What It Means To Be A Christian Today

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I seek to be good because of the challenge of Christ for me to be perfect.
And yet when He came and proclaimed the good news;
He sought out sinners, loose women and tax collectors
(who even then were already known to be corrupt).
He had a special place in His heart for the outcasts like lepers,
the abandoned like the poor and orphans,
children and widows who did not have a voice,
the sick and the afflicted who had no one else to turn to.
And He transformed their lives by bringing them wholeness
and sharing with them His the fullness of life.
This is the perennial attraction of Christ for me.
He did not write philosophical tracts.
Nor did He preach dogmas and doctrine.
He told stories and parables.
He gave sermons which were memorable
because they came from the heart.

The story of Christ has to be -rewritten for each generation.
Today, this story is being written in loving and caring Christian communities.
It is being lived out in the lives of people who serve.
It is told by the lives of people whose lives have been touched by Him.
These are people who have encountered Christ
and have their lives changed because of the resulting personal relationship
they have developed with Him.

I recently finished reading Credo, a book by Hans Kung on the Apostles’ Creed.
The Creed is about dogma and doctrine.
But Kung mad it come alive by writing about the Christ and His teachings
in the context of today’s society.

In conclusion, Kung wrote:

“By following Jesus Christ, 
people in the world today
can live, act, suffer and die
in a truly human way,
in happiness and unhappiness,
in life and death,
sustained by God and helpful to fellow men and women.”

“Being a Christian realizes a radical humanism which can cope with not only all that is positive also with all that is negative – sin, guilt, meaninglessness, death – out of a last unshakable trust in God which does not rely on its own achievements but on God’s grace.” Hans Kung writes in the final pages of his book.

 

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