On Easter Sunday I was thinking about what Christianity means in today’s world. The Easter focus on death and resurrection that I was taught about as a child seem less relevant today. Over breakfast I read a long article by journalist Paul Kelly about this. The status of Christianity as it was for centuries is dwindling. In its place is an increase in minority groups having their say and politics representing this trend.
Where to now for Christianity?
About Wendy
I love the whole Ys People space. It really resonates with my wish to help people find more fulfilment in their lives. That goes for my family and friends as well as my colleagues!
As well as my big focus on my family and friends, my 3rd big focus is through my company, The Glastonbury Company, www.glastonbury.com.au. With 6 other practitioners around the world, we deliver the Resilient Leadership Program. www.resilientleadershipprogram.com. This is aimed at indivuduals and leaders striving the make our world a better place. It's based on personal mentoring.
Where does this leave the individual? Who do we believe in? Which of the many value sets in our world today do we steer our courses by? Whichever we choose, we can be sure to upset people with different values.
These are challenging enough questions for adults to consider. How must our young people feel?
It comes down to how we respond to our everyday lives.
For many years, I have been exploring the possibility of kindness as the central value of my life and have created my own definition. You can read it here. This begins with kindness toward myself, then kindness toward others.
Did the Christianity of my young years give me a framework for this? I don’t think so. I spent many years being unkind to myself by not believing in myself; by not allowing myself to flourish at my best; by not supporting those around me to flourish at their best; by making myself small and guilty. The person who suffered the most from this deprived environment was me. Once I began to ask myself “Why?” I was appalled at the negative voices that ran around in my head once I stopped to listen.
And here was my big clue to my true values. I stopped listening to that voice of doom and began to seek different answers to my response to my everyday life. Ever so soft at first, a kind voice whispered in the background of the usual negative maelstrom. Here was a voice I could believe in. It began by suggesting ways to be kind to myself. If I did something well, instead of telling myself that I could have done better, I would congratulate myself. I was amazed at how expansive this was. Even more, when I spread this largesse to the people around me, they responded by reflecting it back to me.
Although this may sound simple, I have realised that a happy life comes from actively choosing how I treat myself and others, based on my own values, which represent me at my best. This is hard to achieve in today’s world of incessant messages such as “5 ways to be better” or “the 7 secrets to be liked.” Actively choosing what I listen to is a key part of being kind to myself. In the end only I know what is best for me to be my best.
This is the part of my life that I used to look to Christianity for when I was young – the values to live by and make all those choices that make up each day. Christianity has been part of our human world for a long time. Like all religions it has met our human need for a larger story than our own tribes for all those years. Where to now?
As this Easter Sunday draws to a close, I wonder about the current trends of multiple value sets represented by the many groups and religions, and the need to please by not saying anything that might upset any of these groups. What is emerging here?
I think about the Christian church in the next street from where I live. It welcomes all age groups and ethnic groups with open arms. Families flock there for the many activities most days of the week. No longer is it a place for the Sunday sermon only.
Perhaps, in this changed environment to the one in which I grew up, is the seed of a new beginning. A place with solid values that respects the right of each of the people who come to make their own choices about their everyday lives, knowing that they can come to the church for support when they need it. It is this permission to make one’s own choices that is missing from many of the groups and religions today.
So perhaps we have been through a long, slow death of Christianity as it once was, for which it has been duly punished by public outcry and irrelevance, and the resurrection of something wiser and kinder from the flames. Perhaps this could be the future for all our world’s religions as they evolve over time.
I do hope so..
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