Can you be an a la carte Christian?
I keep what I like about faith and discard what I do not. Does that work?
It is very common today: taking from faith what suits me—love, forgiveness, peace—and leaving out what makes me uncomfortable or demanding. A religion made to my measure, without the annoying parts. It sounds reasonable, but it has a problem.
If you keep only what you already thought, you are not following Christ: you are following yourself with religious decoration. Faith is not a buffet where you pick and choose; it is trusting Someone even in what you do not understand or do not feel like doing. Right there, in what is demanding, is where it makes you grow.
It is not about swallowing things blindly. It is about recognizing that, if God knows more than you do, perhaps what is uncomfortable also has its reason, and deserves at least that you listen before discarding it.
Key idea
Keeping only what you like about faith is following yourself, not Christ.
Your challenge for this idea
Think of something in the faith you usually discard as 'not for me'. Find out today why the Church teaches it.