How to be a bad Christian

I liked the title of this book by Dave Tomlinson so decided to give it a try. It's certainly making me think, though I can't say I agree with everything in it.

From what I've gathered so far, the book's basic argument is that being a Christian is not about going to church or believing certain things, but about living your live in a certain way. It's about living in the presence of a God who loves you; making good choices ( I guess Christians would call that 'holiness'); and loving others. OK, I'm on board with that.

Tomlinson goes on to argue, however, that living in this way is natural - that humans instinctively know that love is what it's all about and that we 'bump into God' in everyday life all the time. I'm not so sure I agree with him here. Examples he gives of loving God include: enjoying our gifts and living life with gratitude; breathing in fresh air and feeling glad to be alive; living fully in the present moment. These don't quite seem adequate. I certainly agree that loving God is not just about doing religious things - I don't have to sing a hymn to God in church to love him, and it's quite possible for me to sing in church without having a heart full of love for God. Some people can feel close to God when they're out and about in nature, for example, and seeing God's creation leads them to praise the creator - I get that (though I'm a pretty indoorsy person!). But if God is so self-evident in nature, why doesn't everyone believe in God? I remember having a sense of the transcendent before I became a Christian - I certainly didn't just live my life on a purely material level - but knowing God was something quite new.

This may be a narrow view, but for me loving God involves knowing something of God's work in history - both the history of the Lord's dealings with Israel as recounted in the Old Testament and the appearance of Jesus Christ in human history, as described in the gospels. God is not an impersonal force - 'a gas', as Alan Partridge puts it (!) - but a person who has a location in space and time.

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