Faith, Belief, and the Fragmentation of Christianity

 The teachings of Jesus, as preserved in the Synoptic Gospels, display a remarkable completeness and stability. They do not invite doctrinal expansion or theological refinement, but call for repentance, trust in God, love of neighbour and enemy, forgiveness, humility, and faithful obedience. These teachings are practical, relational, and existential in nature. They demand to be lived rather than interpreted, practiced rather than systematized. Consequently, there was no further “development” of Jesus’ teachings in the way later Christian doctrines developed.

Had Christianity been founded solely upon these teachings, its history would likely have followed a very different course. The centre of Christian identity would have been discipleship—the concrete practice of Jesus’ way of life—rather than theological correctness. Unity would have been grounded in shared obedience rather than shared formulations of belief.

What did evolve, however, was not the teaching of Jesus but belief about Jesus. The early confession that Jesus is the Christ, first articulated by Peter, became the starting point of an ongoing theological process. This belief emerged in response to the resurrection experience, which demanded interpretation. As the Christian message spread into new cultural and intellectual worlds, the question “Who is Jesus?” was answered in increasingly complex ways.

Paul interpreted Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord through whom God was reconciling the world. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews developed this belief using sacrificial and priestly imagery, presenting Christ as the heavenly High Priest. The Gospel of John expressed the same conviction in cosmic terms, identifying Jesus with the pre-existent Logos through whom all things were made. In the centuries that followed, the Church Fathers refined these interpretations further, employing the philosophical categories of the Greco-Roman world to articulate precise doctrines about Christ’s nature and relationship to God.

This theological development was not inherently misguided; it was an attempt to remain faithful to the Christian experience of Jesus in changing historical contexts. Yet a crucial shift occurred when belief about Jesus was elevated from testimony to foundation. Gradually, Christianity came to define itself primarily by what it affirmed about Jesus rather than by how it followed him. Orthodoxy took precedence over discipleship.

It is at this level of belief, not at the level of Jesus’ teachings, that division entered the Christian story. Christians did not separate over the command to love enemies or forgive sinners. They divided over doctrines—over definitions of Christ’s nature, substance, and identity. Unity was sought through doctrinal agreement, and disagreement was treated as a threat to faith itself. Thus, a religion born as a way of life increasingly became a system of beliefs, guarded by boundaries and enforced through exclusion.

This historical development invites critical reflection today. The problem is not belief as such, but the reversal of priorities. Faith in Jesus—understood as trust, commitment, and lived obedience—must precede and ground belief about Jesus. Beliefs should serve faith, not replace it. When belief becomes the primary criterion of Christian identity, faith is reduced to intellectual assent, and discipleship is marginalized.

A reorientation is therefore needed. Christianity must recover its centre in the teachings of Jesus without abandoning its theological heritage. Doctrine should be understood as historically situated witness rather than as an unchanging boundary marker. Beliefs must remain open to humility, dialogue, and self-critique, always measured against the spirit and practice of Jesus’ own life.

Such a re-centering would not erase doctrinal differences, but it could relativize them. Unity would no longer depend on uniformity of belief but on shared commitment to the way of Jesus. The decisive question would not be whether one holds the correct formulation, but whether one walks in love, mercy, justice, and faithfulness.

In this sense, the future of Christianity does not lie in further doctrinal refinement, but in a renewed seriousness about discipleship. A faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus may be less triumphant and less certain of its own correctness, but it would be closer to the heart of the one it claims to follow.

Beyond Reinterpretation: Where This Line of Thought Finally Breaks Away

Modern scholarship has long questioned the foundations of Christianity. Thinkers such as Albert Schweitzer, Rudolf Bultmann, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Leo Tolstoy, and Geza Vermes have each, in different ways, distinguished the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith, challenged literal resurrection claims, and exposed how belief hardened into doctrine. In many respects, the critical position outlined here stands firmly within that tradition. Yet agreement is not the most revealing feature. The real significance lies in where this line of thought refuses to stop where these scholars stopped.

Most revisionist theologians attempt some form of rescue. Marcus Borg preserves Christianity by reinterpreting Christ and resurrection as metaphors. Bultmann demythologizes miracles but insists on existential faith grounded in proclamation. Crossan reframes resurrection as communal vindication, preserving symbolic continuity. Tolstoy discards dogma but absolutizes Jesus’ ethics as universal moral law. Even Schweitzer, after exposing Jesus’ failed apocalyptic expectations, retreats into reverent silence rather than reconstruction. In each case, belief is softened, relocated, or redefined—but rarely abandoned as the central axis.

The position developed here diverges at precisely that point. It questions whether belief—literal, metaphorical, or existential—deserves primacy at all. If “Christ” has no independent reality apart from collective imagination, then retaining the term, even symbolically, may perpetuate an illusion rather than clarify truth. If resurrection does not logically prove messiahship, then grounding a religion on it overloads an already fragile foundation. The issue is no longer how to reinterpret belief, but whether belief should remain the foundation.

What distinguishes this approach is its refusal of consolation. It does not seek safety in metaphor, existential depth, symbolic vindication, or moral absolutism. It allows for the possibility that Jesus’ life ended in failure, without cosmic correction—and that this need not destroy the value of his life or teaching. Meaning is not rescued by theology; it is tested by honesty. Jesus does not need to be infallible, divinely appointed, or uniquely salvific to remain meaningful. His teachings must stand or fall by their capacity to humanize life, not by their authority.

This places the inquiry beyond both traditional faith and liberal theology. It is neither a rejection driven by hostility nor a reform driven by loyalty to institutions. It is a post-belief position that asks whether a movement rooted in Jesus can survive without metaphysical guarantees, without proclamations, and without claims to ultimate certainty. Such a movement would resemble other wisdom traditions centered on practice rather than belief—slower growing, less powerful, but more resilient in a disenchanted world.

The central question, then, is not whether Christianity can be saved in its historic form, but whether something truer can emerge from its ruins. Once authority, uniqueness, and salvation claims are removed, Jesus becomes one moral and spiritual voice among others. Whether he remains central depends not on inherited reverence but on present relevance. This is a harder path than belief or disbelief, because it offers no final answers—only the discipline of living honestly without pretending that history must justify meaning.

In that sense, this line of thought does not aim to destroy Christianity. It asks whether Christianity can outgrow its dependence on belief and rediscover its worth as a way of life. Whether that future deserves the name “Christianity” at all remains an open question—but it is precisely this openness that marks the inquiry as both faithful to truth and free from illusion.