If my intellectual faith—that is, my confident intellectual assent that Jesus is alive, or even that God exists—dies, I do want to keep what faith I can muster along the Richard-Beck definitions supplied below aligned with Jesus. He will always be a great totem, and this way I can continue to celebrate Him with my family.
Sacramental faith: A faith with and through the body. This is the faith of the book of James, the faith of obedience. It’s the faith of discipleship, moving one’s body through life the way Jesus moved his body through life. It is the faith of orthopraxy (“right practice”). The first Christians were called followers of “The Way.” This is the faith of the path, what Eastern religions call the dharma.
Doxological faith: The faith of worship and allegiance. The early Christians confessed that Jesus was Lord, a radical political claim That is, regardless as to whether you believe in the Incarnation or the Resurrection, a Christian confesses that Jesus is Lord, the telos of her ethical and political existence. Doxological faith is the claim that, at the end of the day, the teachings of Jesus are the authority in my life, what monastics call the “rule.” Everyone has to make choices in life, big choices and small choices, and we make those choice in light of some conception of what is “good” or “best.” Doxological faith makes Jesus that criterion.