How to be a Christian without joining a church

The Nativity

01What a Christian learns from the Christmas story

Official visits need preparation. For the comfort of the visiting VIP, their staff and the host country work hard. The symbolism of every aspect of the visit is considered, including the likely interpretation of the arrangements by both parties. The Christian looks at the birth of Christ to see how God planned for the visit of his son to the world.

There is no official welcome, rather a snub. There is no grand reception hall, only an animal shelter. The baby's parents do not even own the shelter; it is lent or rented.

There is no publicity; this child is not a 'celebrity' — the word for this concept in Christ's time was 'glory'. It meant, then as now, to attract the attention and envy of large numbers of other people. Here, a few individuals (shepherds and astrologists) are made aware in strange ways.

There is no expensive layette, no baby carriages or toys. All are evidently unimportant. This VIP is without power or influence — naked and vulnerable.

What is provided? First, the quality of the mother. This is a woman who can bear an illegitimate child in an occupied country and bring him up to be without anger or bitterness, a man full of generosity and love. That is why she is rightly admired. As husband to this woman, we have a man who was willing to defy the law as it then was and sacrifice his own pride to assume responsibility for her pregnancy and cover her shame. We have the undivided attention of these two loving people. We have shelter, warmth, peace, devotion and dignity.

So God comes to the world obscure and helpless, from love to love. When a Christian thinks about this scene, he sees that God has a set of values which are completely different from the values of the human world. A Christian struggles, all his life, to bring his set of values more in line with God's values and less in line with those of the world. This is not easy because he lives in the world and, to do God's work in the world, he needs to engage with it.

02Values

What makes true Christians different is their values. True Christians are unimpressed by wealth, social status and popularity. They are interested in whether people are honest, kind and unselfish. They don't hate the rich or the powerful, they are just unimpressed by them and treat them just the same as they treat the poor and powerless.

Christianity is about a different way of looking at the world. When looking at others, a Christian should not look for how famous, powerful, influential or rich they are but how good, truthful, kind, generous and self-sacrificing they are. When he looks at himself — which is not often if he is busy finding ways to love his neighbour — he asks those same questions.

The wise men from the East

03Adoration of the Magi

Wise men travelled from the East to Bethlehem in search of a king. They followed their star to Bethlehem, worshipped the Christ child and offered him presents. They were the first non-Jews to see Christ and, for Christians, their presence shows that Christianity is for everyone. The first Christians wondered whether Christianity was a branch of Judaism. The magi signal that you do not need to be a Jew to follow Christ. You don't need to be born a Christian. You don't need to join a church. You don't need to desert another religion. You simply need to follow Christ.

His teachings are compatible with those of any religion that preaches truth and loving kindness.

The centurion and his slave boy

04Love and loving kindness

A senior officer in an occupying army seeks out a member of a hostile population and begs his help. Like an Israeli officer begging an inhabitant of Gaza for help. Or a Russian officer begging a Ukrainian for help. Romans were conscious of their superiority and knew the natives hated them. This can't have been easy. Why did he do it? He did it for a slave. And, of course, it was not good form to care much for a slave. The emperor Marcus Aurelius was rebuked for crying when his nanny died. 'She was only a slave, after all.' As we might say, 'All this fuss for a dog, a cat, a newt.'

So, the centurion humiliated himself for a slave. Why? Because he loved him, and love made him vulnerable. The power of the Being who created the galaxies is too great for us to imagine, yet this Being is exquisitely vulnerable: because of the love he bears us. Christ recognised the centurion's love as the vulnerable kind.

If we go through life and don't feel that vulnerability through love, there is a danger that we will not recognise God seen face to face. Because there will be no show of strength, no heavenly limousine sweeping down a private lane, no elbowing of the weak out of the way. God is not arrogant or domineering. The Lord of the universe is, to us, a still, small, sweet voice.

If we want a powerful God to destroy our enemies, take revenge on our behalf, frighten the ungodly into submission, then the Christian God will be a big disappointment. The Christian tries to imitate Christ so as to become more like him so that, when he finally meets him, he will like what he sees.

Of course, it isn't possible to behave as a Christian should because the plan is not human, it is divine. But if ten per cent of us could manage it ten per cent of the time, we would have a far better world.

