Yesterday I answered the question ‘Why am I a Christian?’ in terms of the process by which I became a Christian, outlining very briefly the story of my conversion as a young teenager. This is a very important story to me and I have no doubt that without it my life would have taken a radically different course.
But why am I still a Christian today? Why don’t I find the arguments of the new atheists persuasive? Why aren’t I so discouraged by the imperfections of the church that I follow the lead of many others of my generation and drop out altogether?
Quite simply, the most important answer is ‘Jesus’. It is the person of Jesus who is the centre of my Christian life, and it is the story of his life and teaching that keeps me in the faith today.
I find his vision of the Kingdom, or Reign, of God compelling. It’s so much more attractive to me than the Kingdom of the American empire, of the Kingdom of Google, or the Kingdom of Big Oil, of the Kingdom of ‘Whatever makes you feel good…’ The idea that the world is broken by evil but still loved by God, and that God is quietly working through individuals to spread his reign of justice and love, inspires me and gives me hope. And it makes perfect sense to me that this Kingdom is about love, justice, compassion and community, not about profits or power or ‘the one who dies with the most toys wins’.
Jesus has such a knack for getting right to the heart of the issue. When he asks, “What good is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36), we know instinctively that he’s right. Ditto, when he says, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 13:15), or “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” (Luke 13:25). The way he sums up God’s commandments in terms of our primary relationships – ‘Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself’ – is so profound and yet so challenging (‘all my heart?’ ‘as myself?’).
I love the fact that Jesus walks around quietly ignoring the power structures and authorities of his day. His contemporaries assumed that the best place to meet God was the Temple in Jerusalem, but Jesus seems to assume that he is the Temple: if you want to meet God, be forgiven, be healed, come to him and ask! He reaches out to outcasts and ‘sinners’, heals even the servants of enemy soldiers, and forgives those who crucify him. He’s not above speaking harsh words to hypocrites and he’s not afraid to make it hard for people to follow him.
Jesus defies categories. He’s not conservative and he’s not liberal; he’s not capitalist, but he’s not socialist either. He’s not judgemental (except when he is), but he’s not a wishy-washy ‘come to me and carry on living just the way you were’ kind of guy either. Conservatives like to paint Christianity as being all about family, but in fact Jesus doesn’t have much to say on that subject (although what he does say is challenging, especially about divorce). Liberals like to paint him as all about inclusivity, and it’s true that he reaches out to people seen as ‘beyond the pale’ by the respectable, but he sets the bar pretty high for his followers too. He annoys me as well as inspiring me, and I like that. After all, if I think I agree with everything he says, then I’m probably following me, not him, right?
Quite simply, when I look around at the world today, I can’t seen anyone else who seems to understand the root causes of its problems the way Jesus does. I can’t see anyone else who has as compelling a vision for the transformation of the world as Jesus does. Deep down in my heart, I know instinctively that if there is a God, he has to be like Jesus. ‘Like Father, like Son’ makes sense to me; I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, because I believe the vision of God that Jesus gives me, and Jesus himself reminds me of that vision.
Why am I a Christian today? Because of Jesus. I believe that following him is the best way of being human and the best way of knowing God. And I have to say that every day I continue to live serves only to strengthen that belief in me.
