On Christian Life & Discipleship

Christian spirituality involves just as much unlearning as it does learning.  Perhaps even more.  And the journey of unlearning never ends for the Christian who genuinely seeks to know God and resemble Christ.  Certainly learning Christ’s teachings and ways are part of the journey too.  As are learning Christ’s attitudes and character, and learning from Christian traditions and through the common life shared in church communities.  But embracing the new requires releasing the old.  Sometimes a Christian’s spiritual development can become stunted because of a refusal to release existing beliefs or habits or behaviours.  And perhaps surprisingly, this can include idolatrous beliefs about God or Jesus or narrow theologies that restrict the flow of Life and Love.  It would therefore be a mistake for any Christian to imagine that once they have learned “the basics” then they can just clutch tightly to whatever they’ve learned without changing anything whatsoever until kingdom come.  The true Christian way involves a lifelong journey of change, graciously supported by the Spirit of Life, during which one will learn and unlearn and relearn many things—indeed all things—along the way.