Integrated Faith

Summary

A public figure once made a speech about conservation and the environment. He ended by saying, “I now call upon the Christian part of myself.…” Really? Is Christianity just one part of ourselves? Perhaps the speaker meant that statement as a transition to acknowledge that his faith shaped his environmental views. I hope so! But taken at face value, his words sound like internal compartmentalization. He had his public life, and he had his faith, and the two might never meet. Committing ourselves to Jesus means that we do not divide ourselves into Christian and non-Christian parts. We operate in a culture that is no longer overtly Christian, and some of us work in jobs that require honoring the rules of church-state separation; but Christ belongs in every part of our life.