Why I Am a Christian

I remember it well, but I don’t often speak of it often. I was walking down the “hill” at Western Carolina University from Reynolds Hall down the long, steep staircase to Brown Cafeteria. Not looking carefully enough at the narrow concrete steps, I slowly made the steep descent in deep thought. While the campus has changed significantly since, that walk was a thing of beauty in the spring of the early 1990s. The pink azaleas were in full bloom, and the spring breeze blew. I was surrounded by beauty in a place I had come to think of as something close to heaven.

Though scenery was beautiful and tranquil, my soul was anything but. I was in turmoil. I was being plagued with doubts about my faith, and this was the first time I had given these doubts any attention.

Some might suspect my doubts had something to do with being a Philosophy major in a secular university, having my faith tested on a daily basis. That was really not the source of my struggle, though. While I found the works of Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche and others very challenging, I did not find them faith shaking. I was not bothered by the scathing critiques of Voltaire or the ridicule of Marx. In fact, the opposite was true. I found the Faith more and more intellectually compelling as I studied. My interest in the things of God lead me to gravitate to the works of Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard whom I found very persuasive. My faith was not so much tested as a Philosophy major as it was refined. I was comfortable and confident in the intellectual aspects of faith and becoming more so.  

What was happening on that walk was not intellectual, though, and that was my problem. My grounding and philosophical tools were capable of dealing with an intellectual crises. I did not have the tools for this, though. While I’m sure the crisis was not intellectual, I don’t think it was emotional either. My struggles emerged from some faculty of the mind I’ve never been able to isolate. I just think of what happened on that walk as series of unwelcome thoughts now. Those unwelcome thoughts were persistent, though. On that walk, and many that followed, I felt as if I was having to prove my faith to myself. I was able to do it, but with great annoyance. It was many months, maybe longer, before those doubts ceased. I think they did because, in modern phrasing, I learned to “doubt my doubts.”

Eventually, the unwelcome thoughts passed, and my path down the long concrete staircase became only eventful if I stumbled, which I did all too frequently, much to my chagrin.

There is a space in me, a way of thinking that exists before my thoughts can be expressed in words. Somewhere between emotion and rational, there is a space in me where my faith resides. The best term I have for it is, intuition. Before a doubt can even be expressed with the words of thought, I know the truth about me. Before I can feel an emotional disturbance in my faith, I know the truth about me. The truth is, I believe in Jesus Christ. I know that before I can even allow a thought to form. When doubts arise, if I need a response, I’ll simply think, “I believe in the resurrection.” If I’m asked why I am Christian, that is my answer. I am a Christian I believe in the resurrection.

I know, however, In another sense, the reason I am a Christian has very little to do with me. God is the Author of all salvation, mine included. It was God who knew me before the beginning. Before there was space, or time, or matter, God knew me. God knew my name and my story. God wanted me to be among His people. God called me. Before I even knew how to respond, God was working to bring me to Him. He was working through my family of origin, the congregation I was a part of as a child, and through events in my life to bring me to faith. Long before I ever sought God, God was seeking me. God is the God who calls, and those who will accept His call become His children.

Returning to a human perspective, I am Christian because I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the bedrock of all I hold true. One of two things must be true. Either the resurrection is true or it is not. To conclude the resurrection is not true is to conclude the earliest followers of Jesus Christ made up a story of Jesus’ resurrection and hid Jesus’ body. In spite of persecution and constant threats of death, they maintained their story without gaining anything for it. They gained no power, no money, no standing for their stubborn refusal to recant. They gained hatred, threats, beatings, and imprisonment.

To believe the resurrection is a made-up story is to believe a group of 11 men and several women, who could not have arranged a good barbeque just a few days prior, were capable of scheming to create what would become the greatest conspiracy in human history. In short, it is not plausible. Something happened in the borrowed tomb. Something changed the fearful and tearful group of disciples into a courageous band capable of changing the world. I can only conclude the Disciples were telling the truth.

I am also Christian because I believe in the essential goodness of God. In my faith tradition, God’s goodness has not been described often enough. We hear of the Holy God whose hatred of sin burns. We hear of the merciful God whose law has been violated but has chosen not to destroy sinners immediately. The story of the Bible, though, is God is good. Goodness, is an attribute of God in an interesting way. In effect, God is not just good, God is goodness itself. Whenever we see something we perceive as good, that goodness draws its existence and origin from God. God is good in God’s nature; God is good in the created order; God is good to His people; God is good to me. I am Christian because I believe God to be good, and I know God has been good to me. His goodness never ends.

I know many are tempted to give up on the whole Christianity project. Too many leaders have proven to be charlatans, or frail, or complicit, for them to believe in the Gospel. From basic meanness of self-professed clergy on twitter, to perennial discord among God’s people, our public witness has done great harm to the reputation of the Faith delivered to the Apostles. Even still, even recognizing all of that, I still believe in the Gospel. I believe the Gospel has the power to bring forgiveness and change lives.