Typically we assess our beliefs about God, our beliefs about how we should live and about the meaning of our lives, according to two consistencies:

Scriptural consistency— “Do my beliefs conform to or resonate with the wisdom of the scriptures?”

Internal consistency— “Do my various beliefs cohere logically with each other?”

This blog is attempting to assess our beliefs using a third way, what I am calling the living consistency, the consistency between belief and life.  This way of assessing our beliefs works more in a circle—and less in a line—than the other two.  It continually asks questions which move our thinking in two different directions:  from belief to life and from life to belief.  This is a third consistency, which really must come first.

Living consistency— “Is my life consistent with my beliefs?” and, “Are my beliefs consistent with life as I experience it and know it and live it?”

It is easy for those of us who profess a religious belief to turn inwardly either as individuals or as a group.  When we think and talk about theology using the criteria of scriptural consistency and internal consistency we often exacerbate this tendency, sometimes constructing walls around our individual or corporate beliefs.

But a focus on living consistency naturally leads outward.  It has the ability to poke holes in the walls we may have created, letting light in and letting us out into the world to do some good.

I believe, first and foremost, that what I believe must be lived out in my flesh.  I believe that the word became flesh and that the word desires to become flesh in my life.  I seem to have spent too much time explaining and defending scripture instead of living it out.  I seem to have spent too much energy constructing, analyzing, explaining and defending my beliefs and Christian theology, and not enough trying to live it out.  I doubt that I am alone in this.  It is easier to explain than to show and easier to defend than to act.  I would like to do better.  Maybe you would too.

So I invite you to join me in the circle of living consistency, into a theology in the flesh.