If you want to try hard to be a good person and you do believe that God is real, don't let me tell you that's bad, but please don't call it Christianity. And please don't be lulled into the false sense of security often given at funerals that would lead you to feel confidently that being good is all that God requires of us.
I talk to so many people who assume that Christianity is simply about believing in God and trying to be a good person. All they feel Christianity offers, is what they've already taken – some sort of moral guideline about what's right and wrong in life, even though they seem to chuck it out it when ever it suits. It's kind of like the lifestyle equivalent of a mullet haircut - clean cut up front, but there is a party going on out the back.
Do we just need to believe that God exists, and that he's a good bloke for him to accept us? Does being a Christian have anything to do with the kind of person you are once you’ve decided that you believe the right things or can you go on living how you like? After all, doesn’t the bumper sticker say “Christians aren’t perfect just forgiven”
Does God offer some sort of legal transaction where he scans our brain to see if we believe in Him, and then if so, fills out some paper work, clears out some more space in the clouds and then sends out our prepaid ticket to heaven?
If all that mattered was working hard at being good, then most of us are, "OK with God"
right? Everyone knows 99% of people really are good folks trying hard to make the most of
their lives. It's only psychopaths and politicians that are really bad. If that were the case, Jesus could probably have saved himself a gruesome death and stayed in heaven while we carried on our merry way.
The point is that he did come, he was crucified and he now offers us everything we really need, yet as C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia series says
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
To be connected to God here and now will never happen by just being a good person and believing some stuff about God. You need what he did for you on the cross. If you believe the chair can hold your weight, then sit in it. If you really believe that God is real, then trust Him and open yourself to him. God invites you to allow him to be present and powerful in your world today. It’s what we need. It’s what He offers. It’s why he came.
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When it comes to philosophy CS Lewis was second rate. What's so joyous about being a christian, christians go through all the same pain as everyone else on the planet, they are not immune.
ReplyDeleteIf you think that I am happy making mud pies, or with drinking and sex, just because I am post-christian, you have a lose grip on my reality. I'm married, lead an ethical life and dont harm others.
The important difference between me and parishoners/congregation is that i dont need to pay a minister or priest to tell me how to think or what to do.
There are too many christians that dont lead ethical lives, who are criminals and gossipers etc.
Why not fix up your own congregation first?
Stuart
i really shouldnt have said "your own congregation", your congregation is probably no better or worse than another, so i wont tar your congregation with a bad brush.
ReplyDeletei am sure you are genuine man, i am just irrited by christian exclusiveness, and claims to be the only right and one tru way
Wow Jaem, I dig it! You make me uncomfortable by challenging my working class, white-bread suburban programming.
ReplyDeleteI love the last para with the chair... the chair doesn't always look like it will hold me - but it's the only hope I've got. So I slam my ham into it and trust!
Go for it mate!
Christianity is the very essence of white bread middle classes in Australia. The very purpose of being of 99% of churches is to make people into nice respectable middle class robots.
ReplyDeleteIf it were really working class, you'd meet in the pub, or the club and let people have a beer while they listened to a good sermon.
Hey Stuart,
ReplyDeleteIt's actually great to see someone getting onto threads like this & saying what you are saying. I think to a very large degree you are absolutely spot on - we confuse middle-class identity with being "Christian", when the two are actually completely unrelated. Actually, I would go as far as to say that a lot of what "middle class" stands for is completely opposite to what Jesus stood for.
I spent half my life rebelling against my parents' Christianity, found God, then (sadly) spent years & years trying to obliterate my own identity to fit into the Christian "box". I am only just now beginning to realise the extravagant grace that Jesus really came to offer.
