Package Deal Christianity is Too Much for a convert to swallow

It has long been recognized in some circles that, in a deep sense, nearly all serious- and real-Christians nowadays are converts. 

They have to be, because mainstream Christianity is so feeble, so shallow, so materialistic. 

What follows therefore references only real-serious Christian churches - not the "liberal" kind, which organizations are just variants on Christian-themed social-club charity fund-raisers - plus less or more left-activism. 

But the Christianity of the churches - all of the churches - is just too much for a convert to believe. 

By which I mean there is just So Much of it - such a complexity and range of stuff - that it would take years to learn, and even longer to assimilate (even assuming that you haven't forgotten the early things, before you get around to the later ones). 

Of course almost nobody takes the time, or makes that effort - and many (most) are simply not capable of it. 

So, what we get instead, is a commitment to believe and live-by (or try to live-by) whatever the religious authorities tell us is essential for us to believe. 

Converts do not know what it is they are supposed to believe. 

Also there is a lot of stuff that converts are meant to "believe" - but tacitly ignore; or nuance away into insignificance. This includes much - or most - of what converts are officially supposed to have sworn to. 

(For instance, priests of Episcopal Christian churches have been "sacked" when they insisted on acting upon everything that they have solemnly sworn to uphold, during their ordinations.)

What this amounts to is that (traditional, orthodox) church-Christianity is a package deal - and the deal is a very large package. 

A package deal to which converts sign-up, in ignorance of what they are signing. 

Church-Christians never read all the "small print" before they put their mark on the conversion-contract - neither do they understand the official, technical (legal and bureaucratic) meanings of all the major contractual terms. 

Nonetheless; the way church-Christianity works is that converts are expected to believe-in... whatever-the-terms-technically-mean, and obey even the small-print; as and when such matters become relevant to the church (but not necessarily otherwise). 

The convert signs-up for the package deal, and takes the charter flight to "another country"; but if, after arriving at the destination, he dislikes the accommodation or the food or the other travellers - well, he has already agreed to accept it, and it is now too late*.

It is all or nothing (where that "all" is almost wholly - in practice - a matter of obedience to church authority). 

Of course, nowadays, those converts who discover later that they don't like what they signed-up-for - and who are told it is "all or nothing"; simply leave the church.   

In droves. 

The convert to church-Christianity might join another church, but whatever their diversity, all serious Christian churches are united in declaring that their own particular understanding of Christianity is that it just-is a package-deal. 

The Christian seeker has a wide choice of churches, but wherever he look, the churches offer only package deals - and, 'tho' very different from each other, all the packages are so large and so complex that there is always something (many things) he does not know, or cannot honestly and rigorously endorse.

This is because traditional Christianity always has been conceptualized as a package deal. 

Indeed, it seems that almost all Men of the past necessarily conceptualized all possible religion in a social and institutional way. 

But people now do not feel this necessity; and indeed usually feel something almost the opposite: that a meaningful religion needs to be known, understood, and personally endorsed in all of its aspects. 

This is why I regard it as imperative that Christianity must be understood in brief and simple terms; as having an essence - and therefore not as a large and complex package . 

 

*An example of this is when early Christians discovered that the religions they had signed up to insisted that every person who was not (correctly) baptised into the (correct) church, would inevitably (by logical implication) be tormented unbearably forever in Hell; and that this applied to everyone born before Christ, or in not-Christian nations and places, and all the wisest and most virtuous pagans of antiquity (even Aristotle), and to new born babies and children. This seemingly stark necessity of the creation of a wholly-loving and omnipotent God and the Good News of Christ's salvation; was later nuanced-away or ameliorated in most churches and most places; nonetheless it has been a vital component of the Christian-church package deal for many people in several times and places.