The Good Samaritan

05Your neighbour

When Christ said we should love our neighbour as much as we loved our self, someone asked, reasonably enough, 'Who is this neighbour?' In answer, Christ told this story.

A man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked, robbed, beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. Two priests, who might have been expected to take pity on him, crossed the road to pretend they hadn't seen him. Someone stopped and went beyond the call of duty, taking him to a place of safety, paying for his treatment, offering to return to settle any outstanding bills — this person was a Samaritan, from a race and religion that the Jews despised.

The message is that a Christian must see everyone as his neighbour. A neighbour is anyone who needs you to be a neighbour to him or her. Your 'neighbour' cannot be restricted to your friends and family or countryman or tribesman or co-religionist. Your neighbour is any and every other person, including your enemy. This is because the other person is God's beloved. You cannot please God by hardening your heart against God's beloved.

A Christian knows that God loves him, but not because he is rich or beautiful or clever or popular or powerful — all those things are beneath God's notice. God does not love you because you are good and, if you are wicked, God will not stop loving you and will long for you to turn around. But God does not force anyone to be good.

Neither can a Christian impose goodness on others. As a Christian you are entitled to live your life in such a way that others want to imitate you. That is all. But it is far from insignificant, for humans, like beasts, learn most powerfully by imitation.

There are two sides to this. 'Who will be a neighbour to me?' Not necessarily the person you'd expect.

06Truth

The rule book only lays down the minimum that your neighbour should expect from you. But if you are going to throw away the rule book for something better, then it is important to be honest with yourself. It is all too easy to convince yourself that your neglect or abuse or desertion of someone is all for the best — that it will be for their good or, at least, do them no harm. To treat your neighbour justly and lovingly as a Christian, you must try hard to put yourself in the other person's place and understand how your own behaviour might be affecting them. You cannot tell yourself comforting lies to justify your own selfishness.

Nor should you simply try to please your neighbour. You respond to your neighbour's needs, not to his wants.

• He may need to be opposed
• He may need to be helped to see the error of his ways
• He may need to be prevented from doing more harm to his fellow men
• He may need to be in prison

All that can be done lovingly, without hate.

Remembering that the other person is God's beloved, the Christian must deal honestly with God's beloved. You should not tell people lies and you should not tell lies about them so as to do them harm. Telling lies harms yourself too, of course. You cannot even have useful science without honesty, because it is when your experiment doesn't give you the result you expect that you are about to break through to a new truth. Business does not flourish against a background of deceit. A society where no one can believe anyone else and no deal can be taken on trust wastes time and energy in second-guessing and self-defence — time and energy that could be better spent on loving one's neighbour and tackling the practical problems the world faces. A society which is broadly honest will forge ahead of a society where everyone expends mental energy wondering when and how much they can trust each other.

Christ warned against all types of dishonesty, but the one he particularly disliked was hypocrisy. This is pretending to be better than you are in order to impress other people. If you deceive people who look to you for an example as to your own virtue, this is not just hypocrisy; it is abuse of power.

The calling of Nathaniel

07Forgiveness

The practical importance of forgiveness

Hate and revenge corrode the soul and ravage the body in terms of mental health and physical health, raising blood pressure and suppressing immunity.

Revenge leads to an upward spiral of misery. How to stop it: the Christian must stop the buck and absorb the shock. A Christian acknowledges the impossibility of judging another person.

When Philip had agreed to follow Christ, he persuaded his friend Nathaniel to meet him. Nathaniel was unimpressed until Jesus told him, 'I saw you when you were under the fig tree.' Staggered, Nathaniel replied, 'You must be the son of God.'

We can't know what Nathaniel was doing under the fig tree. Either it was something he was deeply ashamed of or it was something he was proud of. All we know is that no one else could possibly have known about it. We are in the same position with everyone we meet. We can have no idea of the pressures, the fears, the experiences that drive them to say and do what they do. We did not see them under the fig tree. It's not just that we should not judge them. We cannot. Because we didn't see them under the fig tree.

Rancour incites to revenge. It is unjustified because it takes no account of the duty to love, or of the fact that we can never fully understand what drove the other person to harm us — we did not see them under the fig tree.

