About Christian values

Here is a list of things I would call “Christian values”.

(1) Love yourself. The value of a human individual is much more than success, wealth and health. God loves you as you are, as poor and pitiful as you are, and he has a plan for your life.

(2) Love your fellows. Even those who don’t agree with you, who hurt you or others. Try to understand them, to feel with them, to imagine their reasons.

(3) Love reality, even the one that exists although you don’t believe it. Seek diversity. Don’t trust your convictions. Don’t rely solely on your judgment. Don’t be superstitious.

(4) Don’t panic. Detach from the constant stream of information produced by the media business, where bad news generates more profit than good news. Remember that most of our fears are just our reaction to imaginary future scenarios in our brain. Remember that there is hope even when you can’t see a way forward. Open your mind, raise your inner eyes, and keep looking for signs of hope.

(5) Be brave. Cultivate civil courage. Don’t be afraid to question the human laws and cultural rules that you follow. No human law should give you permission –or enforce you– to act against God’s plan, which is written in your heart.

(6) Don’t judge. Don’t overestimate your personal convictions. Keep your mind open. Be prepared to change your mind.

(7) Be merciful. Forgive your fellow humans when they did something wrong. This will help you not to fear making mistakes yourself. See Mistakes are good.

(8) Be modest. Don’t say “I deserve this” because of course you do. Of course you deserve your peers’ attention, respect and love. Of course you deserve food and drink, clothes and a place to rest. Of course you also deserve a beautiful car, house, bicycle and phone, and anything else you might need in your life. But don’t worry about any of these things. Rather worry about whether your fellow humans have them as much as you do.

(9) Keep it simple. Don’t ask for more than you need. Humanity won’t survive if we cultivate the idea that “good enough is not enough”. Those who need the least are the most satisfied.

(10) Be thankful. Realize that every moment of your life is a gift.

This list is my personal list, your list may differ because our personal experiences differ. On the other hand it is good to discuss with other people about such lists of values. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

Here is a list of things I do not consider “Christian values”:

  • Democracy is not a Christian value. The Gospel is not a political message. Jesus has no problem with big contrast between rich and poor (Luke 17:5-10), neither with the dictator-like Roman emperor (Mt 22:15-22) nor with the fact that Romans occupied the Jewish territory and forced Jews to join their army (Mt 5:41).

  • Living in a family with a father, a mother and children is not a Christian value. It is the best place to develop social skills and a basic element of human nature, but Jesus didn’t invent it. It was valued in most civilizations and long before Jesus Christ. Families should be protected for biological and sociological reasons, not for religious reasons. Living in a traditional family is not a value we can call “Christian”. Jesus himself was born into an untraditional family. See more.

  • Being obedient is not a Christian value. Obedience is important when we want to collaborate and achieve great things together, and it is a good thing if you have good laws and good leaders, but this is a general wisdom, it is not particularly propagated by the Gospel. The Gospel rather encourages us to evaluate our laws and leaders with a critical eye and to not obey when a law is against God’s plan. See also Jesus started a religious revolution.

  • Some people believe that abortion is always a sin because the Bible says You shall not kill. But this rule has been written in a time when humans had little medical knowledge about how a child develops in a mother’s womb. Our knowledge has evolved since then. Reality is more complex. See About abortion.

As far as I can see, the Gospel does not say anything of the following:

  • priests are more honorable than other people

  • God wrote the Gospel as a book called the Bible

  • we should trust our leaders rather than our hearts

  • marriage is reserved to couples of opposite sex

I see many misunderstandings and debates circulating regarding what the Gospel says and what not. See also Tell me the Gospel in 60 seconds. Maybe we need to realize that Christian values cannot be formulated as a definitive list like those mentioned above. The Gospel does not bring a new value system, it brings a new way of seeing value systems, how they change over time and how to handle conflicts between cultural groups.

If there is one unique law system that can be called the Christian law system, then this law system cannot include detailed rules about abortion, family or marriage; it must be at “another level”, in the invisible world. “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36).

The UDHR is probably currently the best attempt of formulating Christian values as a universal document, and even this document is being criticised and acted against. Even I criticise it, see Stop equating corporations with humans!.

“The average man on the street believes that Christianity is a religion that imposes a particular morality with specific ethical behavior. He has concluded that “a Christian is one who lives by certain rules and regulations imposed upon him by divine or ecclesiastically dictated ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots,’ and that behavioral conformity to these moral codes of conduct is what the Christian strives to perform in order to please and/or appease God.” The tragic part of this misconception is that Christian religion has “faked” the world into believing that such is the essence of Christianity.” – James A. Fowler, 1998, Christianity is NOT Morality

To do: read Meta-Values: Universal Principles for a Sane World by C. Franklin Truan (2004)