Why Jesus?

If you ask me why I am a Christian, I will say, “I was raised that way.”

My earliest memories of church were a Jehovah’s Witness church.  Why will they always survive a storm?  They’re always in doorways.

When we first moved to Mississippi, we attended a full gospel church.  The worship shook that itty bitty building.  People fell down, spoke in tongues, and generally got funky with it.  Nothing anybody can do in a church can ever surprise me.

For the past several years, we’ve attended an Assembly of God church sporadically.  Assembly of God is basically laid-back Pentecostal.  For a few years, I attended a Baptist youth group with one of my friends.  I did a Sunday school study of The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning for a few weeks with a Methodist church.  

I’ll be honest because lying’s a sin:  I don’t like going to church.

I’m of a firm belief that going to church isn’t going to keep me out of hell.  It doesn’t get me brownie points with God, but He has better things to send me to hell over.  Like, refusing to give help when needed.  Like, being mean to my fatherless godkids.  Like being regular, misanthropic me.

A few weeks ago, I attended another Baptist church with my family.  My little brother, Vin, was going there for Awanas.  The Assembly of God church has no such programs for children, most of the congregation is older, and the preacher is, Lord forgive me, not very good.

I attended the Sunday school a few weeks before that.  I was one of the youngest ones in there.  So, that Sunday, I was going to wait out in the car and come in for the church service.

My boss’s wife attends that same church.  She came out to the car to retrieve me.  She even had the nerve to tell the class I thought they were old.

“Older than me,” I corrected.

One of which, I recognized from high school who was only a year ahead of me.  Older than me still, but not much older.  I’ll amend my statement by saying they’re all settled, married, with children, or children on the way.  Grown ups, where I was barely 21, still living at home, the whole nine yards.

Anyway, the Trail of Blood came up in the discussion this second time I attended.  Apparently, Baptists have been around a lot longer than the Reformation, and mean old Catholics were prosecuting them, et cetera et cetera.

“Why are you Baptist?” the teacher asked the class.

Most were raised that way.  One or two said that what the preacher at another church was saying in the pulpit wasn’t in the Bible they were supposed to be reading.  What followed was a discussion on why Baptists are the best denomination, and how awful all the others were.  

It wasn’t really like that, but to my non-dominational ear, that’s what it sounded like.

I’ve visited plenty of non-denom churches, although I’ve never been a member of one.  I’ve always kind of liked them:  they’re honest in that they don’t know what they are.  I’m non-denom at heart.  I’ve visited and been a member of too many different kinds of churches to not be.  No denomination is better than another.  They’re all just a little weirder the last.

Do you believe Christ is Messiah?  Then you are a Christian—follower of Christ.  So my definition goes.  Very mind-blowing, I know.

I was honest with my mother:  I don’t want to attend a church where Baptists believe they’re the only ones going to heaven.  I don’t see myself as a happy Baptist.  If the stereotypes about Baptists are true, “happy Baptist” is a contradiction in terms.

Salt of the earth, right here people.  It’s annoying.  And here’s the thing:  Christians, as a whole, aren’t special.

We’re not the only religion with a virgin birth—and I’m not talking about Star Wars.  Krishna was supposedly conceived without sex. 

SIDENOTE:  Hinduism is considered the oldest religion by historians.  That would put Hindic law being put down sometime after the Flood, but before Mosaic law was put down.  That’s only a a few chapters in the Bible, but while there are estimated dates on the Hebrews’ time in Egypt, there’s not much for an estimated date for Creation or the Flood.  The Christian’s world is estimated to be about 6,000 years at youngest and perhaps 10,000 at oldest—and that’s stretching it. 

The Egyptians were a polytheistic people when the Hebrews were there in slavery—pre-Moses.  Even earlier, in Abraham’s culture, it was perfectly acceptable for a servant to lie with her male master and produce a child.  What Sarah had Hagar do wasn’t frowned on by the neighbors.  A little farther down, Sodom and Gomorrah were godless, sinful cities.

