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Why Our Spiritual Lives are Important
Anabaptist Faith and Simple Living
Faith or Logic – a Puzzle for
Modern People
Changing our Behavior
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Why Our Spiritual Lives are Important
It is out of the depths of our faith that our motivation, drive, and energy come for living a simpler, richer, and more demanding way of life. Without practicing our faith regularly, it becomes more difficult to sustain it, and in fact we lose the primary reason for embarking on this way of living in the first place.
Anabaptist Faith and Simple Living
Simple living, as it is defined in this website, has its origins in the simplicity of several centuries of Anabaptist faith and life. The Anabaptists (meaning“re-baptizers”) include the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, and Church of the Brethren. Most people know these denominations from their rustic ways of life, which traditionally have not used modern technologies. Although many conservative Anabaptist groups still live as “plain people,” using horses and buggies, etc., many have also become quite acculturated and use many of the bells and whistles of modern life while still striving to live simply in comparison to mainstream culture.
However the rustic nature of conservative Anabaptist communities is deceptive. The point is not to preserve a picturesque old-fashioned lifestyle or to be closer to nature, or even to live green. Rather it is about being humble, not being driven by our egos or consumer culture, and instead caring for and loving our families, communities, and other people above all else. God directs us not to worry about or pursue the accumulation of money and stuff, because pursuing it distracts us from our real reason for existence – caring for others and for what God has given us. This is the historic spiritual heart of simple living.
If the real driver of simplicity is faith, then it has to be nourished so that our daily lives have direction, energy and commitment. This is true for all of us regardless of our denominational background. It is tremendously helpful to regularly remove ourselves from the frenetic, frantic commercial world in order to deepen our relationship with God, to know who we are, to know whose we are, and where we are going.
Faith or Logic – a Puzzle for Modern People
There are many secular organizations and movements that advocate for simple living, sustainable living, green living, social justice, and other related causes that are also addressed in a Christian simple life. Of course the primary difference between those and a Christian approach is that we do it out of faithfulness to God and not merely because it seems to be good logic.
As modern Western people, our approach to life is pragmatic and logical. We identify problems, analyze them, and try out solutions until the problems are solved. We also tend to use this approach in our faith-lives as well, using the logic and rationality we learned in elementary school.
Our brains are exquisitely wired to use conventional, linear logic (A + B = C) or reductionistic logic (all things being understood by breaking them down into their constituent parts), so we rely on them for most of our problem solving and planning. That was true for Neanderthal man who had to figure out how to successfully hunt animals and not get killed, as well as NASA engineers designing rocket trajectories. However even particle physicists found that conventional logic can sometimes lead us astray when we use it on very complex tasks, so we need to learn when to use it, and when to rely on a way that sees more deeply into the nature of things.
Human social interactions are among the most complex issues in the world. Ever since the Enlightenment, human history has been filled with huge failures in the application of simple logic to major problems (let’s count the wars) because the problems were far too complex to yield to conventional logic alone.
The Christian Faith is non-linear and non-reductionistic, although over the centuries there have been many attempts to force it into conventional logic frameworks. All of these efforts at systematic theology have been quite incomplete because in their linearity they can’t describe the full breadth and depth of the faith, and the unknowable God on which it rests.
Our faith sees the world and its problems in ‘wholes’: large concepts and issues spread over entire systems, long periods of history, and across cultures and nations. It paints pictures of this deep reality that the non-linear part of our minds can grasp. In fact the word ‘holy’ comes from the root word for ‘whole’. It is about seeing universal concepts and truths rather than trying to understand each issue in isolation from all the others. It embodies wisdom, history, experience, principles, values, and ways of knowing that linear logic cannot encompass. Even this paragraph is an attempt to explain in a linear, reductionistic way, a phenomenon that can’t really be explained, but rather, must be experienced ‘holistically’.
So how do we make these two seemingly different ways of thinking (faith and logic) work together in our lives? After all, conventional logic works very well for us at some levels, like knowing when to cross the street, which vegetables to buy, which car will be the most efficient for us, and when we should see a doctor. At the same time, many issues we face demand much broader and deeper ways of thinking, and the more complex the problem, the more we need the long, broad view of faith.
Our faith contains wisdom so profound that only God understands, and that only his son was able to translate usefully for us.
So the chicken and egg question is: Which comes first for us, and which is the real driver in our lives: our faith or conventional logic? We might like to say “our faith” since the Church expects that answer. But as a practical matter in the 21st Century, it’s usually the other way around. We are logical people first, who secondarily apply our faith principles to our logic when the logic seems to fail us.
Does conventional logic with a simple overlay of Christian values get us where we need to go?
Following Christ, which is the goal of Christian simple living, is about behavior change – one of the hardest and most complex things we’ll ever face. It’s about changing life-long, ingrained habits and mind-sets, and getting control of our egos. For nearly 100 years psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other behavioral scientists have been using research based on the logic of science to help us change our dysfunctional behaviors, but at best, with mixed results. Most will tell you how difficult this business is.
Recent research tells us, for example, that within a year of a major cardiac event, 80% of patients have stopped all or part of their prescribed medications, diet or exercise programs. Even In the face of death, 80% of people are not able to change their behavior regardless of the "inescapable" logic!
Linear logic alone fails us, and it is in the thousands of complicated, confusing, or stressful situations we will face in our lives, where our spiritual life will have a much greater impact on us, and our communities as well. Changing our lives and sustaining the change for a lifetime (Christian simple living is not a temporary, trendy ‘lifestyle’ change) will happen if it is rooted and nurtured by a deep, regular practice of our faith, rather than by only thinking-through the logical benefits of making a change. A lot of people have died from 2nd heart attacks after only thinking through the logical benefits of exercise!
There are many ways of enriching our faith practices. Sometimes the richest come from using an entirely new practice or going about familiar practices in a new way. Below are links to Websites that provide resources on a variety of practices that you might find helpful.
House Church
Central: HCC is a
non-denominational effort to get away from the institutional church, seeking
instead to return to the small gatherings of peoples that constituted all of
the churches of the New Testament era.
http://www.hccentral.com/
Mustard Seed Associates: committed to enabling followers of Jesus Christ to put first things first: creating new ways, in community with others, to engage the new challenges of a new century. http://www.msainfo.org/default.asp
Renovare: providing a balanced vision and a practical strategy for the formation of Christ-like character, with the ultimate goal of learning more and more to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. http://www.renovare.org/
The World
Community for Christian Meditation:
"To communicate and nurture meditation as passed on through the teaching
of John Main in the Christian tradition, in the spirit of serving the unity of
all."
http://www.wccm.org/splash.asp?pagestyle=default
The Merton
Institute for Contemplative Living:
The Thomas Merton Foundation is dedicated to developing interest in
contemplative living through the works of Thomas Merton.
http://www.mertonfoundation.org/merton.php3?page=aboutfound.ext
The Center for Action and Contemplation: A training/formation center for discernment and growth for activists and those interested in social service ministries. http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/aboutus/aboutus_index.html
Peace Church
Bible Study: This web site
is for anyone with an interest in the Bible and the "Historic Peace
Churches" (Brethren, Mennonites, Quakers).
http://www.read-the-bible.org
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