By reducing its mysteries to beliefs, by codifying those beliefs in systems, and by defining itself by those belief systems, it has rendered itself a paradox: a ship that floats but doesn’t sail.1 For most Christians I encounter today, beliefs are simply what Christianity is. If I point out that in its early years, Christianity was a way of life, not a set of beliefs, they will protest that it was both, and the beliefs had priority. If I point out that the earliest Christians were widely divergent in their beliefs, they are surprised and doubtful; that’s not what they have been taught. If I
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