Even on a biblical timeline, it could very well be true. Hinduism--and quite possibly other religions--is older than Mosaic law.

God is not younger than religion:  it’s possible.  Written law is a relatively new idea.

What would probably be more familiar is that we’re not the only one with a worldwide flood.  Just about every culture has one.

I think legends do have a grain of truth to them.  When a lot of legends have a lot of the same elements to them.  When there’s a legend from each culture that tells the same story—flood stories, for example—there’s more to it than just a story.

Flood stories are easy.  Most historians will say there was a worldwide flood.  It’s been proven and an accepted fact.

I’m an ex-English major, history buff, and a mythophile:  I know how legends work.

Noah and his sons went out into the world and told the story to their children and their children’s children.  Over time, the story changed.  Details get forgotten.  Whoever was telling it changed the story to make it more familiar—but kept in tune with the fact God, or the gods, got angry and destroyed the world but for a few people and all the animals of all the world.

God hit the restart button on the world after saving His last game.

Even in the Bible studies, you learn Moses put down the first books of the Bible.  Not Adam.  Not Noah.  Not Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Information from God or not, the information was secondhand nonetheless.  At least where Genesis, the beginning, is concerned.

Prophecies were told about Jesus’ birth centuries before he actually put in a formal appearance.  Again, told over and over, stuff gets lost, and then stories get made up about it, too.  We have Revelation, a book of prophecy, and there’s the best-selling Left Behind series about it.  Apocalyptic fiction’s hot stuff.

Even after Jesus’ time, I could see people telling these stories about this amazing hobo.  It becomes a family story, and the stories change over time.

This is the head-spinning thing about the Bible:  Infallible book, written by fallible people.  Inspired by God, but still written by imperfect people.

Does this not bother anybody else?

Why didn’t Jesus write stuff down when he was down here?

Oh yeah, too busy healing the sick and teaching people how to be good.  He left writing down what He did to other people.  And even then, most of the Gospels weren’t written until years later, to teach the later generations.  That generation didn’t need the Gospels.  They were there.  They ate with the Gospel.

So, if all the stories of the world, all actually tell the same story, how do you know which one’s right?  Because this particular version has basically ruled this part of the world since Emperor Constantine of Rome?  Because it’s the best-selling book of all time?

I accept the idea of God.  I accept the worldwide flood, the idea of evil.  Angels, demons, what-have-you.

However, what makes Christianity so special is what I’ve been struggling with lately.

The Christian God is the only God that loves sinners—so I’ve been told.

John says that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  Again, John telling us what someone else said in a book that’s generally not okay to question.

Most scholars agree Jesus existed.  Most agree he was baptized by John the Baptist and that he was crucified in the Roman way.   Even with non-biblical accounts, there was this guy named Jesus who was from Galilee.  He had disciples that spread his message even after he died.

Most historians believe the Bible to be historically accurate.  As accurate as a few people coming back to the dead could possibly be.  There’s a few resurrections in the Bible, people, Old and New Testament.  Like one’s not hard enough to believe.

Then there’s the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery.  These old texts matched very closely to the things the Hebrews were teaching.  Not much, if anything, was altered.  Bible scholars will say, the Jews were touchy about their literature.  You did not deviate.  It was this way, it was the right way, and if you don’t like it, we’ll stone you.

All that being said, there’s a lot of evidence to back up Christianity as the “right way.”

Not to mention, all the other ways to heaven just include being a good person.  Karma.  Be good to the universe.

So, why am I a Christian?

Because I was raised that way. 

Because, and my memory’s a little fuzzy, when I was in elementary school, I had a bad, bad case of warts.  I had over 80, maybe even 100, warts on my hands.  I think I got my first one while I was still living in Louisiana I’ve lived here in Mississippi since ’98.  The warts bothered me.  I always hid my hands.  What kid wouldn’t?  Oh, and yes, I did like frogs.  That’s not where I got them, but I digress.