Can't give you all the answers (this is a new road I'm on), but I am buzzing with the freedom & the amazement of having my (very ordinary) life begin to thrum with the presence of the Living God; seeing how the presence of Jesus just changes everything! & realising that He is willing to take me - the way I really am (culture, personality, likes, passions, sins, foibles - the lot!) & get inside it all & make it truly alive - it's a surprising journey, & it's NOT taking me to any kind of "form of religion", but to a relationship that makes ordinary stuff an amazing adventure - not a roadblock or rule in sight!
The way in (as far as I see it) is through honest relationship. The times I seem to get it most wrong, are when I try to work it all out & "do the right thing" by myself. We humans feel so much more secure if we have a set of "rules" - but that's not where its at. The whole key seems to be in letting Him work it all out, & just continuing to trust & relate to Him while He does it!
Thank you for your posts - this is a conversation that some (inside & outside of organised Churches) have been beginning to have for a while, but it needs to get SO much louder! & yes, there are actually some who meet in places like pubs and clubs, & are throwing off the trappings of religion in favour of someting real.
Blessings!
Sorry Stuart (& everyone) Can't seem to comment with my real name - just comes up with email username - It's Kerry!
ReplyDeleteHi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the chance to talk this stuff through.
I really think you and I would agree about a lot more than you initially thought.
To be honest, I hate so much of what modern Christianity has become. You have obviously had some negative experiences with the church and with Christians and I can understand your frustration.
I hate the idea of institutional religion so much that i shut down our churches weekly Sunday meeting so that people could only say they were Christians because they were following Jesus as an everyday lifestyle, not because they went to a religious service once a week.
There is so much that is fake, and false that goes on in churches every week and makes me sick.
I really am trying to fix up my own life, and my own congregation first, and I'm really sorry that you felt judged by my comments. That was not my intention.
The bottom line is I am trying with everything I've got to follow and represent Jesus in an authentic way.
I know you don't believe that Jesus is a real person, but If he was, I don't reckon you could find too many things about him that you didn't like.
My Columns are a weak attempt to try and help people peel back the crap of religion and modern Christianity to see Jesus again.
i thin jesus was probably a real human being. I also think he was a special human being, a deeply spiritual human.
ReplyDeleteThere is enough historical and archaeological evidence for me to thin that Jesus existed.
Was he god? i dont think so. Did he have a clear vision of god? probably. i dont beleive in stuf like the trinity any more, no do i think that jesus was god.
He was a man, like mohhamed, buddha and moses.
by the way i havent been hurt by the church
ReplyDeleteI attended for years and geneuinely and solemnly took adult baptism. I grew up in youth group, sunday school, and attended for years and years and years.
Not everything taught from the bible is rubbish, but a lot is. I just thin that if you teach from the bible you should ground yourself in acience and reason, as well as tae into account the literary and historical context
I think If Jesus was just a man, then that makes him a terrible man, and one who should not be trusted or followed. Moses, Buddha or Mohammad never claimed to be God, and they were just searching for truth. Yet Jesus claimed to BE the truth and to BE God. So either what he said is true, or he is crazy!
ReplyDeleteStuart, Why did you leave the church after attending for so long?
ReplyDeleteis it all that crazy to say you are the son of god, when all are sons and daughters of god?
ReplyDeletemaybe jesus was a bit crazy, but i think his "father" relationship with god doesnt have to be taken literally, but allegorically
Why was jesus a bad man if he was a man?
for some silly reason my post about why i left the church dissapeared
ReplyDelete1) i couldnt beleive everything i was saying was true. Creeds, etc
2) I wanted to meet women i was lonely. I have never met a woman at church that ever wanted anything to do with me
3) people are frightened by super christians who attend church and sing in the choir like i was some angelic non sexual being
4) i met my wife
5) Some churches were viruntly anti freemason, my dad is a freemason and i am close to him. He is not evil incarnate yet he is maaster of the lodge and a good christian.
5) God doesnt answer prayers
6) I read gnosticism it affirmed my thought that we shouldnt approach spiritual truth literally, but with a sense of allegory and metaphor
7)I became more aware of science, logic and reason