Following Christ is not just a religion.
We have long noted that Judaism is also not just a religion. Recently we were reminded of this in the words of Sarah Hurwitz. At a meeting of Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, she said: “We’re a nation. Civilization. Tribe. Peoplehood. But most of all we’re a family.”
If you bothered to understand Islam, you’d find it’s the same thing. To be a Muslim is to embrace a whole identity. It’s not just a religion but a way of life that changes your entire human existence. This is a major complaint westerners have with both Judaism and Islam, that these people refuse to assimilate.
Yet, this is precisely what following Christ is supposed to be. We should totally dis-assimiliate from the society around us in every way.
Western Civilization is notorious for compartmentalization of the human soul. There’s politics, economics, science, education, business, entertainment, etc. All of these are supposed to be handled as separate subjects of study, and that includes your faith. Each has its own rules and boundaries, and you shouldn’t confuse them in your decisions.
This is why so few western Christians are actually following Christ. Jesus stated flatly that following Him wasn’t the most important thing — it was the only thing. Once you submit to Him as Lord, He owns every particle of your being. Granted, He taught that it could take the rest of your life bringing the various parts of yourself under His authority, but that was the goal.
White people in particular are very bad at this. The fundamental law of following Christ is making your fellow Christians a tribe, your brothers and sisters. We excel at the rhetoric, but utterly fail at the execution. When was the last time you went to the home of someone in your church and shared a meal? When was the last time you went with them to any event outside of the church house? The Christian ideal in the New Testament was living in each other’s armpits.
If you spend every waking hour in the company of your covenant community, it should still feel like it’s not enough time together. We should all long for the time we could share a single residence, day and night. That’s what tribalism means, and it’s a natural feature of biblical covenant faith. It’s behind the meaning of what Christ said to His disciples at the Last Seder: “Love each other as I have loved you.”
Have we forgotten this refers to the way they spent the previous three years following Him around? They walked together, ate together and stayed in the same quarters wherever Jesus wandered. He tolerated their foibles and petty disputes and still wanted them with Him.
We aren’t obeying the Law of Christ very well.