The other side of the coin

Of course, we ourselves are not perfect and will need forgiveness. This is what Christ had to say about that. When he came upon a group of men preparing to stone a woman to death because she had committed adultery (stoning was the legal punishment at the time) he said,

'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'

When Peter asked him, 'How often shall I forgive my brother if he repeatedly wrongs me? As often as seven times?' Jesus answered, 'Not just seven times, but seventy times seven.'

'For the procedure in the beyond,' he said, 'is like that of a certain king who wished to settle his accounts with his officials. The first to come before him owed him ten thousand dollars, and because he could not pay this debt, his lord ordered him to be sold into slavery, together with his wife and children and all his property, to pay his debt. The official fell on his knees and pleaded,

"My lord, please have patience with me, and I will repay you in full."

The lord took pity on him, freed him and let him off the debt.

But as this official went out, he met a dependent who owed him twenty dollars. Seizing him by the throat, he cried, "Pay what you owe me!" Then the dependent threw himself at the other's feet and begged him,

"Please be patient with me, I will repay you in full."

The other would not listen to him but had him put in prison until the debt was paid.

The other officials saw what had happened and were distressed by it. They came and laid the case before their lord, who summoned the official again and said to him,

"You scoundrel! I cancelled all your debts, because your pleading touched my heart. Shouldn't you have been lenient with your debtor, as I was with you?"'

08Humility

Christ said, 'Earthly rulers force their will upon their subjects, and their officials let the people feel their power. This must not be so among you. Any one of you who wishes to be reckoned among the great must rather be your slave, and he among you who wishes to be the foremost must toil for you; just as the Son of man himself has not come to be served, but to serve others, and to give his life as ransom for the many. Strive, therefore, to perfect yourselves in that which men regard as lowly, and to divest yourselves of that which men regard as great.

God, who sees you in secret, will reward you.'

Christ advised modesty for a very practical reason. Suppose you are invited to a dinner and sit yourself in the best place because you are the most important of the guests. What if a latecomer is even more important than you are? The host will ask you to give up your place and you will have to move elsewhere in front of everyone. Think how humiliating that will be.

But, more importantly, before the greatness and power of the creator of the universe, modesty is the only realistic attitude. 'When I look at the Heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and stars that you set in place, what is man that you care for him, mortal man that you care for him?'

You are important. Because God loves you, not because other people admire or fear you.

09Crucifixion and sacrifice

The meaning of the crucifixion is the paradox that its shame is its glory. It makes no sense in terms of human values. Some early Christians denied that Christ was God because they could not worship a God who had been humiliated on a cross. They were not a subtle lot — for them, godhead was about power and glory. But for a Christian, that shameful, criminal's death is a glory and a triumph.

It is also a particularly gross example of man's inhumanity to man — in this case a good man who had never harmed anyone. In the crucifixion, therefore, we see man's values and God's values in stark juxtaposition. To be executed as a common criminal, your agony mocked at by scoundrels, is not shameful by God's standards. If you are suffering willingly for the sake of others, it is glorious. Again, what distinguishes the Christian is the way he sees things.

Crucifixion says several things to Christians. It shows man's inhumanity to man. It shows how the world's eye view is completely different from God's: the world sees it as a shameful criminal's death, a Christian sees it as the triumph of self-sacrifice, to save the world by setting an example of pure love.

God did not 'need' Christ to suffer to 'pay the price of sin'. The crucifixion is the whole point; the reason Christ came. God hanging from a tree, done to death in the most agonising and humiliating way possible, makes the stark contrast between the vulnerability and sensitivity of God's love and the spiteful cruelty of which man is capable. It is a call to a higher level of behaviour inspired by love. The crucifixion was the only way to make that point, and Christ knew he had to make it.

10A bad press

If you look at Christian religions and are sickened by the coercion, the violence, the hypocrisy and the avarice, there is no need to reject Christ. His teaching, though misunderstood, poorly applied and betrayed — often by its adherents — has produced the most successful and caring societies the world has known (though you may think that is not saying much) and there are reasons for this.

