Idea, behavior, or product - the post
Today as I was reading Malcom Gladwell’s book, “The Tipping Point,” I came across a phrase in which he asks, “Why is it that some ideas, or behaviors, or products start epidemics and others don’t?”
It struck me as interesting that those were the 3 categories into which “epidemic-ness” arose from in Gladwell’s thinking. However, Christianity doesn’t fit neatly into any one of those categories. It does however, bear some resemblence to all of them. So, as with most of my annoying thought/questions - I twittered it so that other people could think about it for me:
“If you had to choose one of the following options, is Christianity an idea, a behavior, or a product?”
The responses I recieved were interesting.
Rulebreakers: A couple of people broke the rules and said “none of the above…” (oddly enough, no one said “all of the above”…interesting) and then gave their rationale. I guess that’s good to see - these stalwart defenders of the concrete expression of the faith - but it didn’t help my thought process at all.
Product: This was actually the one that I thought most people would stay far far away from, but it ended up being championed by a number of people who said that in some ways it was a product - but a product unlike anything we make, since it’s something that God makes.
Idea: This is probably what most non-Christians would say Christianity is. There is certainly a lot of intellectual construction behind Christianity, so I can see where they’re coming from.
Behavior: Nobody really seemed to champion this, and that is at the same time comforting and troubling. It’s comforting because hopefully these people know that their works (behaviors) aren’t going to save them. It’s disturbing because, well, read the book of I John. We should be acting on that love, and I John speaks of love as a behavior.
All of this came from the question about how “epidemics” form. In Gladwell’s book, he basically uses the metaphor of an “epidemic” for positive change that you’re looking for. i.e. (from the book) the HushPuppies brand shot up from 30,000 in sales to 530,000 in sales in just one year, mirroring an epidemic; the crime rate in New York dropped suddenly in the mid-nineties, looking like an epidemic of peace and law-abiding citizenry.
Christianity was an epidemic. It boomed out of Jerusalem, in all of Judea, into Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth - just like Jesus said it would in Acts 1. Today, people who are friends of Christianity and people who are enemies of Christianity would both have to agree on Christianity’s climb to status as a world religion as functionally “epidemic”.
However, we’re losing some of the feel of being an epidemic - at least in the Western Church (Europle and the US). In fact, what we’re being called more often is “an institution” - which is where epidemics go to die.
I wonder if that has to do with a failure in what could be called Christianity’s “idea”, or if it’s a failure in the “behavior” of Christians, or if it’s a problem with the “product”….or if it’s something completely different.
Either way, it looks like we humans are doing what we do best - which is screw up the Church with our sins. Congrats to us. Thankfully, God has rescued His people from several epidemics in the past, and even promises to somehow rescue us when we ourselves stop being the epidemic that we should be.
So what do you think? Do you think that Christianity even should act as an epidemic anymore? Anybody have a good example of when an epidemic starts to eat itself? What might God do in our individual lives that could make the church an epidemic thing again?
Image: 4th May 2009: Inappropriate Thought for the Day, Balaclava Station by Matthew Armstrong on Flickr