I have a thirty minute drive in order to get to the first service I preach on Sundays. On the drive, I always have a lot of thoughts running through my mind. Usually I forget them. However, since I’ve subscribed to Jott, I sometimes call them in to myself (ain’t technology great?). So today, here is one of the statements I found waiting transcribed in my email when I got home. I surely would have forgotten this if I hadn’t “jotted” it! I don’t think I’ve heard this somewhere and just remembered it. If so feel free to tell me!
“Faith disconnected from reality is just pretending.”
Here, I’m thinking of “reality” in terms of “that which is real,” but I’m also thinking of it as an alternative metaphor for the Kingdom of God. In this way, I went on to imagine defining our faith in terms of Reality language. For example:
- Celebrating Reality through worship.
- Participating in Reality through mission.
- Inviting others into Reality through witness.
- Rehearsing the narrative of Reality in Scripture.
So, what do you think?
mattjudkins.com 
I guess this all depends on what you consider “reality”. Since there is no heaven, the scripture is just something a bunch of guys wrote, and worship is merely an emotional experience, my reality must be different than yours.
Hi Kip, thanks for reading. It seems that you’re working from two concepts of reality at the same time. At first it sounds like you understand reality in an objective way, and then it sounds like you’re pretty subjectivist. Anyway, just an observation. Have a good day!
Wow…… I love that jott.com deal! Thanks for steering me to it, Matt.
It is all about the reality side, is it not? Everything else is just preparation, background, foundation. If exegesis does not lead to parenesis, what’s the point?
I’m impressed that you think deep thoughts as you drive to your first church on Sunday morning; that is so much better than scanning sermon notes and hoping to be able to preach something when I pull up to the old wooden church building.
My way of phrasing that idea has been something like, “Believing really, really hard in something is how we save Tinkerbell after she’s taken the poison. Faith is how we live our real lives in the real world when it might seem like there’s no evidence whatsoever to support what we say we’ve got faith in.”
Of course, Christians hang their hats on a specific locus for their faith. But God isn’t the only thing people have faith in, which has from time to time caused problems in this world. For that matter, sometimes, so have the people who claim a faith in God.
I like this line(I believe it’s in Paul Little’s _How to Give Away Your Faith_): “Superstition is belief in the unreal; faith is belief in the unseen.” Certainly God’s kingdom is an unseen reality right now–although maybe we get glimpses of it in the Church and through “worship, mission, witness and Scripture.” I like how you lay out that way of experiencing Reality.
I guess another way to look at this is that God is sometimes referred to as “Ultimate Reality.”
I like the language because it is – to my mind – hopeful. Reality is the kingdom. It is the past, present, and future reality of God.
Get real.