How do you define your Christian life? What is your “walk” or your “testimony” all about? At times, my Christianity has been defined by what I don’t do. The whole, “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t cuss” basically, I don’t do non-Christian things. But is that akin to being dead? Sure, rendering the old man dead and no longer living for sin is a good thing… but doesn’t that accomplish just as much as a dead person? What are the “Do(s)” of my Christian life? What do I do that makes me distinctly Christian? Do I love more than a non-Christian? Am I humbler than a non-Christian? Do I seek after justice more than a non-Christian? Am I lead by the Holy Spirt to DO and not just to DON’T?

Doing can be scary. Doing can set yourself up for scrutiny. Don’ting (that’s a word I just coined) is safe. When you don’t no one can call you out and say that what you are Don’ting is wrong. But Doing, that’s way more dangerous. Doing can be questioned. You can get called out because the style in which you are Doing is isn’t correct, or the people you are Doing with aren’t correct, or a whole host of other dangers of Doing.

A good example would be Rick Warren. The guys does a lot. Do I have issues with some of the stuff he does, absolutely! If he were busy Don’ting would he be criticized? Probably not, Don’ting is safe. People are very critical of Warren and he’s a Doer. Warren himself said that he’d like his tombstone to say, “At least he tried.” What I’m saying here isn’t an endorsement nor is it a condemnation of Warren. I’m just using him as an example of someone who is Doing and is highly scrutinized because of it.

I’M ASKING A LOT OF QUESTIONS BECAUSE I WANT ANSWERS FOR MYSELF. Am I a doer or a don’ter? I think I need to be a little of both. Only being one can be dangerous. Only being a don’ter is dangerous because you miss out on this amazing adventure that God has for us and you don’t get to be his hands. Only being a doer is dangerous because you can become a pragmatic results-oriented Christians. Don’t get me wrong, results are important, but not if you have to compromise the convictions of the Holy Spirit or go against the Word and Commandments of the Creator.

I asked the question “how do the two relate to you?” and received some terrific answers. I’ve been pondering this subject for a while and have many thoughts, and have come to some conclusions but haven’t been able to really “write” anything on it. So I’m giving you a list of my thoughts on the subject.

• Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be an American, a capitalist, a Republican or be a westerner for that matter.
• Being an American doesn’t make you a Christian. Neither does being conservative, a republican, or living in the west.
• Being an American makes it much easier to become a Christian. (A Calvinist might argue against that)
• You can be both an American and a Christian.
• As a Christian, you don’t have to apologize for being an American.
• America’s greatness is based on Christian values and the work of Christians for that matter. Not to say that non-Christians haven’t done great things for this country, including die for its freedom. But Christians laid the foundations of this country.
• You don’t have to be a Christian to be a great American.
• As an American, I’ve never been persecuted for being a Christian. Being called names doesn’t count as persecution in my book.
• The culture of American Christianity isn’t wrong.
• Being a Christian is so much more important than being an American.
• America could crumble (God have mercy we don’t!) but Christianity cannot.
• America is not as Christian as it used to be.
• Much of my Christian view is shaped by the Church in America. This makes sense and isn’t wrong.

I could go on, but that pretty much sums up my thoughts so far. What say you?

Clearly you can be both a Christian and an American. I for one am both. However, being one does not automatically mean that you are the other. I’m going to write more about the distinctions between the two later, but I have a question for you:

How do the two relate to each other for you?