The Five Pillars of Christianity

Followers of Islam know exactly what is expected of them—five achievable duties, the so-called “Five Pillars of Islam.”   Christianity has no official list of essential duties, but I’m wondering this week, if we did have five, what would they be?  Actually, maybe we do have five pillars—they are just informal and unlisted. I wonder what our five pillars would be?

The Five Pillars of Islam are:

1. Confession of Faith. (Shahada) Saying with conviction, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.”  It is the way one converts to Islam and is supposed to be a continual confession right up to death.

2) Prayer five times a day. (Salat) Spending a few minutes five times a day praying at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night.  

3) Giving. (Zakat) Giving annually to the poor the equivalent of 2.5% of wealth.

4) Fasting.  (Sawm) Abstaining from food, drink and sexual relations from dawn until sundown during the month of Ramadan each year.

5) Pilgrimage. (Hajj) Take a pilgrimage once in a lifetime to Mecca.

So, if evangelicals had five pillars (and we probably do informally) what are those five pillars? Or what do you think they should be?

So, what do you think?
The discussion of this column is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=161502633  

Keith Drury  September 13, 2011
www.TuesdayColumn.com