Believing and Following - A Diversion

I'll get back to the story of how we became Episcopalian in a bit, but a quick aside:

A lot of people, particularly American Christians of all stripes, want to make belief in Jesus the most important decision we make on our faith journey. I'm not sure I can make that mesh with what Jesus himself seems to expect from his followers in the gospel accounts. There's actually very little talk about belief at all. Sure, there's John 3:16, but could we please come to a consensus in the Christian community that there's way more going on in the gospels than one small portion of Jesus' conversation with a Pharisee?

My point is that Jesus seems a lot more concerned with whether his friends are following him or not. I don't think that's any small difference. He rarely (if ever, again Nicodemus was never a public supporter of Jesus until after the crucifixion) asks his disciples to hold the correct belief in him. He does eventually ask them who they think he is, but that's after they've been with him awhile. He simply asks them to follow. And it seems that in the following, they figure out who he is.

Why, then, do we spend so much effort making sure people believe the right things? The rich young ruler went away because his possessions made following Jesus difficult, not believing in him. Can we ask people to follow Jesus for awhile before we even start to sweat what they believe? What is it that makes following difficult? Will it drive seekers away if we ask them to actually follow his example rather than convincing them that a bowed head, a repeated prayer, and indoctrination in the "right" teaching has anything at all to do with salvation and redemption? Is it more important to love and to seek peace than it is to tell people that if they don't accept certain teachings about scripture, then they're in serious trouble? With who? Jesus said, "I am the way..." Doesn't that mean he can save whomever he pleases? What if that's completely beyond our control or influence? Does it matter if we're purpose-driven or part of the holy catholic and apostolic church or whatever if we can't even worship with those we disagree with? Maybe there really is no longer Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, liberal nor conservative, gay nor straight, Protestant nor Catholic... Then what?

What would happen if the church followed first, and worried about belief later?