Mennonite Weekly Review

To get good answers, you have to ask the right questions. But on matters of faith, people don’t always ask outright. The church has to meet unspoken needs. These vary in different times and places. What are today’s burning questions?

One that might surprise a lot of Christians, and that Mennonites might be good at answering, is this: “Is the church a force for good or a force for evil?”

The question comes from Todd Hunter, an Anglican priest and church planter interviewed in the September issue of Christianity Today. He believes people these days don’t put questions like “how do I know Jesus rose from the dead?” at the top of their list of concerns. Their interest is less intellectual and more experiential. They want to see whether or not Christians are making the world a better place. They’re more interested in what we do than in what we believe.

Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller observes a parallel trend. An important shift in the religious landscape, she writes in the Sept. 21 issue, is that “believers are refocusing their attention away from creeds and on practice — on making the activity of faith meaningful in daily life.”

Mennonites, in theory, have always done this. We are non-creedal. We do have confessions of faith, even a global statement of shared convictions from Mennonite World Conference. But we don’t consider the affirmation of any document a faith-defining act. Instead, our Anabaptist tradition holds that faith becomes real only as it is lived. That’s the message behind the story of the Amishman who answered the question “Are you saved?” with “Go ask my neighbor. I could tell you anything.”

This is faith as discipleship, faith as following Jesus. Anabaptists have preached this for so long it might feel like a shopworn buzzword. But for Christians who’ve been taught that faith is all about right belief with an eye on the afterlife, discipleship is a revelation.

Hunter observes: “If we recast the gospel as something that gives us life, not just a secure death, then discipleship and mission become normative.”

Jesus said that he “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Salvation in Jesus Christ bears fruit in a rich, full life now, as well as in eternal life. To emphasize this, Hunter likes to think of heaven as the destination rather than the goal. “The goal of Christianity is spiritual transformation into Christlikeness,” he says.

A person doesn’t have to get Christian theology all sorted out first in order to start the process of transforming. Hunter advocates bringing people into the church experientially. Reversing the traditional expectation, many people today are ready to belong before they believe. We can invite them to live into the faith. Answers will emerge through the experience of abundant life in the fellowship of believers, who are seekers with questions too.

Jesus’ first disciples didn’t have all the answers when they started following. Neither will today’s. But we’ve come to the right place to ask, and to learn by living.