just simply selfishness, but these are really all just fancy terms for self-centeredness. It is so important and so valuable, I believe to try to always approach a thought, an idea, a situation, anything really, into which we make contact, from an objective, non-emotional perspective, at least to start.  If we can step away from the "fun", "fulfillment:" or "satisfaction" that great wealth can bring, and look at the price paid for achieving that level of financial gain, we will usually see that the price paid was too high.  Too many sacrifices were made, usually at someone else's expense. It is when we can think of success in this framework that we will begin to have a balanced view of the entire picture.
Sure it may be temporally satisfying, but at what price?

Missteps along the way

My thinking has been going along these lines.  Step one, Jesus taught the disciples how to live a life that is faithful to man’s original created state, love of God and love of neighbor.  Step two, the disciples/apostles took this faith and began to spread it around the known world, for the next fifty years or so, establishing churches and teaching the new followers of Jesus, what he taught them. This teaching was written down, in what we know to be the epistles.  

Step three, that which the apostles taught continued to transmitted, orally and in written form.  As the centuries progressed, dogma was clarified and explored, for further depth and further understanding.  Those directions taken, that did not follow the apostolic teaching, was identified and rejected. One example of this is seen in the various ecumenical councils of the 4th through 8th centuries.  The church was not creating doctrine, but clarifying what the church had always believed.

So what happened next?

Somehow we moved from an authoritative yet organic church life to what we see today.  A fragmented, broken and schismatic collection of people calling themselves “Christians” yet varying drastically from one another.  They cannot all be right. Only one can be right or they can all be wrong.

What is the right response to our current socio-theological state?  There is only one body of Christ. How can there be three (or four depending on how finely you define it) branches of Christianity?  How can there be thousands of denominations within one or two of those branches? It seems to me that at some point, a definitive definition of Christianity must be formulated that clearly identifies what defines Christianity.  The end result will be that one of these branches will take that title and the remainder will need to choose something else.

Let’s call a spade a spade.

Biased pursuit of truth

  We look for answers to the questions we have.  We look where we think we will find. But it seems that we don’t even know how to ask the right questions.  It’s easy to claim to understand and embrace the platitudes of faith, but do we really? Does anyone live the platitudes, or are they just like us, trying to live out what only seems like a platitude?

    We cannot even know what others are thinking or living, because all are either simply trying to live out the structure of a faith that they might not even understand.  Or they may be lying about what they really are.

But then again, we very well too may be lying, even to ourselves.  The first step to resolving this, at least in our own thinking, is to recognize what we may be doing, give consideration to the observations of others about us and honestly assess these observations.

Boredom

Boredom is a sin, so say the church fathers. This is because when we allow ourselves to become bored, we are saying that we have nothing of value upon which to expend our time and energy. But this is nonsense. The is always something productive to do. There are always prayers to be prayed. There are always sins to confess. There are always neighbors to love. There is always something to learn.
A bored attitude comes from a heart wallowing in and controlled by the passions. It is a heart that needs to be entertained and titillated. Instead, our hearts should be filled to overflowing with love for God and love for our neighbor. When we think of others, rather than ourselves, we will never be bored. When we are striving after holiness, we will always recognize some way of improving our life or the life of someone else.
We must learn to look being our own comfort and entertainment.