This month, I thought it would be helpful to look at why character matters for followers of the Way. This will help us see the importance of eliminating the vices we’ve been discussing, as well as seek to cultivate virtues as we grow in our spiritual lives. Next month, we’ll return to the seven capital vices, and take a look at the vice of envy.
We’ve Lost Our Way
Instead of allowing God to lead us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake, we’ve too often followed a different way, our own way. We’ve taken lesser paths, paths that divert us from the Way. For millennia, the paths of power, pleasure, and wealth have been powerfully seductive paths that lead many astray. They remain so today. In recent years, the lesser path of partisan politics on the left and the right has been especially attractive to many in the United States. For American Christians, the path of comfort beckons us, because we often think, at times imperceptibly, that comfort is our birthright. We are Americans, after all.
These paths can be easily seen to lead us astray. Other lesser paths, however, seem like they might be the Way. They have a Christian veneer, but what is underneath is not truly Christian. Many of us have taken what we thought was the Way of Christ, a path we were told would please God and therefore bring us happiness, success, and other blessings. We are told, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, that if we just read our Bibles enough, pray enough, serve our church (and maybe our community) enough, give away enough money, then life will pretty much go as we hope it will. We’ll be fulfilled, feel close to God, be part of a good church, have a happy marriage, our kids will turn out as we hoped, and we’ll find fulfillment in our career.
But if we are honest, we have discovered that this path didn’t lead us to where we thought it would. Many of us don’t have the kind of fulfillment we thought we’d have. God often seems absent at best, and uncaring at worst. We question whether God is even real. We are frustrated with church. Our marriages bring disappointment, both in ourselves and in our spouses. Sadly, many marriages barely survive, while others don’t make it at all, and we have to deal with the fallout that divorce brings. Our kids break our hearts, in small and large ways. And we do the same to them. They wander away from the faith, or pursue a life of faith very different from our own that we don’t understand. We wonder what, if anything, we could have done differently, to keep them on the right path. And the time we spend working can seem futile.
There is no easy solution to all of this. The world, the church, and we human beings who inhabit them are fallen. Things in the world, in the church, and in us are not what they are supposed to be. God is not at our beck and call. Community with our brothers and sisters in Christ at church takes work. Marriage is hard. Children become adults who ultimately make their own decisions, for better or worse. And at its best work is still less than ideal. Yet in the midst of the pain, suffering, disappointment, and frustrations that mark our time on this planet, there are also green shoots of truth, goodness, beauty, and unity. Sometimes, they grown and even flourish. Creation is being redeemed, and we have a part to play in its redemption (Rom. 8:18-25). We receive many good gifts from God in this fallen world: the gift of God himself, of the body of Christ, of marriage and parenthood, of friendship, and of a vocation. We may not get all that we want. In fact, I’m sure we won’t. But we can experience shalom, and help others do the same. Shalom is, very simply, a deep inner well-being, inner harmony, and wholeness. It includes harmony with others, the rest of creation, and with God.1 Shalom will not come about without God’s transformative activity in our lives, in our relationships, and in the world. God must work. Yet we have a part to play here, too, a part that is often neglected.
Character Matters
What is it that we need, as followers of the Way, in order to play our part in God’s redemptive story? Obviously, we need God. We need fellowship with Christ and community with others who seek to love and follow him. Character is a part of this. In fact, it is an essential part. Character plays a key role in our relationship with God, our relationships with others, and in doing our part to usher in God’s kingdom.
Character matters. We see this truth in the character of those who have done heroic things, especially those who have been martyrs for Christ. We rightly honor those who have given their very lives for Jesus. Several years ago I took a trip to London that drove home the sacrifices made by several Christian martyrs. I was invited to give a talk on developing character in sports at The Royal Institute of Philosophy. I’d been to London once before, but was excited to go share my ideas and see the city again. Plus, the trip was paid for, which isn’t something that happens to philosophy professors very often! My wife Dawn was able to join me, so we took in some of the sites and experiences London has to offer: Parliament, the Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, an open-air shopping market in Chelsea, fish and chips at a London pub, cider and ale at another London pub, and an Arsenal match at the Emirates stadium. We also visited Westminster Abbey, where I had an unexpected experience that I think about to this day.
