Christianity As Amoral and Irreligious Faith

“…the Christian message is basically amoral and irreligious, paradoxical as that may sound.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Christian life has two dimensions. The first is faith and the second is good work, doing God’s work on earth.

A believer should live a devout life and do what is right. But this should not be the center of one’s faith.

Ephesians 2:10 (NLT and NIV)

The first dimension of Christian life, our faith, our connection to God, is much more essential. The second dimension, or good works, is never as valuable as faith.

In today’s world, people admire Christ because He is a great teacher, the greatest ethicist. He is admired for dying for His ideals.

We take those ideals, and pay Him praise with our lips. We even go out and try to follow His lead. Doing good works for other people. Trying to make a change in our society.

But we do not take Him seriously. We don’t bring Him to the center of our lives. We don’t bring our lives into contact with the claim of Christ.

The claim that He is God. That He is the Son of God. That He existed before the time existed. That He created the world and everything in it. That He is our Lord and we must worship Him.

Habakkuk 2:4 (NLT and NIV)

We don’t believe that He speaks the revelation of God. We don’t bare to believe that He is that revelation.

Do you have the courage to do it?

Do you have the strength it takes?

It is important to clarify the seriousness of this matter. To extricate Christ from the secularization process in which He has been incorporated.

We maintain a distance between Him. Take a step away from the word of Christ. And never allow no serious encounter to take place.

We live with Christ as a religious genious. As an ethicist. As a gentleman.

But when He claims our lives entirely with the full seriousness that here God Himself speaks. When He demands us to acknowledge that God once became present only in Christ.

He claims our commitment. Not relative commitment. No the church as a social club. Not the church as a social movement.

Our commitment to an absolute truth. To the absolute ruler. Our commitment to the only God.

And He has an absolute claim on our commitment.

Romans 6:13 (NLT and NIV)

Good works have almost always and everywhere been valued more highly than faith. They are easier to measure. And easier to see and to show to other people than abstract commitment to a “faith”.

It is true that we should go good works and respect the importance of them. There is no such thing as cheap grace.

We cannot sit still and look at our brothers’ and sisters’ suffering and claim that we have faith in Christ. That we are His children and heirs of His Kingdoms.

But in Martin Luther’s words: “…we should be careful that we don’t elevate good works to such an extent that faith and Christ become secondary. If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry. This has occurred both inside and outside of Christianity. Some people value good works so much that they overlook faith in Christ. They preach about and praise their own works instead of God’s works.”

The religion is a man-made thing. It is something that people do. A building we build, so that we can sit inside, together. And feel that we belong.

Isaiah 45:22 (NLT and NIV)

But Christianity is something different. At its heart there is something different. Christ Himself – a living God. A real person.

Our faith, everything about Christianity. Is about the relationship we have with this person. This King of King, the ruler of all and everything. The creator of earth and heaven. The Father of All. The One and Only.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: “Factually speaking, Christ has given scarcely any ethical prescriptions that were not to be found already with the contemporary Jewish rabbis or in pagan literature.”

Christianity isn’t about a new and better set of behavioral rules or about moral accomplishment. The religion and moral performance are the very enemies of Christianity and Christ.

They present to us the false idea that somehow we can reach God through our moral efforts. That we can be saved by our own works.

Faith should always be first.

Romans 1:17 (NLT and NIV)

Do not forget Martin Luther’s words: “It is faith – without good works and prior to good works – that takes us to heaven. We come to God through faith alone.”

“… a person becomes righteous by faith.”

Martin Luther