“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.”
- Henri Nouwen
I’ve read about a time in the early church when Christians weren’t known as Christians but rather, The Followers of The Way. The Way as in, The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
The term resonated with me because it seemed to imply that faith was not passive or simply about getting our spiritual passport stamped. It wasn’t just about whether or not one was going to heaven. There seemed to be something tangible about following The Way. It was an interactive demonstration of Jesus and a proactive, intentional, and applicable faith that changed the lives of those who were touched by these followers. It wasn’t a static, removed experience but rather one that impacted those in its path.
It left me wondering when Christianity went from being The Way to an “it”. When did being a follower of Jesus become reduced to joining a subculture, simply taking on a moral code that defined us, and checking off things on an offering envelope? When did we settle for an overly privatized and personalized “belief” as opposed to an interactive presentation to the world around us of who Christ is to us?
Naming myself as a Christian seems to be a little easier than defining myself as someone who follows a “way”. There is a vulnerability in others being able to observe from the outside whether my life as one who calls myself a Follower of The Way is congruent with that Way. Simply calling myself a Christian on the other hand doesn’t seem to require much of me these days. A Christian can be a lot of things. It can also not be a lot of things. A Follower of The Way, however seems to imply a more specific understanding in what the world around me can expect from me.
A Follower of The Way is going to exhibit peace making, show mercy to the poor, reach into the places where those who have no voice are ignored, and most of all, be a light in what can be a very dark world.
Following The Way implies a counting of costs. As I think of simply “becoming a Christian” it sounds a bit like I have simply changed my political party affiliation. A Democrat is an “it”. A Republican is an “it”. A Christian seems to have become an “it”. A Follower of The Way however opens up the lid to many questions, implications, and curiosity regarding what I’m about. It offers a compass by which I can align myself as it calls me into something instead of out of it. It implies a calling as opposed to simply being aligned with a certain ideology. It puts into perspective that I am a part of something bigger than myself and am one among many while the term “a” Christian can imply something singular and isolated, at least on the surface.
I’m going to give more thought to how I identify myself with The Way and examine how it challenges the things that I take seriously in my life and the lives of those around me.
As absurd as it sounds to say, simply being called a Christian is feeling a bit generic.