If you had flown over Eurasia in the sixth century you would have found the ground studded with amphitheatres — places where people were tortured to death for public entertainment. Five hundred years later those amphitheatres were gone. They had been replaced by cathedrals, places of sacred music and prayer. The most cogent reason for believing in Christ is that his recipe bakes the best cake.

A Christian is simply a follower of Christ. You can follow Christ without joining a church, without declaring yourself a Christian, without deciding which 'brand' of Christian you want to be. You can follow Christ in your secret heart. As you come to follow him, you will grow more like him, and so you will come to know him and love him. Because he is always, always, there for you.

The mustard seed and the yeast

11The Kingdom

Christ said the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, because it can grow from small beginnings to a huge tree. He said the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast, because goodness radiates. And evil spreads. If someone does you a bad turn it is almost automatic to pass it back or pass it on. A good Christian absorbs the punches and spreads the smiles. And he does this not just to the bank manager or the government official but to everyone, however 'unimportant' by worldly standards.

How does Christ save? Christ entered history at a tipping point to redress balance, because evil spreads and, at that point in history, evil was winning the tug of war and the world faced a downward spiral. There is a parallel world of goodness and truth, and our role is to bring our world closer to that one.

As Christ did at a wedding party, we are in the process of changing the world from water into wine. Every word and act of goodness will spread, like yeast through dough, and help that process. The Kingdom is every act of kindness, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy and truth released into the world.

We share ninety-seven per cent of our genes with beasts and we have inherited instincts which are necessary to a beast's survival: greed, lust, aggression. Aggressive protection of the young, violent protection of food sources and territory, hoarding of surplus, determination to pass on genes, are all necessary to ensure survival of animal individuals and species and keep them equal to changing environments. But we are called to become gods; gods of love, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. Collectively and individually, we are work in progress.

A single individual is not expected to achieve all this in one lifetime. Rather they work in their own situation to mirror this other world; to behave as if they already live in it; seeing how it and he or she fall short, but knowing God does not blame us and just wants us to keep trying. God shows humility and vulnerability in giving us a role in the continuous process of transformation.

Practical points to consider if you harm another person

• You have no idea what miseries and bitterness you will be adding to
• You will be adding to the evil in the world and diminishing the power and size of God's Kingdom
• With everything you think or do or say, you either expand the Kingdom or contract it

The sower

12Responding to Christ's message

Christ described how a farmer went out to sow his seed. He did not place the seed in drills but, using the usual method of the time, he took it up in handfuls and threw it to right and left. Some fell on paths and was eaten by birds; some fell on stones and grew into shallow-rooted plants that soon wilted and died in a drought; some fell into ground that was already full of weeds with which it couldn't compete. The seed that fell on good ground did well and gave a good harvest.

Christ explained that the seed is the word of God. People respond in different ways when they hear it, depending on how receptive they are. How receptive they are will depend on when and how they hear God's word, and who from.

The seed may fall on an individual more than once, and we will all be more responsive at some times than others. Christ is warning us that God will not force us to respond to him, and he is reassuring preachers that it's not necessarily their fault if people don't want to hear the good news from them.

As to our own response, we can fertilise our own soil by reading the sayings and doings of Christ and noting the good example of our neighbour.

13The benefits of being a Christian

God chose Mary to be the mother of his son, but that does not mean that she would be shown any special privileges.

She agreed to bear a child, conceived out of wedlock, in an occupied territory. Once the child was born, she became a refugee in Egypt. Her precious, twelve-year-old son was lost in the capital city for three days — a terrifying ordeal for any parent.

God did not spare her any of this. He did not spare his son crucifixion. A Christian does not expect following Christ to protect him from hardship, sickness and sorrow. God is not interested in giving us a cushy life in this world. God is concentrating on higher things. God is interested in whether, during this life, we are becoming the kind of person for whom, when we come to the next life, Heaven will be the right place to be.

Of course, living in a community where everyone is trying to be unselfish and loving will tend to be more agreeable than living with a pack of wolves, but becoming a Christian is no guarantee of happiness in this life — it is simply a response to Christ's love and a wish to be more like him. We love him because he loved us first.

Christ enjoyed roast lamb, freshly caught fish, the company of friends, a searching argument, a good joke. But these are diversions along the way, not our journey's end.

