If we attempt to retrieve the screaming child, the Christian life again becomes "complicated". If we reach for the child with one arm while holding onto our "simplicity" with the other hand, we find that the child is more than we can carry with just the one arm. The child remains outside.
It is only by first letting go of our simplicity that we will have both hands free to again embrace the child. It is a costly exchange for some, and more than they can bear. But it is the only way.
You see, our Lord was not a simple man, nor does he prize the virtue of simplicity above all others. The Christian life is not simply about repeating a sinner's prayer and convincing others to do the same. No, it is more -- much more than that. Raymond Van Leeuwen put it this way:
"So the Bible as a whole is not intended as a manual for admittance into the world to come. If this were so, most of the Bible would be superfluous. Regrettably, many Christians behave as if most of the Bible is indeed superfluous, no doubt partly because of their view that salvation is something otherworldy, and the mechanism for salvation is quite simple or technological ("Four Spiritual Laws"), able to ignore the difficulty and complexity of life. Yet, the fundamental problem for Christians is not how to get into heaven or how to get others into heaven when they die. The fundamental problems for us all are how to live wisely and righteously in this world here and now (I Cor 3:10-17) and how to train others, including our children (paides), to do so."[1]
[1] Raymond Van Leeuwen, Reading the Bible Whole in a Culture of Divided Hearts, here reflecting on the earlier work of Lesslie Newbigin in Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History (2003), 71-75.
