Why am I a Christian, you might ask? Okay, maybe you didn’t ask it, but here are five compelling reasons for me…
1-Because I was born into a loving Christian family. Had I been born into a loving Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim family, I would likely identify as Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim. Christianity was my context. I had no choice in the matter. And I'm thankful. We are who we are due in large part to those who brought us into the world. People give us what we need, which is good.
Well, as far as it goes.
Because people also give us what we don't need.
Much of American Christianity or Christian America (I can never decide which is the modifier and which is the noun) is hopelessly caught up in a web of sacrificial rules and fear. It has led us to sacralize the formation of religious hierarchies and the practice of scapegoating. We've all been contaminated.
2-Which leads me to the second reason I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian because Jesus names and reveals the sin of the world, that is scapegoating, that is our seemingly never-ending effort to purge ourselves of our sins by offloading our animosities onto the backs of others.
We've created a pretty exclusive club, us Christians, what with all the power we've created by talking about how all-powerful our God is and all. The exclusiveness has gone to our collective heads. (It's gone to my head as well. I'm as culpable as anyone.) Thank God we have someone to save us. Yes, we needed a scapegoat to end all scapegoating. Yes, we needed a sacrificial offering that ended the point of sacrificing.
Considering the movement of the life of Jesus (e.g., his incarnation, teaching, actions, and violence-absorbing at-one-ment on the cross) seems to have caused a type of implosion within me. Implosion is an apt description especially over against an explosion for however one defines conversion or repentance it must be an inward move before anything else (and maybe never any more than inward). Too much outward explosion can lead to overzealously naming the impure, rejecting the defective, and removing ourselves from the unholy "other."
This blinds us to truth (and irony) because the desire we have to live by the power of excluding others is something we learned from others. The other has colonized our desire even before we ever knew it existed. Jesus became one with the other to free me from my desire to kill the other! Now I am free. Free to live. Free to love. Everyone. Especially myself.
You see, I basically thought the point was to get all of us on the outside into the inside. And like I mentioned, I have been on the inside all my life. Remember, I'm a Christian first because I was born into the tradition. I'm not saying my interactions with Jesus weren't authentic. I believe they were. But I also don't know where authentic interactions ended and where the desire to please my father began. You may not believe this, but I was generally a pretty well-behaved boy, and like lots of children, I really just wanted to please my father. He said, be a Christian, so that's what I did. I made sure to be a part of the in crowd.
Okay, fine, except, well, the more I watched Jesus, the more obvious it became that Jesus was hanging out with all the people on the outside.
Wait, life kept whispering to me in a variety of different ways over the years, if Jesus is out there (one might even say with the 1) who's in here (one might even say with the 99)?
Who is in?
Who is out?
I continue to read the story of Jesus, and it continues to read me. I recognize my hypocrisy: I claim Jesus as my savior because of the work on the cross, though it was my blaming obsession that put him on the cross in the first place.
The reason I'm a Christian now, currently, is because following the way of Jesus releases me from the burden of scapegoating and of the hell of putting myself in a position to tell others they are out.
3-Speaking of hell, the next reason I am a Christian is that believe it or not, I think Christianity redeems all of our anxiety-ridden, passionate misdirected thinking about hell. Caveat: Neither my church nor I have an official, definitive position on hell, which is good, because contrary to popular belief, neither the Bible nor the Early Creeds have an official, definitive position on hell!
You are free to draw your conclusions, but I happen to believe that what we tend to think of as hell is something that has come to us by way of layers of misguided thinking over the generations. Like so many strata of sedimentary rock one might see if they excavated a section of earth, each layer contains elements initiated and propagated by theologians who meant well, but who were just too overwhelmed with their own guilt and shortcomings to come up with anything other than a fiery, burning, torturous, retributive, punitive place of judgment. (See guys like Augustine, Luther, or Jonathan Edwards. And please don't overlook the indelible burn mark that Dante's "The Divine Comedy" left on the world.) It appears that all their guilt resonated with all our guilt. We were given an inch of ideas about a hellish afterlife, and we took it the proverbial mile. For some reason, we're all wired to think pain, fear, and punishment more holy than health, love, and grace.
Now that I've had the opportunity to look into this a bit, I'm of the persuasion that it's Biblical to push back against all the talk of hell. Peter said, "He's not willing anyone should perish." Paul said, "He doesn't count our transgressions against us." John said, "He came not to condemn the world but to save the world." Not to mention Jesus, who said, "Love your enemies." *
I happen to believe that Love will never stop working to connect (and reconnect) with us. This is true for this life and eternity. Neither the Scriptures nor my understanding of Love leads me to believe that all decisions about eternity must be made in this life. Actually, I don't even believe that's the right way to view eternity, for eternity isn't something that begins later. Eternity has already begun. It's happening now.
Love has been inviting all of us, for now and all eternity to enter into the way of Love. And for the life of me, I don't know why it's the Christians who are so hell-bent on promoting the idea that one day love will just run out of patience. Aren't we the ones who are supposed to be forgiving? And loving? Isn't grace a Christian idea? Why do we stubbornly suggest otherwise? Running out of chances to respond to Love wasn't necessarily what the early believers taught. It isn't what the creeds teach either.