If you are a Christian

• You will not be able to take revenge if people do you wrong
• You will not be able to use force except in self-defence
• You will not be able to deceive anyone, even when it would suit you to
• You will not be able to put your own interests before those of other people
• You will have to put other people first
• You will be expected to return good for evil

It's a very tough call. But Christ isn't telling you to give up before you start. He doesn't ask anyone to be perfect, he just asks us to keep on trying. And he doesn't want to deceive you. He wants you to know that what he asks is difficult and will often go against the grain. That's because the recipe is divine and not human. If you're not prepared for it to be tough, you may be easily discouraged.

The rich young man · The healing on the Sabbath

14Spirit and letter

A rich young priest came to Christ and asked him, 'What must I do to be saved?' When Christ replied that he should keep the commandments, he insisted that he already did. So Christ said that, if he wanted to do more, he should sell his possessions, give the money to the poor and follow him. This was not the answer the young man wanted, so he left. He had wanted a check list; a series of boxes to tick so he could know, 'I've done this and I've done that and I've done the other, so I'm certain to be saved.' What Christ tried to show him is that it isn't a question of ticking boxes. It's about our dealings with God and our neighbour, and the commitment is unlimited. This is the 'catch all' at the end of the job description: 'and whatever else is necessary.'

Do you 'love' someone? What would you go without, give up, suffer, for their good?

As Christ said, 'Greater love has no man but this: to give his life for his friend.'

The spirit of the law

Jewish law forbade carrying out any kind of work on the Sabbath day so, when Jesus cured a sick man on the Sabbath, the religious authorities criticised him. The point he made is that loving God is not about a rule book; it's about an open-ended commitment to our neighbour, and exactly what that means depends on the situation. A Christian's response may vary in different situations because it depends on the guiding principle, not on a rule book.

Taken together, these incidents tell the Christian there is no check list and there is no limit. It's about a loving response to each and every person in each and every situation.

Some Christians have found this too great a challenge, so they have taken refuge under a mass of petty rules. The whole point of Christ's teaching is that it is not rule based, it is principle based.

The vineyard workers · The prodigal son · The lost sheep

15God's justice

A wine grower had work to be done in his vineyard. He went down to the market, where men looking for work used to hang around. He chose some fit active men, agreed a daily rate with them and sent them to work in his vineyard.

By mid-morning he could see that, although they were doing their best, they would not finish the work by nightfall, so he went back to the market and recruited more. By lunch time it was clear that there were still not enough hands to complete the work, so he brought on more, and so on in the afternoon.

These men laboured under the burning sun, but those who had not found work also stood under the burning sun, and they were wracked with anxiety about how they would feed their families if they didn't get work.

As twilight approached the wine grower realised that, with a few fresher men to give a last boost to the work, they would be finished by the end of the day, so he brought in the last few desperate men still waiting at the market.

He was delighted when the work was completed as night fell, and paid every worker the wage he had agreed with the first gang.

Those who had worked all day or half the day complained that this was unjust. Christ was firm. The owner of the vineyard has the right to pay each worker what he thinks fit, and it is no business of anyone else.

It is not as though the best life is play time and those who are summoned early to class have a raw deal. Living apart from Christ is not a bed of roses either.

If it is a cold winter's day and you have spent it toasting yourself in front of a roaring fire, wouldn't you give up your place to a wretch found frozen in a snow drift? If, after a wicked life, someone should embrace Christ, Christ will not turn him away. And a Christian should be happy about that.

On the same theme: the prodigal son

There were two brothers. One asked for an advance on his inheritance and went off and spent it on riotous living.

A famine came and the now penniless young man was deserted by his friends and faced starvation. He realised that even his father's slaves lived under better conditions than he now did, so he went back home to ask to become one of his father's slaves. But the father had long been looking out for him and welcomed him home with a feast. His brother thought this was unfair. Christ pointed out that, if he had been looking at the situation from his father's point of view, he would have seen that the ruin of a child is a bitter sorrow to a parent, and that he should have been pleased that his father was spared it.

It might seem to you that God's love for a certain individual is misplaced. You would be wrong. Besides, we are not in competition for God's love. There is plenty for everyone.

