A Relational Faith

Alright, so I’m writing this post as I develop. So, it’s coming along slowly. Two topics have been on my mind:
1. What role do the affections play in Christianity?
2. What does the communal aspect of Christianity look like?

I’ve been considering titling this post “Love the poor? I don’t even like the poor!” One of the areas of difficulty that we have in American Christianity is self-centeredness. Generally speaking, we, the American Christian people, like advancing our own lives, taking care of our own problems, dealing with our own issues. I’m spending some time looking into and dealing with the role of affections in relational faith for our sake.

Assumption:
Well, I don’t think that we were born into a world where filling your heart with pleasure is evil, rather it is the evil of many of the pursuits of the heart that causes inconsistencies in our following of the faith. With that, I believe that our faith is very communal whereas our pursuits are very selfish. Our (1) lack of discipline and (2) failure to respond to the affections implanted in believers are the weaknesses that keeps us from living wildly as believers. We’re going to need to respond differently if we are to live wildy as believers.

Here are some of the things I’m going to consider:
1. Person-Person relational biblical texts (love, proper religion, hospitality…)
2. Historic views on the roles of the affections (So far, I’m reading Augustine)

I’ll pull this together more cohesively as I continue to work. If it doesn’t do that well, I’ll divide it up into two topics and work on them both. As I’m working on this, I’ll put up some of my notes.

Oh, and I’ll probably post my current hypothesis on the role of a Christian, because some of that work is integral to this study. For now, I’ll leave you with a passage that speaks on the extent of love, some notes from Edwards’ “Religious Affections,” and a short prayer.

1 Corinthians 13:1-9
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Jonathan Edwards: “A Treatise of Religious Affections”
When describing the religious affections of the Christians described in 1 Peter 1:8, Jonathan Edwards explains that they had a “supernatural principle of love” to Jesus and, in that, they love some others who they had not seen because they loved Jesus whom they hadn’t bodily seen either.
How could someone be like that?

Here’s an outline of some of Jonathan Edwards’ info from his Treatise on Religious Affections.

I. On the topic of the Soul
A. Definitions
1. Understanding – the part of the soul that functions for perception, speculation, discernment, view, and judgment
2. Inclination – the part of the soul that inclines towards that which is perceived, speculated, discerned, viewed, or judged. aka the will (in respect to actions governed or determined), the mind, or the heart
B. Faculties: exercises/actions and levels of response
1. There are greater and lesser responses to the inclinations, some being negligible, others being vigorous and sensible.
2. The more vigorous and sensible exercises of the heart are the affections.
3. Affections are seated in the mind, not the body.
4. Sanctification develops the affections.
5. As one is sanctified, his affections are what change.

Prayer
God, please allow your affections to take captive this introvert’s heart.