We need much more of a lifestyle-based Christianity: not “What do you believe?” but “How do you live?” What you believe in your head asks almost nothing of you. Lifestyle asks everything of us, and every day, and on ever new levels of choice. It is a journey that never stops.

We here at the Center for Action and Contemplation almost want to “brand” the term “Lifestyle Christianity” as we have come to recognize that Jesus is largely talking about living a very simple and nonviolent life in this world, where we can treat one another as brother and sister. It sums up almost all we teach here. But lifestyle criteria are a bit of an affront and embarrassment to the dualistic mind, because you never totally succeed, you are never totally right. Maybe belief systems give us a false comfort, and that is why we prefer religion as believing things instead of Lifestyle Christianity. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

— Fr Richard Rohr (from his new book The Naked Now)