Not for the kids?.. Looking for a simple Christianity

Luke 18:
15And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.
16But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
17Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

Defining the word “Christianity” can be quite complicated, and exploring everything that constitutes “Christianity” can be a harrowing ordeal for those not appropriately educated. Indeed, Christianity has over the centuries evolved from a community of people who followed Jesus into a major religion that has tens of thousands of denominations and sub-denominations. All these denominations were formed from an individual’s subjective experience of God and interpretation of the Bible, and the differences among them are often very obscure theological/philosophical questions that don’t affect my life much whichever way.

Whatever happened to Christ’s idea of approaching the kingdom of God “as a little child”? The conclusion that I drew from the above verses is that Christianity is fundamentally simple. The biggest question an inquiry into the meaning of Christianity can answer is whether Christianity is simple by nature or complicated by design. I doubt there would be many who’d argue that Christianity is supposed to be complicated, but why doesn’t modern Christianity realize this simplicity?

When I say simple, I do not mean what is going on in Sunday schools. Most commonly what Sunday school involves is teaching the children the important (and not so important) doctrines that the church’s denomination subscribes to. That is not a simple Christianity, but rather Christianity simplified. Intellectual doctrines that were created with adult minds being simplified to the point that a little child could somewhat grasp it. Being able to lower Christianity to a child’s level does not make Christianity simple at all, and the question of what “simple Christianity” means remains a mystery.

The nature of a simple Christianity can be discovered with the next conclusion (one that is more rash and controversial than the last) I will draw:

Since Christianity is simple, it is existential.

This statement claims that Christianity is simple due to it being existential by nature. Christianity is not found in reason, the intellectual, the doctrinal, or the systematic. Christianity is essentially existential (for previous sketches of what an existential Christianity means, see my article archive), and one virtue of an existential Christianity is that it is simple (simple in the sense that its essence is entirely independent of intellectual complication).

This does not mean a Christianity that is anti-intellectual or definitively irrational, however, since it does not necessarily follow that being independent of reason means being in conflict with reason. What I am trying to get at here is that the essence of a simple Christianity lies in our existence within the world, not our intellectual contemplation within the mind.

Existential Christianity is not just about privileging the practical over the theoretical though. Existentialism is not about ignoring the ultimate intellectual questions (such as “what is truth?”, “what is real?”, “what is the meaning of life?”), but rather finding the answers to these questions within our lived experience and not reason. Philosophers (such as the existentialists) come to this conclusion through their philosophy, poets through their artistic musings, workers through their work, and lovers through their love.

In conclusion, Christianity is simple and Existential. Those two terms are interconnected, but not entirely synonymous. Modern Christianity is not essentially existential, and thereby it is not a simple Christianity. It is caught up in the rigours of the doctrinal, to the point where it is now claimed that Christianity is these doctrines, and are constituted by them. Jesus wants followers to come to the kingdom of God as a little child, and by that he is pointing out the virtue of existential innocence that little children possess.