The Essence of Christianity

The Essence of Christianity
by
October 06, 2026

Woodmont has had a Center of Hope and Healing for a number of years now. It was operating out of Campbell West (which is now gone) and will now be moving up to the newly renovated South Hall. Vicki Askew has been the director for the past few years and has worked very hard to offer healing, spiritual practices, retreats, and special events. Dr. Ben Curtis was the original director. Due to some health challenges, Vicki let me know a few weeks ago that she would need to step down this fall but plans to remain as a spiritual director.

Last week, the Woodmont Board and I decided to name Mary Clare Pyron as the new Director. She has been closely involved with the Center over the past few years and has a great vision for how it can continue to grow and support the Woodmont congregation. She will begin in mid-October and will return to the Woodmont staff. We are very excited to have her back on our staff team. You will be hearing more information in the coming weeks.

My friend Rubel Shelly served as the long-term minister of Woodmont Hills Church of Christ here in Nashville for about twenty-seven years before going on to serve as the president of Rochester College up in Michigan. He wrote a great book titled “I Knew Jesus before he was a Christian…and I Liked Him Better Then.” And his basic claim is that the Jesus of history and the Jesus of common public perception are two very different persons. And he feels that the church has done a poor job of representing Jesus and his message over the past two thousand years to the extent that he has become unattractive to many people today.

American scholar Sam Pascoe once said, “Christianity was born in Israel, only to be taken to Greece and morphed into a philosophy. From there it was taken to Rome and made into an institution of civil power. Eventually it migrated into Europe where it was developed into a culture. And later, it was brought to America and made into an entrepreneurial business enterprise.” These are strong words but they ring true in many ways.

Rubel says that when we institutionalized Jesus, we watered down core parts of his message, and we became much more concerned with maintenance, doctrine, correct beliefs, power, and blending Jesus with the culture. And so now what we have in our culture is a lot of people who really don’t know what Jesus was all about because the church has misrepresented him for so long. We’ve made him into what we want him to be rather than allowing his message to speak for itself. We have done our very best to put Jesus in a box. In many ways, we have tried to put our words and agendas into his mouth.

In Matthew 22 a lawyer comes along and asks Jesus, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?” And Jesus responds with: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second commandment is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” That’s it! That’s what the Christian life is all about. It is very clear and straightforward! Yet if we are honest, we know that we have a hard time following these two commandments. They are simple, and we know them by heart, yet they are very difficult and complex at the same time!

We live in a busy, fast-paced world where AI is expanding by the day. Methodist pastor Martin Thielen wrote this: “Of all the things that clamor for our time, energy, and attention, what matters most? What is the bottom line? It’s a crucial question.” We are all constantly bombarded with dozens of concerns, including our jobs, careers, marriages, children, homes, friends, faith, church, community, health, and finances. And these concerns often compete with one another for our time and energy. So how do we discern what matters most? What is primary? What is secondary? What really counts? What doesn’t? That’s what this scribe in Mark 12 is trying to figure out. He wanted to know, “What should be the greatest priority in life?”

Our lives should focus on having a relationship with God and a relationship with others. And it should happen in that order. So before we get too wrapped up with doctrine, biblical literalism, worship styles, social issues, partisanship, political power, and church shopping, we should ask ourselves, “How are we doing when it comes to following these two basic commandments?” That will tell us a lot about our life and our faith.

I grew up as a preacher’s kid, hearing my father talk about the symbolism of the cross. The vertical bar represents our relationship with God (worship, prayer, Bible study, etc). The horizontal bar represents our relationship with others (mission, service, outreach, compassion, kindness). Some churches are all about the first part. Other churches are all about the second part. Without both bars, we don’t have the cross. Without both aspects of the faith, we don’t have a complete version of faith. We will all spend our entire lives trying to find that crucial balance.

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