Most modern Christian content you find online and in books seems to assume that people ate "brains-on-sticks", in James K.A. Smith's phrasing. Christianity becomes a matter of simply giving mental assent to a long list of statements about God.
But how long does the list need to be? And whose list is the right one?
Most churches readily and proudly offer their Statement of Faith and expect members to adhere to each carefully worded phrase. Each Statement is a bit different, but somehow they are all orthodox according to the respective teams.
Sure, from week to week during worship there might be some preaching on good works as a necessary part of faith, but the really important thing is ... do you agree that the Trinity is three Persons but one substance?
Does regeneration come before or after belief?
Should a baby be baptized?
Will the Church be raptured before or after Christ's millennial reign?
Or is that a trick question and is there no literal millennium at all?
Think carefully ... your salvation hangs in the balance!
This approach to Christian "faith" fosters plenty of debates, endless creeds, and frantic denunciations of heretics, but it's unclear how much it moves the Kingdom forward.
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