It was a big eye-opener for me, when my girlfriend recently asked me “On a scale of 1-10, how much would you like to be a Christian?” and even after reflection, I was still fairly positive that my spontaneous answer of “10″ was right.
I want to be able to continue the kind of life I’ve started, the relationship(s) I’m in, the hope that there’s someone good behind this universe, the sense of belonging to a home like the church, the trust in a foundation for my fights for justice, etc. I’d be so incredibly frustrated to have to give up that kind of stuff. Of course, there’s also lots of “anti-emotions” (to be blogged about soon) but overall, what I want to be is a Christian. Exclamation mark!
This “10″ also worries me. Because I know that I am so eager to be a Christian, I grow evermore suspicious of myself. Everytime I find a reason to re-start my faith, I become skeptical of this reason and cultivate the suspicion that its root might be found in my wishful thinking rather than in my honest sense of what’s real.
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My girlfriend also asked me how much I long for God (as something separate from “wanting to be a Christian”). And there the answer was not as clear. I long for God but I couldn’t give it a 10. No.
I want to be a Christian for many reasons that are unrelated to longing for God. Such reasons are: Staying with the friends I have, Living in an enchanted universe, Enjoying a traditional marriage ceremony, etc.
I think I wasn’t able at all to give a 10 to my longing for God because I think life without God would be bearable. It would definitely be extremly frustrating to loose faith and I’d feel empty – but I have the impression that it would be bearable. I’d be really annoyed – but I wouldn’t fall into depression. I am blessed with so many earthly good things (good job, good family, good food, etc.) that I have the impression that I would only be incredibly upset about loosing faith — but not completely broken. It seems like I wouldn’t fall into a hole of cosmic sadness. I’d just be frustrated so badly. (But, of course, this is partly guesswork).
This was different when I lost faith 8 years ago: Deep within me and far below the surface, I felt such a tremendous inner sadness and brokenness about life back then, that being desperate by itself was enough reason to long for God.
Very interesting! I wonder how different the two questions really are. I don’t want to sound judgemental, and you probably already know this, but it sounds like your attributes of “being a Christian” are not really what being a Christian is all about!
To me, being a Christian means following Jesus, or some people might say having a personal relationship with Jesus. I think that you can hang on to most of the things you list, but of course they’ll be harder. For example, you won’t be able to rely on shared beliefs to keep your friendships strong – you’ll have to REALLY show love to your friends!
Interesting to hear about your inner sadness and brokenness 8 years ago, as well. It seems that these things happen to us throughout life – we get broken and remade (hopefully stronger but maybe with a few permanent cracks). And of course they can’t be undone.
Not sure where I’m going with this now. I’ll leave it there!
Thanks, BigDan for your thoughts and streams of reflection!
I wholeheartedly agree with you that being a Christian is about something radical, about something that’s got to do with Jesus, about the light of the world and about a journey of FOLLOWING him (even if it’s a really bad uphill journey), about a purpose beyond making life go well for myself.
Being a christian out of such motives is actually also the only Christianity that’s real and that has some “depth” to it.
But then, Christianity DOES have side benefits. And these side benefits can be quite dominant in how tempting they are to my mind.
But your post reminds to be radical and not to simply say “well, these side benefits ARE tempting – and so be it”. But to really FOCUS on the REAL thing – and to take that or to leave that!
I am not just delivered to these temptations. I can take a stance towards them.
(Yes – and about life’s cracks. I really had to change expectations about that. When I entered adult life, I imagined the whole biographical path to be something much smoother than it proved to be in my case and many of my friends’ cases!)