Your relationship with God is unique; no one else has any bearing on it and yours has no bearing on anyone else's. Like a good parent, God doesn't give all the children the 'one size fits all' deal. God gives us, individually, what we need. If it seems God gives you less than someone else, that may be because you have already been given more — better genes, better examples, better circumstances, better understanding — so now you need less.

God does not treat us like a government provider; a one-size-fits-all provision of housing, social security package, medical insurance.

Christ asked, 'What would you say: if a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and hunt for the lost one? And if he succeeds in finding it, then he will be happier over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray, will he not? So too it is the will of your heavenly Father that not even a single one shall be lost.'

16The problem of pain

'Why does God permit evil?' largely decodes as 'Why does God let us sin?' Why does God permit us to squander our time and ingenuity on finding better ways to dominate and exploit each other, when we could devote ourselves to minimising all the evil in the world that we don't actually cause ourselves and each other — disease and natural disasters? Because God does us the honour of inspiring us to help perfect our own world. God treats us as adults and partners, not as children or slaves.

The loaves and the fishes

17The community of Christ

God relates to each of us as an individual, but we can also say that we are working towards salvation as a community. It is the essence of Christian belief that God loves each of us individually and personally, yet in some ways we are saved collectively, because goodness spreads. And inspires.

If people have difficulty believing in physical miracles, they may understand that God can inspire us. Take the miracle of the loaves and fishes. You can believe that Christ physically increased the quantities of two fishes and five loaves until it could satisfy five thousand people, or you could believe that God and the generosity of a small boy inspired everyone to open their lunch boxes and share the contents. In its way, getting five thousand people to behave generously to strangers is a miracle. This is the real power of Christ's teaching. You could go into the most wretchedly unhappy place and, if you could persuade more than half of the people to treat all the others with truth and loving kindness, they would soon be in paradise. A single person who behaves with honesty and loving kindness will create a little Heaven around them.

18The Kingdom of Heaven is in you

Other religions stress the importance of ritual. They think God is deceived by external show: certain postures, certain words said aloud, facing certain directions, sacrificing certain animals which reached certain degrees of perfection, excluding certain foods. The god can see all of these rituals being performed and judge if they are being done correctly.

But the God of Christians sees directly into the heart and mind. External words and rituals are irrelevant because the mind of God communicates directly with the mind of the creature. This should not terrify you. More often than not, a full understanding of a person's internal struggles will speak more in their favour than to their condemnation, especially to a God who loves and seeks above all to transform them. It simply means that to hide one's motives, or to go through the motions without meaning, is a waste of time because God is not fooled. Knowing our innermost thoughts, the Christian God can judge by intention, not by results.

With the God of Christians there are no boxes to tick, no specific prayers to intone, no rules to be bound by; only an open-ended commitment to increase God's Kingdom by treating our neighbour honestly and with loving kindness.

19Power structure

Nothing Christ said or did implies he intended to found a power structure. He suggested a horizontal structure of individuals, each in a relationship with God which favoured true and loving relationships with their fellows. The churches' provision of a structure for advancement doesn't suit with a man who said don't call anyone father, and who had no possession but his own body, which he willingly surrendered for others.

To follow Christ is not easy. It could be encouraging to make common cause with others who are on the same path. But that does not mean they should insist you follow Christ in their way, or ask you for financial support, or to join their in-group, or threaten you with hellfire if you don't conform. Such behaviour is distinctly unchristian, since it is neither loving nor honest. No human being can presume to know how God will deal with another individual. You cannot even know for sure how God will treat you, although, from your knowledge of his love and mercy, you can have a working hypothesis.

Beware of those who try to control you, tell you how to be Christian, frighten you with punishments; the only way they can teach or help you is by their example. Beware of those who want you to mark yourself as belonging to their particular brand. We are all followers of Christ, committed to truth and loving kindness. That is all there is to it. It doesn't matter what we eat, or how we pray, or precisely how Christ is God, or whether or when we celebrate Christmas. The power is in the simple message: truth and loving kindness. Everything else is unimportant.

Cling to Christ; read about what he did and said, think about it in your secret heart. Talk and listen to him and he will guide you. If he could not do this, he would not be the son of God. So trust him.

