Encountering Bare-Bones Christianity
This book has a simple purpose: to explain in easily understandable terms what my life as a Christian has meant for me and how it is different from the life I led before. My hope is that it will provide you with positive practical evidence of the difference it makes to live a life that follows Jesus.
But let me first introduce myself. I am a middle-aged man who lives in a foreign country. I am married to a woman who is much more equipped with talents than I, our three children are adults and all in the process of independently carving out their lives, and I have two dogs. I take comfort that I'm definitely smarter than my dogs (though people seem inclined to praise their cuteness much more than they praise mine).
I have an impressive-sounding academic degree, but I have always felt a bit of a scholarly impostor. I earned my degree through hard work but not necessarily great brilliance. I do think I have two mental strengths, though, if you want to call them that: I tend to be persistent if something feels relevant to me, and I tend to have good ideas. I hope this book is one of those good ideas, followed persistently.
I embraced the Christian faith as an adult. I remember the room I was in, the chair I was sitting in, and the mixture of dread and anticipation that filled me before I made that step. It felt like a jump off a high-dive platform. Unlike a painful belly flop, though, the results instead threatened to irreversibly change the direction of my life.
I did end up jumping, and my life has indeed taken a different course. But I've realized over time that this radical step of conversion is only one avenue for embracing the Christian faith. There are as many different ways to choose the Christian faith as there are Christians. For many, in fact, a careful step-by-step approach that weighs the risks and benefits to becoming a Christian is much more natural and reasonable than the radical now-or-never approach.
I've also realized that though I've never been bashful to share that I have faith since taking that plunge, I never actually explained my faith by communicating what specific differences it makes in my life. For someone who is more likely to take a step-by-step approach, an explanation like that might be helpful. This book is my attempt to do just that.
It's important to note at this point that I'm not a theologian. I am a Christian believer who is curious about and confident in what I believe, and that's what I'm going to talk about: my intimate experience with faith and the benefits—the actual advantages—that this Christian faith holds for me and for many other Christians.
When I say "Christian" I'm not referring to a kind of faith that is primarily rooted in culture or tradition, a faith that consists of purely ritualistic acts. Instead, I'm talking about faith that is focused on the life-changing reality of Jesus. I'll explain more of what that means later. I'm also not particularly interested in labels like Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic, and certainly not in the many sub-groups that fall under those broad categories.
Depending on where you live and how you grew up, being a Christian might reflect the norm around you, or it might be something completely counter-cultural. Either way, it may not be surrounded with many positive connotations. If you're in the first group, I hope to communicate that while there might be a lot of people around you who define themselves as Christian, and some of them just seem like regular and boring people, Christianity is neither commonplace nor boring. It's radical, exciting, and, yes, really counter-cultural. If you're in the second group, I hope to unveil the same radical, exciting, and maybe unexpected nature of the Christian faith.
I clearly don't know what you specifically think about Christianity, but according to my experience, people who are skeptical about or indifferent toward the Christian faith often share some or all of these opinions:
I equate it with "doing good," but I see too many examples of Christians who don't act that way.
I look at the long history of the Christian church (including the church today) and how it has allowed itself to be politicized and complicit in committing terrible wrongs.
I don't really want to spend time with the kind of "conventional" people who go to church (not to mention the hypocritical kind!).
I shake my head in disbelief that people in the 21st century still believe in something that seems to defy science and reason.
I can't accept that the Bible, a book written at least 2,000 years ago and for a completely different people, can have a real impact on someone who lives in the 21st century.
I might believe in a "higher power," but I don't want it (or myself) to be put into a specifically defined box.
I'm just too busy to commit to something that doesn’t seem truly relevant.
I was badly hurt by people from the church.
Aside from the last one—and I'm very, very sorry if that applies to you—I can personally relate to all of these points. I get them. So I encourage you to keep reading to see how these entirely valid reasons can be untangled, like the string in a large knot, by the radical nature of Christianity. (Notice I didn’t say "the radical nature of Christians!")
Of course, this is somewhat different for those who have been hurt. Hurts don't untangle easily, and if they do, the untangling doesn't happen only in the head. Perhaps by the last of these postings we may be able to agree that it was people who did the hurting rather than "the church."
