Why I am a Christian

Since I started this blog I've been intending to write a series on philosophy and Christianity. Indeed, one of the reasons I started the blog is because of two reactions I often get to my career path from people I meet in church settings. One is the question: do my studies challenge my faith? The other is the sentiment that study of philosophy is valuable primarily for the defense of the faith. I will address each of these questions in subsequent blogs. I have decided that it makes most sense, however, to begin this series by explaining why I am a Christian, and what that means.

So here it is, as succinctly as I can manage:
Christianity means following Jesus Christ, and this means accepting who he is, what he has done, and what he commands us to do. These things are to be found in the Bible, which is summarized in a variety of creeds and confessions. No one is born a follower of Christ or made one by the actions of others. We must become followers by coming to know him. It takes a sovereign act of God to make one a follower, but God acts through our own reason and experience. I became a Christian when I concluded that Jesus had risen from the dead, experienced his forgiving love, and surrendered my life to him. Every other belief and practice stems from how these things confirm the authority of the Bible.

And now to explicate a little:
The three words I italicize indicate that being a Christian requires a rational conclusion, an experience, and a permanently expressed decision. These may not occur at the same time, and I suppose but won’t insist that they usually will occur in the order I have listed them. What I do insist on, because I find Jesus to insist upon it, is that one is not a Christian without all three. Reason, experience and desire (yes, we decide based on our desire) come together for the disciple of Christ. In the gospels we find Jesus challenging people in regard to each (e.g. Mt 16:15, Lk 7:47, Jn 1:38).

Sometimes people claim to be Christians without having all of these, or having none at all. I would find this very strange, except that I was once in that category. We naturally base our identities on belonging to a group or engaging in a certain activity, and some churches reinforce this kind of identification by granting membership and participation in sacraments and leadership without appropriate standards of belief and desire. (Experience cannot be judged directly, but desire is adequate evidence of it. Certain things just are not desired without a first taste.) Needless to say, I think these churches to varying degrees obscure the call to follow Christ.

In more theological terms, I am describing faith and repentance. However, I have described these in terms of reason, experience and desire/decision to try to make them more clear. There are ways of taking “faith” and “repentance” that I, and Scripture, do not at all intend (along the lines of blind submission to an authority figure).

What we must conclude by reason is basically the historical facts about and identity of Jesus. He is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and the Creator God taken on human flesh, who died to atone for sin and rose bodily from the dead to defeat death. Some people might call this fundamentalism and claim a more enlightened Christianity, but the Bible is very clear that Christianity stands or falls with the bodily resurrection of Christ.

What we must experience is the forgiving love of God in Christ. This is not necessarily a moment of ecstasy; though it can include that, it can be described in terms of self-knowledge as well. We must come to see ourselves as sinners against God, unworthy of his favor, and then as recipients of his forgiveness. This forgiveness is not a mere ignoring of sin or acceptance of the sinner, rather it is accomplished by the self-sacrifice of Christ. In Christ’s death we see both how bad our sin really is, and how deep God’s love for us really is.

What we must desire, and decide to pursue, is obedience, or submission, to Christ. Our culture does not like these words, but those who are firmly convinced that Jesus is God and that he defeated death, and who have experienced God’s love, will trust that God’s commands are intended for our good and are reliable. Of course, God does not give step-by-step instructions for our actions. What he gives is the Bible and his sovereign direction of all events (also known as providence). He wants us to grow by learning to apply Biblical examples and standards to our own circumstances.

Why the Bible, and why do I say that the foregoing beliefs, experience and desire confirm the authority of the Bible? Very simply, the Bible is the only authentic record of Jesus. It provides the historical facts and is itself part of the evidence that confirms those facts. In my own experience, after concluding the resurrection to be true, I began to take the claims of the Bible more seriously, and eventually God ‘opened my eyes’ to see the narrative of forgiving love, which led in turn to my desire to obey Christ. And full-circle, the Bible is where we find what Jesus said and did. But even if we were just to start with the gospel records of Jesus, we find that Jesus confirms the Old Testament and anticipates the writings of the Apostles that form the New Testament. So the whole Bible informs us about what it means to follow Christ. What about subsequent writings? The New Testament indicates a unique, foundational authority was given to the designated Apostles, those who physically saw the resurrected Jesus. It also makes reference to the importance of public preaching, which explains why we have church sermons. These and various writings are helpful to the extent that they illuminate and apply the sacred text.

What does all of this have to do with philosophy? Clearly there are claims about truth and the nature of human life and the universe involved in Christianity. I’ll be getting at those things in subsequent blogs. But please comment if anything in this one is not clear!

(I am well aware, by the way, that many of the statements I have made here are controversial for various people. They are my reasoned conclusions and I’d be happy to discuss my reasoning in more depth. Of course, I think what I have concluded is objectively true.)