Active Versus Passive Christianity

At Easter, Christians celebrate the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ—the culminating expressions of the compassionate and creative power of God in the exemplary life of Jesus. Arguably, at least from a theological perspective, Easter is more important than Christmas. Easter ultimately realizes that which Christmas originally envisions. But too many of us, too often, celebrate the realization of Christian vision with passive interpretations that weaken or altogether undermine the real practical power of our faith.

To illustrate, I list in the table below several important Christian concepts. Each is followed by two additional columns. The first provides a passive interpretation of the concept, as is too commonly imagined by nominal faith. The second provides an active interpretation of the concept, that provokes the power of real faith.

Before sharing the list, I want to emphasize that I don’t consider these interpretations, either the passive or the active, to be the only such interpretations of Christianity. There are many others, quite as common or as genuine, that I could include to illustrate both approaches to interpretation. These are only examples.

The apostle Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” And in case that isn’t enough, he continues, “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” This is, he concludes, how “God has chosen to make known … the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

This isn’t passive faith. Neither is it a rejection of grace. Rather, it’s a recognition of grace in the power of possibility that transcends anything we can do alone. Paul’s faith rejects passive interpretations of Christ that could become excuses for inaction.

Like Paul, we can have a practical and bold faith in Jesus Christ. We can actually trust in and work toward consoling the sad, healing the sick, and even raising the dead, as he repeatedly exemplifies and invites. If we take Jesus seriously, atonement and resurrection aren’t just miraculous events that we commemorate once a year. They’re mandates that would prophetically provoke us to engage in real work with real means afforded by real grace to overcome suffering and death, for eternal life that is as real as light and as warm as love.

This Easter, I hope we choose the active interpretation. Not because the passive is always wrong, but because it’s almost always insufficient. The full power of Christianity has never been in merely believing in Jesus. It’s always been in trusting his invitation to participate in Christ, in courageously becoming compassionate creators who work together to transform our world into something worth saving.

Syndicated from Lincoln Cannon.