I’ve been writing lately about what I see as the problem with the liberal/mainline church. I’ve talked about Liberal Vs. Progressive, why we’re not growing, and said that I think Mark Driscoll is right. I want to shift the conversation a bit and start to talk about a way forward.
I want to start with a question to those of you who indentify as liberal/progressive and as a Christian. Why are you a Christian? 
I plan to answer this fully tomorrow, but for today I want to focus on why I think this question matters. I think the question is important. I have always been more concerned with praxis than with theory. I want to know how things are lived out in the world rather than our ideas about them. I’m not looking for doctrinal positions or creedal statements, I am looking for people who are able to tell me why they believe what they believe.
I don’t think we’re very good at articulating this and it’s a problem because if we can’t answer this very basic question, then why should anyone listen to anything else that we have to say? I often hear Christianity in the mainline/liberal/progressive tradition reduced to being a good and nice person, to doing good things, to loving people. And all of that is important, but lots of people are good and nice, lots of people do good things and love others. Those things are not uniquely Christian. And yet, if we claim this name then there must be something unique about who it is that we are. In our efforts to increase plurality (which I think are vital and good) we’ve lost the ability for specificity. And I think this is why we’re dying. If there is nothing different about being a Christian, why would anyone choose this?
We’re having an identity crisis in that we no longer have an identity that separates us out. In a world where there are many religions to choose from or the ability to choose no religion at all why do you remain a Christian? With the ugly history of Christianity, with prophets, pastors, and popes who have done awful things in the name of Christ and God; with the religious right and Fred Phelps and Mark Driscoll claiming to speak for God, why do you remain a Christian?
Our inability (or our refusal) to answer this question means that those who proclaim Christianity the loudest (Fred Phelps, Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren, etc.) get to define what it means and we’ve allowed that to happen. We say that we’re just not “in your face” about our religion, that we don’t want to proselytize, that we prefer to live out our faith quietly. I get that. But in our attempt to not be the screaming of the religious right we’ve become a kind of watered down left filled with platitudes and vague warm feelings. That doesn’t cut it for me anymore. And I have a feeling that it doesn’t cut it for a lot of other people either.
I want to know why you’re in this faith. I want to know why you remain a Christian? Why does it matter?
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I’m not really sure how to answer that. No, it’s not because it’s a bad question. Far from it; it’s way too good of a question! For me, I know it’s a total cliche, but the reason why I’m still a Christian is because of Jesus and His message.
And you know me, so you know I struggle A LOT with not being “in your face.” It’s because way too often I confuse speaking out against injustice with speaking out against people. Know what I mean?
Oops, gotta go! I’ll elaborate later.
Excellent!
I wrote a post back in January entitled “Why I Am Still A Christian,” about my own answer to this question.
You can find it here:
http://everyday-revolutionary.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-i-am-still-christian.html
Peace,
EverydayRev
Thanks so much for sharing this. Really great post.
I wonder if having chosen Christianity as an adult rather than having been raised in the faith makes it easier for me to answer this than it might be for others.
For me, it’s the way I connect to God through Christ. There’s a lot of comfort in knowing that He cares for us enough to make such an incredible sacrifice. It’s humbling. Christianity for me is about forgiveness, service, and surrender. He showed me how forgiving others takes away their power to hurt us again and how forgiving ourselves gives us the space to try again and to do better. He showed me the joy of giving without expecting anything in return. Most importantly, He showed me surrender, the grace I feel when I give myself over to God and let him take my burdens for a while.
I may have only read a fraction of the Bible at this point, and there’s precious little that I could quote directly, but there’s so much spiritual richness here that keeps me digging deeper and exploring Christianity. The more I learn, the more it resonates with me. That is why I’m a Christian.
Thank you for this!
Latecomer to the party, but yeah…
Half a lifetime ago, the minister at my white-collar Presbyterian church preached a sermon, “The Gospel According to You.” I don’t remember the words, just the title and the message: that Christianity existed in the past but it *lives* in the present, in and with and through us. That it’s well and good to read it as a story, but that story isn’t over yet.
As a mainline kid, speaking for others without words or voices: Christianity is *not* a folkway. Jesus is *not* a casually quotable Jewish social critic. Scripture is *not* Emily Post grafted onto an Iron Age anthology.
Christianity is the story of a world. In the world of Christianity Jesus is God-with-us, calling and inviting us to be with Him, and breaking reality when it would stand in our way. Scripture is the setting bible and protocanon of that world, handed across and down so that our retellings and our reworkings and our regrowings and rebuildings can stay high-fidelity and part of the original continuity.
That’s the hard part, really: that world, that story? The one where God has chosen to live among us and every eye is dried? The first time around (in fairness, before the best parts had happened yet), telling that to the poor was as life-changing and numinous as making the blind see and the dead rise. Because there are compelling reasons to think that the world of that story isn’t *ours.*
I’ll say with Eric that I’m still shaky on the canon; that’s probably the least of my worries. I’m probably in no shape to be talking – but that story, that world? If they don’t belong to me, I *need* to belong to them, and I’ve come to terms with that. I need and will and hope to become someone who can live in and with and through that story, and its world in and with and through me.
That need is what makes me Christian.
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This Is Why I Am A Christian