I tried over the counter stuff.  I went to the dermatologist.  There were too many to laser.  He prescribed a special cream.  It didn’t work.  And I mean, nothing happened.  Every now and then I would take fingernail clippers to them and clip them off.  No, it didn’t hurt much.  I do remember making myself bleed a few times, and they never stayed gone.

I was about in third or fourth grade when my mother finally went to a retreat of some kind and came back.  I was taken to the front of the church (this was at the Full Gospel church, so that puts it no later than 2002).  They put olive oil (annointing oil) on my hands and prayed over me.

One by one, the warts began disappearing.  It was a miracle.  In hindsight, it seems really petty and superficial.  All that being said, the Christian God took them away.

Either that, or take note:  olive oil cures warts.

I’ve heard that saying you were raised that way, or talking about a miracle in your life are the wrong answers to the question as to why you’re a Christian.  I’m just thinking:  what other reason could someone possibly have?

Because my mother always listens to Revelation and I don’t want the mark of the beast on me and I certainly don’t want to be thrown in the lake of the fire.

Is being scared out of hell a good reason?

The first reason does make sense as being the wrong answer:  you didn’t come to it on your own free will.  The second, I’ve always thought was a good reason:  you’ve had evidence in your own life.  The third has screwed me up spiritually for years.  I’m talking since I was a little kid.  Like, since the warts in elementary school little.  I am the wrong personality type to have to have been brought to God that way.  And to this day, I hate End Times sermons.

Now I just say this:  Christianity is my insurance policy.

If there really are a hundred ways to heaven, I’m good.

If there really is nothing after life, I’m still good.

If I never wreck the car, well hot dog.

If my mom’s right, if this God really does care about my petty superficialities, and is judgmental, who has the right to judge, I’m covered by the blood of the Lamb, a blanket policy that doesn’t expire till I stop paying.  And all I do (or all I should do anyway) isn’t in vain.

When the car’s totaled, there’s a replacement waiting for me.  When this body gives up the ghost, there’s another waiting.  Hopefully a better looking one.

That’s what this was all about.  Why do I still believe what my mother always told me?  Why don’t I regulate the warts to a happy accident?  Why don’t I just reject the fear and live how I like?

Because I still live at home.

That’s not even a good enough reason for me.  It’s as if I didn’t choose to be a Christian, when I kind of did.

A slightly better reason is this:  my religion is my crutch.

I love when people get offended when people call the idea of God a crutch.  This, I think, is the very nature of human beings.  If you’re a Christian, you believe you are nothing without Jesus.  You accept the fact you need Him.  Yet, when someone calls it what it is, you don’t like it.

And the funny thing is, He wants us to come by our own free will.  Jesus says, “I love you.  I died for you.  I want you with Me.  But I won’t make you choose Me.” And you don’t have to.

The catch is, you won’t get very far without Him.

Adam’s curse is that we’re all born broken, all in need of something to hold us together in this life.  Jesus’s gift is the hope of being fixed one day, in the next life, repaired to the point of being unbreakable.

It’s like God wants us to have spiritual Stockholm Syndrome or something.

I wonder what a healthy view of God, religion, and Jesus is.  My question is constantly, why do I bother with Christianity?  I’m not a good Christian.  I have several book-related issues.  One, I like secular romance books and can’t stand Christian romance.  Two, I’m addicted to buying books (not addicted to buying romance books, though; just books in general).  I feel more for fictional people than I do for real people.  I’m certain if I read my Bible like I did novels, I’d be a Bible genius.  I’m apathetic and misanthropic in turns.  I’m self-centered (not selfish, but self-centered), and narcisstic.  I don’t have a bleeding heart.  I’m lazy and don’t care for the temple that’s supposed to be my body.  I’m judgmental and indecisive.  I focus on the wrong things.  I ask the wrong questions and question the wrong things.  “He knew all the wrong answers to the right questions and all the right answers to the wrong questions,” says Lloyd Alexander of Fflewddur Fflam in The Truthful Harp.  I always identified with him.

Despite all of that, I have hope I could be decent person someday.  And hope is a good thing, a good ideal.  And ideals don’t die.