Rimshots #21 “Christianity Untried”

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.” G. K. Chesterton in What’s Wrong with the World.

That is a bold statement. If true and I think it is, where does the fault lie? Is it with the professed Christian who only takes from the Christian message what they like and then complains that it doesn’t produce the nirvana they had hoped for. Or does it lie with the those who promulgate the message? After all, when someone tells you to live like a King’s Kid and health and prosperity are just a belief away, what can one expect when the only ones seeming to be prosperous are those preaching the messages and raking in the offerings?

This is not to say that God in Christ does not bring joy into one’s life or that followers of Jesus are not sometimes prosperous and healthy. They are and they have God to thank for it. But, God does not guarantee a calm passage, only a safe landing and while he does heal and owns the cattle on a thousand hills, it is by his choice and within his plan how those gifts are given. They are not our rights but God’s gifts.

In the end, what has been left untried is a complete commitment to Jesus Christ by more than a few people at any one time and in any one place. Like a nuclear explosion, it has seldom reached critical mass. However, those who have tried it with all their being have never found it wanting. Not by a long shot.