Why I am a Christian

This is the second of a pair of essays exploring my beliefs. The first is entitled: Why I am an Athiest.

I do believe in miracles. Not the virgin birth or the sun standing still in the sky for a day, but there is the miracle of Christianity itself - the survival and infusion of the teachings of Jesus into Western culture. We take this cultural bias for granted, but there is no evidence that egalitarianism could possibly have come to undergird modern Western thought without the unprecedented success of Christianity.

While the Hebrews developed an egalitarian society during the period of the Judges, between their Exodus and the ascension of King David, that equality really only ever applied to other Hebrews. It was Jesus who revived those ideals and preached that they should be universal. There may have been other teachers who put forward such ideas but no one had the success Jesus had.

His teachings fell on fertile ground because of the history of the Hebrews. The idea that all people are, regardless of background or wealth or education or breeding, equally children of God, was, because of their traditions, not entirely alien to the Jewish people.

Another key reason Jesus’ teachings could survive to found the modern world was that he put them into action. And he died for them. And as he died, he did not stop teaching, but made his death an indispensable part of his ministry. The power of his example and his charisma survived in the oral traditions that eventually became the four synoptic gospels - written at least eighty years after his death.

The power and pervasiveness of these teachings cannot be overstated. It is entirely appropriate that the majority of the world uses Jesus’ birth (actually his 5th birthday - close enough) as the dividing line between the ancient and modern eras.

Certainly Christianity has been far more often misused by its leaders and misunderstood by multitudes of followers than followed according to the principles Jesus taught. But despite the holy wars, slaughter of heretics, conversion by the sword, burning of witches, divine right of kings and any multitude of modern distortions of Jesus’ teachings, the idea that we are all of us equal in the eyes of God and should love not only our neighbors but also our enemies has percolated throughout Western culture.

I have heard evangelical preachers claim that the USA is a country founded on Christianity. While untrue - most of the founders considered themselves Deists rather than Christians - it has some validity in that the concept that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights evolved from the teachings of Jesus. The Enlightenment is a product of Christian principles.

Without these teachings, very few American citizens would have cared about freeing the slaves and there would have been no abolitionist movement. Gandhi’s non-violent campaign to free India from the British Empire would have fallen before an unsympathetic, uncaring British public - as happy to kill Indians as to free them. The American civil rights movement of the 1960's would have been simply unimaginable. The Nazi horror would have been seen for what it really was - an extension of the ethos of ancient Rome.

It is hard to imagine a modern world in which Christianity had never flourished. Would some other ethos of universal equality have arisen instead? There is no evidence of any. Islam is a descendent of Christianity. None of the various European pantheisms propounded the idea that all people, regardless of origin, should be treated as equals. There would have been no such tradition for philosophers such as John Locke to draw upon.

I am very far from endorsing any version of organized Christianity. Each carries its own distortions of the teachings of Jesus and several put the word of their own leaders above the word of Jesus. They tend as often to be sources of division and derision as unifiers of people of Christian faith - much less of all people regardless of their religion. While American Evangelical Christian leaders have spent the past thirty years decrying the sins of homosexuals and women forced to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy, if Jesus were here, he would decry those religious leaders - as he did during his life. Christianity should uplift, not oppress.

But the organized Christian religions have, in spite of the worst distortions of their leaders, preserved and propagated the most important teachings of Jesus - that we are all equal and that we should strive to care for all people.

I cannot say I am a good Christian. I have not taken up the cross. I do not give to the poor as I should. Instead, I am saving up to build a gigantic needle which I intend to install upright, pointed toward the sky with the enormous eye just above ground level at an oasis in Saudi Arabia in hopes that Bedouin tribesmen will lead their camels through it.

But I do fight in my own way for the rights of the oppressed. It is usually only talk - and writing - attempting to persuade my fellow Christians that we do have a moral obligation to make a better society for the poor and to free the oppressed. I support same-sex marriage, the rights of women, and human rights. No one should be treated less because of their gender, or sexual identity - or because they are powerless before an oppressive government or sanctioned group.

And I believe in the USA’s potential - that each American should fight hard to make our nation the shining city on the hill that we all know it can be. To offer freedom instead of oppression to all humanity. To care for our own and offer that care around the world. To use our might for the betterment of all humanity - or better, to leverage that might so we don’t have to use it.

For me there is no contradiction between being a Christian and being an Atheist. I don’t create hybrid terms to describe these philosophies. I am neither a Christian-Atheist nor an Atheistic Christian. I describe myself as one or the other depending on context. There is no bright line - that Christianity describes my ethos and Atheism my metaphysical understanding of the universe. It’s far more complex than that. But that’s close enough for starters.

rbs