I believe Wormwood's Doxy has it just right on orthopraxis (right doing).* She looks into the Great Commission and reaches all the sensible conclusions.
She comments that "my movement towards theological orthodoxy has not convinced me that I need to convert nonbelievers or those of other faiths to Christianity. I'll never ask anyone if they've accepted Jesus as their personal savior, because I find that question highly intrusive."
As someone who has accepted Jesus as his personal Savior long ago when I was formed to frame things that way, I also find it a highly intrusive question, one that (1) violates another person's sacred space and (2) is simultaneously so narrow and so vague as to be meaningless. To answer either "Yes" or "No" tells us very little.
She also writes: "But Jesus didn't say we were to make 'Christians' of the whole world. He wouldn't even have known what that word meant. He said 'disciples'...." That is a very different commission than the usual take on replicating oneself and one's own narrow definitions. Doxy movingly leads us into service and giving ourselves for the life of the world. Her interpretation seems, to me, to emanate the Spirit of Christ.
Here's to lives that shine with the divine mystery.
* I know. There I go with the big college-level words again. Churchy jargon, to boot. Very pretentious. All puffed up and proud. But it's such a nice contrast to "orthodoxy," how can I resist? [I know, right glory and right deeds are not actually separable; cut me some slack.]
--the BB
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