Village Shepherd

There's only one problem with reformed smokers - they often become quickly fanatical in their zeal to prevent other people smoking. Once they've finally stopped, they suddenly discover a terrible repugnance for cigarette smoke and are oblivious to the fact that other people are incredibly bored by their fervour. Other people, who perhaps stopped smoking years ago, have had their time of anti-smoking fervour and have since moved on. Their fanaticism has waned somewhat, and although they probably dislike cigarette smoke as much as anyone, they've mostly mellowed in their attitudes and are more tolerant than the recent converts. And this applies to just about any form of conversion, not just to the reformed smoker.

Any complete life-change is always exciting, so for a while perhaps most of us become quite zealous in our particular field of change. Vegetarianism is enjoying a high profile at the moment, but on the whole you don't hear vegetarians of many years standing saying much about it. It's the recent converts who are so excited that they want to change everyone else as well. After a major change of lifestyle, the recent converts are full of it, but a few years down the line and the majority settled down into their new life, still sticking to it but with perhaps quieter enthusiasm. Although it has to be said that there are those who never settle. There are those who remain at the point of conversion forever and never move on.

These are people who are absolutely necessary to any cause, because it's very close to their heart and they're willing to do anything to promote the cause. And they keep our consciousness raised about the issue, which has to be a good thing. It's all too easy to take a bit of interest in new ideas, but then to quickly forget about them. Those who are always on about it, sometimes to such an extent that other people begin to feel quite embarrassed, keep the issue in the public arena. But I wonder how much real growth has occurred in such people?

Take Christianity, for example. St Paul had a life changing experience on the road to Damascus and like all recent converts, couldn't wait to tell the rest of the world. And he was so enthusiastic and so persuasive about Jesus and what Jesus had done for him that many people followed his example and became Christians themselves. New churches were founded and established, and a church governing system of deacons and bishops was set up. If it hadn't been for St Paul taking the message to the gentiles I doubt we'd be sitting here today, since Christianity started as a sect of Judaism and Judaism demands that its male followers should be circumcised. St Paul successfully fought a long and difficult battle with the Jewish Christians (including some of Jesus' original apostles) for the right of gentiles to remain outside the Jewish law. Many of his letters discuss the law, and his theology developed in many ways because he had to think through the relationship of the new religion to the old religion.

But that's the point about St Paul. His dramatic conversion was simply a starting point, and he quickly moved on from mere religious fervour to an incredibly well thought out theology of immense depth, a theology which has carried the Church through 2000 years. He knew that Christianity must be a way of life just as Judaism is a way of life, but that was quite an alien thought to his listeners. Many of them worshipped Greek gods, who didn't expect a changed way of life, just expected worship. Worship of these gods was more a question of placating them so that their anger wouldn't spoil the crops or leave the women barren, and their pleasure would enhance the wine, women and song.

The new Christians regarded God similarly, and elements of this sort of worship are still evident today. Some people attend Church at Christmas and Easter to placate God, so that nothing bad happens to them. And when something bad does inevitably happen because that's what human life is like, many people protest saying, "I don't know what I've done to deserve this!"

But Christianity isn't just about the excitement of conversion, and it certainly isn't about placating an angry God and thus gaining advantages. Christianity is a way of life, and if it's followed as a way of life, then certain changes occur. Once Christ is all and in all, then "earthly" needs and desires begin to gradually disappear. With Christ in your heart, greed and and malice and slander and lying must all go. They're no longer appropriate. That applied to the Colossians, and of course it still applies to us today.

Gossip and tittle-tattle and juicy bits of local news contribute to slander and lying and malice, and they're not appropriate for Christians. Concentrating on increasing wealth at all costs is not appropriate for Christians. Furious rows with intemperate language, which end in a break-down of relationships are not appropriate for Christians. We Christians are being renewed in the image of our Creator, and heaven forbid that other people should see that image as dishonest or malicious or greedy because that's how they see us.

But none of us can change ourselves. I can't just decide to be Christ-like because I think that's the right thing to do, for then it would just be an act and would fall down whenever I was under stress in any way. The only way to become Christlike is fully open youself to God, to invite Christ to take over your life and then to allow him to do so. That means keeping in touch with him all the time. It means hearing about him or reading about him in the Bible regularly. It means immersing yourself in Christ and letting him do all the rest.

Some converts to Christianity are fervent at the point of conversion, but then they seem to remain at that point for the rest of their Christian lives. They don't seem to grow in the faith. They never move on from that point of conversion. They refuse to open their minds to new ideas, especially new thinking in Christianity, and so their religion becomes cast in stone and immovable. But it shouldn't be like that. We should all be growing in our faith, considering new thoughts and new ideas even if they threaten what we've always believed to be true. St Paul always believed Judaism to be true but was open enough to receive the good news about Christianity, even though it went against everything he'd previously believed to be true. We can only grow in the faith by daring to dig deeper and deeper into it, by taking the risk of challenging our own deeply held ideas.

Christianity is a big commitment. It's a lifelong and lifetime commitment and it requires talking with Christ and listening to him, reading about him, and studying new thoughts and ideas about him. And when Christ is truly the centre of life, then we become truly clothed in Christ. It's time-consuming and exhilarating and it keeps moving on and growing. So I wonder, in your busy life do you have time for Christianity?