doing Christianity

others' thoughts about the doing-ness of virtue, even when it doesn't come "naturally."

Aristotle

"Virtue is a habitual way of acting -- not an emotion or a capacity." [a paraphrase]

Shakespeare

QUEEN

    O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET

    O, throw away the worser part of it,

    And live the purer with the other half.

    [...]

    Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

    That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,

    Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,

    That to the use of actions fair and good

    He likewise gives a frock or livery,

    That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,

    And that shall lend a kind of easiness

    To the next abstinence: the next more easy;

    For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

    And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out

    With wondrous potency.

Modern translation:

QUEEN

     Oh Hamlet, you have cut my heart in two!

HAMLET

     Then throw away the worse part of it, and live all the purer with the half that's left. [...]

     Practice decency, even if you haven't got any. That monster, custom, which eats away

     one's sense of evil, has this good quality: it also makes the practice of good deeds a

     habit that becomes natural. Stay away tonight, and that will make the next abstinence 

     somewhat easier; the next more easy still. Repetition can change one's normal nature
     and either accommodate the devil or throw him out quite effectively.

C.S. Lewis

Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

N.T. Wright

We are hamstrung by the long legacy of the Romantic movement on the one hand, and Existentialism on the other, producing the idea that things are authentic only if they come spontaneously, unbidden, from the depths of our hearts. Frankly, as Jesus pointed out, there's a lot that comes from the depths of our hearts which may be authentic but isn't very pretty. One good breath of fresh air  from the down-to-earth world of first-century Judaism is enough to blow away the smog of the self-  absorbed (and ultimately proud) quest for "authenticity" of that kind. 

Dr. Wright (my pastor)

I don't want your mind; I want your body!