Borrowed faith

Woven deeply into the fabric of
Protestant Christianity is the idea that faith is something you must own
or possess if it is to be real. American frontier religion in the 18th
and 19th centuries, with its emphasis on dramatic conversion
experiences, helps to explain the origins of
this idea, as does, I think, contemporary consumer capitalism.
Ownership–a nice house, a new car, a stellar reputation–is what we spend
our days working for as we strive to possess something that will give
us comfort or pleasure, security or status.

And so Christian faith is
routinely commodified along the lines of ”got milk?” Do you possess an
authentic, serviceable faith that will give you what you need when you
need it?

The bald utilitarianism of this
view is troubling enough (and worthy of its own
reflection/discussion/blog post), but I’ve been more interested lately
in a counter claim that shouldn’t be as odd and unfamiliar as it seems
to be: that Christian faith–the lived complex of belief and
practice, disposition and character, orientation and outlook–is less
about something we possess within ourselves and more about something we
borrow from others, something we take up (or ”put on” as the Apostle
Paul puts it).