Christianity

Is it surprising that so far there has been very little mention of Christianity in these posts? It's hard for me to tell.

Ostensibly, the brethren are all about Christianity. It's the source, the reason, the excuse for everything. There are none more Christian, as though the affairs of the soul were a competitive sport. And that's part of the problem. Christianity is meek, forgiving, loving in attitude, and finds its strength in those characteristics, which makes it a difficult thing to impose by decree, let alone force. What you can do, of course, is control behaviour to an extent. If behaviour is all that counts.

There are a lot of difficult questions here.

The brethren, very consciously, make it easier to obey the rules than to break them. They provide a structure in which to live, with the aim of producing "perfect" lives. Assuming for a moment that all those rules genuinely do add up to a perfect life, how much value is there in a person who's been moulded to fit that life? Is the life itself sufficient, or should it be harder work than that, with the very struggle itself of value?

I don't claim to have the answers. But I have asked the questions. I have spent long nights finding out what I do believe, and as a result I can rely on the faith I have. By comparison, I look around and wonder whether most of my brethren have beliefs, or merely assume they do because they've always told themselves they have. They may be too busy checking themselves for infractions to find out. I don't want to imply that everyone is like that, because there are many who are really Christian and it shows, and I have a lot of respect and affection for those people. But they aren't the ones driving the Exclusive Brethren Project forward.

So what do I believe? Sorry, but that's between me and my creator, and you can take that any way you choose.