Christ has given us a simple and sure way to know if someone is on the right lines: 'By their fruit you can know them.' So if someone sows kindness, reconciliation, truth and generosity, they have got the message. If they sow domination, anger, revenge, greed and lies, their compass needs adjusting.

You are not alone. Christ is in your heart; you are part of his Kingdom.

20Rules

Christ's teaching is not rule based. As soon as you have rules you can employ officers to defend the rules, impose the rules, interpret the rules, even create new rules. But Christ's teaching is not about rules. It is about principles. These principles may need to be applied differently in different circumstances. For instance, the rule 'Thou shalt not kill' has never meant to Christians that they should stand by and watch the defenceless being slaughtered. Guardians of the rules will say, 'Hard cases make bad law' — meaning the rules will be undermined if they are not obeyed in every conceivable case. But this is to pit rules against the very principles they are based on.

Christ does not ask if you are obeying the rules; he asks if you are being as truthful and kind as you can.

21Faith

The nature of faith, and whether or not it is a pure gift, has no place here. This is a practical manual, not a spiritual one. But hang on to this: these teachings are different from any other. They could not have been arrived at by purely human reflection, because they run counter to so many human instincts. Yet, when put into practice, however imperfectly, they bring us closer to fulfilment and happiness. The person who gave us these teachings is still accessible to us and keen to develop a relationship with each individual one of us. He has given us the best proof possible of his love and concern.

Christ said, 'Give unto Caesar' — the government — 'the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' Anything to do with whether you should tell the truth or be kind and forgiving is clearly not the business of the state.

22A unique and personal relationship

This paradox is the greatest leap of faith a Christian makes. The system of survival of the fittest seems to be concerned with the survival of species, not individuals, and almost seems to support the idea of an absentee landlord who has installed fail-safe regulatory systems to work while his eye is off the ball. But Christ insists that God cares for man not collectively, but as individuals, and that we are all unique. Our relationship with God is unique and personal.

He assures us that 'God sees even when a sparrow falls.'

23Faith and trust

Christ said, 'Think about wild lilies. They don't work, yet God has made their flowers more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory.' So do not fret about things that are not, ultimately, meaningful.

God is not a slot machine that spews out all your trivial wants and fancies, but someone who holds your destiny in his safe and tender hands. Faith moves mountains. Your faith made you whole, but you should not put God to the test, and God helps them who help themselves. If you lose a coin, do as the woman in Christ's story did, and sweep the house till you find it. If you lose a sheep, search for it. Do as much as you can for your own salvation and that of others; do what you can to ensure a dignified life for you and your dependents; practise truth and loving kindness as far as you can. Trust God for the rest.

24Prayer

Christian prayer is not a shopping list. Of course we can ask for help, but if the requests are placed against a background of daily conversation in which such things as praise, gratitude and love are mentioned, and if some of the requests are on behalf of others rather than all for one's self, they may find a more sympathetic hearing. You may need to persevere in prayer. Christ tells of a judge who refused justice to a widow. She was so persistent that, in the end, he gave in to her — not because he cared about justice, but just to shut her up. If even a corrupt judge responds to persistence, a merciful God may well do.

How does a Christian pray?

How should you speak with your best friend? How do you talk to any friend?

• You greet them and say how pleased you are to see them
• You thank them for any gifts they have given you or services they have done for you, especially if you haven't done so before
• You get them up to speed with what has been happening to you since you last spoke
• You mention people who are causing you concern
• You may ask them to help, while always assuring them that it is all right if they prefer not to
• Then, and indeed throughout the conversation, you listen

Of course, you use your own words, not someone else's — except for one.

25The Lord's Prayer

When Christ was asked, 'How should we pray?' he answered, 'Pray like this.'

26The Beatitudes

1. Happy are the poor in spirit. The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
2. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth.
3. Blessed are those who mourn. They shall be comforted.
4. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after justice. They shall have their fill.
5. Blessed are the merciful, because they shall obtain mercy.
6. Blessed are the pure of heart, because they shall see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called the children of God.
8. Blessed are they that suffer persecution in the cause of right. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.