Before our visit to the Abbey, I didn’t know about the ten statues above the Great West Door commemorating 20th century martyrs.2 Such people obviously have shown true greatness of character. We should admire them, for how they lived and for their willingness to die for what they believed. We should admire Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s opposition to Hitler and the Nazis. We should admire Oscar Romero’s defense of the poor and opposition to a dictatorship in El Salvador. We should admire Esther John’s devotion to sharing the gospel while teaching women to read and working alongside them in the cotton fields of Pakistan. We should admire Martin Luther King, Jr.’s persistent nonviolent struggle for racial equality and justice. We should more than admire them. We should let such individuals inspire us to do what we can to make the world a better place, to serve God and our fellow human beings in humility and love.
It’s unlikely that you or I will face the kind of choices these and other martyrs did. But character matters for us, too. It matters for all followers of Jesus. It matters for us as members of a church. It matters in friendship, family, and in our work. It matters in the daily interactions we have with God, other people, and in how we steward all that God has given us. It even matters on social media, and in how we talk to each other there and in person. It even matters in politics and political conversations.
Christian thinkers past and present testify that character is central to what it means to be a Christian. In a discussion of Colossians 3:5-14, Christian philosopher Rebecca Konydyk DeYoung puts it this way: “the moral project for a Christian is to die to the old self and rise to new life in Christ.”3 C.S. Lewis puts the same point succinctly, straightforwardly, and memorably, as he so often does: “Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”4 DeYoung is right. We must die to ourselves and live for Christ. Lewis is right. To become a Christian is to become like Christ. To become a little Christ is to be like him in all of life. This change in us will likely be slow. Even very slow. We shouldn’t focus on achieving the elusive goal of perfection. But we should be moving towards becoming a little Christ. We should be making progress. This should be the overall orientation of how we live. This is the Way.
What does it mean though, to be a follower of the Way? What does it mean to become like Christ in all of life? Dallas Willard is helpful here, when he explains that “as a disciple of Jesus I am with him, by choice and by grace, learning from him how to live in the kingdom of God…I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I…I am learning from Jesus how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life.”5 For my life, this means that I should seek to be the husband, father, friend, professor, member of Covenant Community Church, high school soccer coach, writer, activist, and citizen that Jesus would be if he were I. This is a tall order, and it’s not even a comprehensive list. But what greater purpose, what greater vision for our lives, could there be? In order to do this, we must be growing in the virtues of Christ. Our character must increasingly reflect his character, in both the mundane and the extraordinary parts of our lives.
Character should matter to us for many reasons, but primarily because it matters to God. Willard is helpful again:
“The revolution of Jesus is…a revolution of character, which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship to God in Christ and one another. It is one that changes their ideas, beliefs, feelings, and habits of choice, as well as their bodily tendencies and social relations. It penetrates to the deepest layers of their soul.”6
There is a lot packed into these words. This really can happen, as we allow these realities to penetrate to the deepest layers of our souls and spread throughout our communities. This is the revolution of the Way of Jesus. This revolution does not involve coercion, mere political power, violence, social status, or any of the other traits of lesser revolutions.
The revolution of the Way is different. It’s a revolution of character and community, a revolution of humility and love.
David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary: A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament (Clarksville, Md: Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc, 1992), pp. 39, 107, 200-201.
“Modern Martyrs,” Westminster Abbey, https://www.westminster-abbey.org/about-the-abbey/history/modern-martyrs.
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, 2nd ed. edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2020), 15.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), 177.
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God, 1st edition (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 283-4.
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ, First Ed 1st Printing edition (Colorado Springs, Colo: NavPress, 2002), 15.