Please consider what you might do if, upon entering into the heavenly dimension, you discover that one of your children is missing. If it's me? There's no chance, despite decades and centuries of theologians telling me otherwise, that I would be content in heaven knowing that one of my kids was out in the far country of darkness. I would cinch up the boots, pack the backpack, and go after them to the best of my ability. What motivates me to do that? Love! Love always goes into that far country. I think that's what Love will do with everyone who's ever lived. It might take a long time. Ages even, but Love never gives up.
4-Because it provides a great response to suffering. (It’s not an answer but it is a response.)
The response of the atheist is to say that suffering proves there's no loving God. So, they turn away, which is fine. That's their prerogative. But ignoring God doesn't do anything about reality. Suffering exists whether you believe in a loving God or not.
However, I'm more sympathetic to the atheist than I am of most Christians who want to explain away suffering. As if there is an explanation. Most Christians are no better than Job's friends who gave him every reason in the book for why evil had befallen him. Job never relented. I wouldn’t mind being like Job, so I don't give in to all the simplistic explanations of evil either. Look, if you could explain evil, none of us would be able to label it as such. God doesn't even explain (in the full sense of the word) evil.
Back to Job. After forty-some chapters of Job's misery and all the other misery in the Biblical text, what does God do? He doesn’t explain. He shows up. At the end of the book of Job, in lots of other places in Scripture too, but obviously no more than in the incarnation. I see in all of this God's great commitment to solidarity. And I think this is the unique response to suffering that Christianity offers. It's solidarity more than solutions. It’s entering into life more than explaining life. We think we want answers, but what we really need is someone being with us.
For example, think of your favorite movie or novel. There's always a moment when the protagonist recognizes he or she is in over their head. But then they decide to move forward. Not because they have answers but because they have friends to go with them. And you love this. This is why it’s your favorite story.
Frodo and his Fellowship of the Ring,
Katniss and her former victors,
Dora with her monkey and talking backpack.
Solidarity is huge. It has the potential of transforming the worst kind of suffering. Jesus was murdered, but God raised him to life. Therefore, God can take the absolute worst thing and make it into the absolute best thing!
5-Which leads me to the last reason I'm a Christian: Hope. I don't deny death. Death is real. Grieving, lamenting, or cursing are all understandable and appropriate ways to respond. But ultimately, I need something more. I need hope that this is going to get better.
Jesus gives me hope. Jesus is what takes away my fear of death. This was the mission of Jesus.** He wasn't born to die which is a trope you may hear in many a sermon this coming Christmas season. No, he was born to live. He was so committed to life that the powers joined forces to kill him. Jesus shows us how to be human. Even more, he empowers us to be human because he conquered death from the inside out. It served to remove our fear of death. Check out Hebrews 2:14, "By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death."
Think about the situation we'd be in without Jesus… death would be The End. But, because of Jesus, we know there's nothing to fear. Actually, I don't know anything, but I have hope! And that's the point. We don't have to cower to despair. We can hold our heads high, live our lives, do the best we can, risk, love, laugh and forgive. (You do realize risking, loving, and laughing are all synonymous?)
Death doesn't have the last word. It isn't the deepest sting.
The grave isn't a dead-end. It’s a corridor into whatever is next.
Peter Kreeft told me a long time ago that as the baby is inside the womb and the womb is inside of the world, so we are inside the world and the world is inside of heaven. Death isn't the final act. It's the initial contraction of being birthed into the new creation.
Everything is being made new.
This would be a good time to cue the epic and crescendoing music as I close by reminding us of what John the Revelator says, "I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: 'Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.' The Enthroned continued, 'Look! I'm making everything new.'"
This gives me hope. And boy do I need hope. It's a major reason I'm a Christian. Well, at least 1/5th of the reason. Throw in the thoughts about suffering, hell, scapegoating and my family context and there you have it. These are the current reasons I'm grateful to call myself a Christian.
How about you?
* This usually leads into some kind of back and forth like, "Yes, that's what Peter said, but what is God going to do? His hands are tied if people don't repent." Wait, who tied his hands? Who's stronger than God?
Or "Sure, that's what Paul said but what Paul meant is that God doesn't count our transgressions as long as we repent." Maybe? But even so, isn't suspicious that you are the one with the formula for repentance?
Or folks go, "Yes, but you don't understand, God has to punish people to save the world. It's logical." No, actually, it's not logical to me at all.
Or, "Sure, Jesus told us to love our enemies, but that doesn't mean God has to love his enemies. He's God. He can do whatever he wants." Really? That's your final answer?
** The mission of Jesus wasn't to die to get us to off the hook with God. It’s been a delight to discover that the early theologians never really considered the idea that the mission of Jesus was to die, to pay a fee to the Father—the coin of some circular transaction that sees God buying off God to spare us his frustration. As David Bentley Hart says, "Like a bank issuing itself credit to pay off a debt it owes itself, using a currency it has minted for the occasion and certified in its value wholly on the basis of the very credit it is issuing to itself."