Second-hand faith

“We’ve made my son an elder at the church now,” commented the interim pastor apologetically at a cause where I was the visiting speaker. “He should be on duty tonight, but I’m afraid he always turns up late.” A quarter of an hour after the service had begun, a man in his twenties slunk into the back pew, took no active part in the proceedings and seemed quite disengaged from what was happening. Clearly this was the pastor’s son. He had nothing to contribute to the conversation after the service. If he said anything at all, it had nothing spiritual about it.

I came away from the scene disillusioned and with a poor impression of the set-up at that place. If the young man had any faith to speak of, it looked as though it had been borrowed from his father. He gave no sign of having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was an elder! Surely this was a dismal reflection on both church and pastor. The pastor was not a strong enough character to challenge his son, and the church members had not queried the son’s promotion for fear of offending the father.

In my time I’ve been privileged to meet a number of keen high-profile Christians and their families. Some children grow up a credit to their parents. Not only do they follow their good examples, but they have a lively faith of their own which they can pass on. Some children, alas, disappoint their active Christian parents by rebelling against the faith altogether. Others, lacking what their parents have, aim to please and show willing. They deserve some credit for staying under the Christian banner when their peers ridicule their stand. Yet there is a huge gulf between agreeing to uphold a Christian family tradition and having your own life-changing meeting with the Saviour.

Recently the ever-useful Our Daily Bread notes reflected on the career of King Joash of Judah – a lesser-known monarch, ninth in succession to the great King David. His career started well. He had a wise counsellor by his side – his own uncle, Jehoiada, the chief priest. Cindy Hess Kasper comments, 

“But once his uncle was no longer there to teach and lead by example, Joash fell away and his life ended badly … It seems that the roots of his faith did not run very deep. He even began to worship idols. Perhaps Joash’s ‘faith’ had been more his uncle’s than his own.

“Others can teach us the principles of their faith, but each of us must come individually to a lasting and personal faith in Christ.”

I sometimes tried to sing to my congregations an old gospel song that puts the point plainly and challengingly. There are variations on the words, but the chorus of the version I know goes:

"You've got to walk that lonesome valley; You've got to walk it by yourself. There's no-one here can walk it for you; You've got to walk it by yourself” (Traditional).
 

To grow up in a Christian home is surely a great blessing. In most cases you are surrounded by wholesome talk, mild manners, love and encouragement. Differences are settled by reasoned discussion, not aggression. There is even a strand of Christian thought which argues that the faith of parents transmits itself to the children. They absorb the Christian way, so to speak, with their mother’s milk. The apostle Paul congratulates his pupil Timothy on having faithful forebears:

“I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5, NIV).

Further, he called Timothy his spiritual son. He had commissioned him to Christian work by the laying on of hands. Yet, valuable though all of this was, Timothy needed to take ownership of his faith for himself:

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6,7).

If you’ve had a good start in life, praise God. But that doesn’t excuse you from responsibility for your own good continuation and good ending.