• In the 20th Century the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann famously (or infamously) called for the “demythologizing” of the New Testament. By this he meant we ought to get rid of Scriptural accounts that modern readers found difficult to accept. His argument was that although 1st century readers might accept a worldview that included heaven and hell, a virgin birth, miracles, and resurrection, modern people no longer believed in such things and would continue to reject the “faith” until we got rid of them.
• As odd as Bultmann’s program sounds — creating a “belief” system that doesn’t require believing anything — there are seeds of it in all of us. Following Christ can be made so much easier if we reduce it to a battle of worldviews: our set of cultural principles against theirs; or an ethical system: do this don’t do that; or a theological system: believe this don’t believe that. In other words, following Christ is easier if we just take the person of Christ himself out of the equation, so the faith becomes a program, a system of thought, a system of behavior. Whatever we end up with is tidy, static, and under our control. It’s parallel to, if not the same as, Bultmann’s program.
• I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is the way most Christians live. I suspect we meet relatively few people who are walking through life in the presence and care of a living Being who “daily bears our burdens” Ps 68:19. After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples and a handful of others went back to Jerusalem. “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14). The question was what to do next. The answer was, in essence, “I don’t know, why don’t we ask Him?”
• Pew research shows that slightly more than half of Christians in the U.S. say that “praying regularly is an essential part of their Christian identity.” What that reveals is about half of those who self-identify as Christians have no real concept of living in the presence of God, believing in his daily, supernatural intervention in human affairs, trusting in him, casting their cares upon him. Rather, they have bought into a pattern of thought or (depending on their churches) a bunch of programs that satisfy felt needs. It’s much more like joining the “Y” than John’s prayer on Patmos: “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”
• At rock bottom, Bultmann was a materialist who couldn’t believe in a living, supernatural God. There are plenty of people in churches following Bultmann. Encourage one another in genuine faith. How can we grow in this? He’s alive and he’s here; let’s ask him.