Four reasons I still do Christianity

Taking the pulse of our dis/beliefs

Are you still happy with Christianity?

What does it do for you?

Do you get any joy from doing Christianity?

(Yes, I prefer this turn of phrase here to the more static being a Christian. Doing Christianity evokes the sense of doing sports, doing yoga, doing the tango—a specific rationale, a set of measurable objectives, a tangible change in the quality of life. You don’t do sports so you can keep on getting breathless every time you run for the bus.)

If not joy, are there any other dividends? You know, the kind you can cash in on in real life—peace of mind, the ability to not take yourself too seriously, the ethics of dealing with your neighbor?

What quality, what color does it infuse your life with?

Would it make any difference if you believed differently? Would you breathe a sigh of relief if somehow you didn’t feel you had to do it anymore?

What is attracting you away from Christianity?

What is making you stick with it (regardless)?

What has made you think, more and more, “This is leaving me cold, we’re done here”?

What does Christianity mean to you—to you, subjectively and personally?

Is there an element of inertia to your beliefs? Of fictitious force, of a merry-go-round—“round and round and round it goes, where it goes, nobody knows”?

It was about six years ago that I first thought of making a list of reasons I still do Christianity. It was for a small group I was invited to share at—I don’t remember the context exactly.

I think it was suggested I could tell my testimony, and at that time, my life was just mayhem. I was living on two continents in something akin to marriage, papers unsorted, finances a kaleidoscope. I had no vocabulary even to convey what was going on.

(Besides, I was always a bit suspicious of classic testimonies about a God experience you’d had decades ago. I always found myself wondering, “Great, but what’s going on now? This morning? Yesterday?”)

So, in that situation, I ducked and said I’d share instead why I still found Christianity compelling (regardless, I added in my mind). This much I could do sincerely. The result was a mess of notes I have to this day—and a four-reason list.

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I don’t remember this experience as a turning point of any kind. My thoughts on Christianity then were driven by blind anger and a sense of mind-numbing disbelief. I could not believe just how wrong my life had turned out, even though I’d followed what I thought were Christian precepts all along. I found myself reeling from this dissonance like from a deafening screechy sound. And the church—the church could have just as well said, “Gotcha!” That’s how little it had to offer.  

But the list was there, in the back of my mind. Writing it was a good experience. So much so that years later, when things calmed down, I excavated the notes and put it all in writing. I’ll share it with you, too, in the following posts.

I invite you to think on a similar list. The idea is not to write pro or against Christianity, or any other worldview, though a concrete framework might be helpful. Instead, it’s about making an authentic, positive assessment of the state of your dis/beliefs in the here and now.

In the heading, there’s that disconcerting word “still”—the state of things might change.

Our dis/beliefs are like backpacking gear on an ongoing pilgrimage—lived in, sweated through, marked by wear and tear, upgraded, malfunctioning, stripped down, replaced, left behind, rewired, adapted, experimented with, frustrated with, given up, acquired all over again.

If we don’t struggle against them, are we really on a journey of faith?

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What’s the benefit of a list like that? Again, it’s not meant to be apologetic in nature. When writing it, I wasn’t trying to convince anybody, myself included, why Christianity is the way to go.

The value of the list lies precisely in its subjectivity.

Of course, I include it here in the hope you might be inspired by it, but your list will probably be quite different.

My four reasons stuck with me, even when I lost my notes and never thought about the list anymore. But they just fit. Like a piece of gear you immediately find a use for on the trail.

Looking back, I see this exercise as a step towards reclaiming my agency. When you’re losing your faith, there is an element of powerlessness to it—at least, there was for me.

You’re raging against a Themis-like system—an impersonal, sword-wielding deity, with a blindfold over her eyes, a scale in her hand. “In the grand scheme of things,” she communicates calmly, “your pain is nothing.”

But in making the list, I could choose—and I chose what I ultimately judged was good for me, even though there were many elements of my belief I would be unsure of for years to come. I’m still unsure, in fact. I just don’t think it’s all that important.

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The list offers a shortcut, as well. When you’re deconstructing, it’s a bit like trying to get out of a building that’s about to crumble and burn. You want to get out to safety, but you also want to grab and save what’s dear to you. What would it be?

The reasons you gravitate to in the list show you which elements are meaningful to you personally and which ones you can put a pin in for now (or forever).

You’ll probably be surprised at which elements you include and which ones you omit even though they might be prominent parts of mainstream Christian teaching.

One more benefit is that the list offers a checkup of the overall health of my dis/beliefs. Do they do me good, overall? What should I explore more? Is my gear fit for the road I’m taking? Do I need anything else?

In this regard, in particular, I encourage you to unpack any religious or doctrinal language that will inevitably come up when you take on the task.

For example, if it is important to you that Christianity offers salvation from sins, try and reduce that statement. What does “salvation” even mean? What are “sins” in the first place, and why is it so imperative that we be “saved” from them? How would this be operationalized? How does it translate into your everyday life right now, between brushing your teeth and checking your emails, peeling carrots for the evening meal?

I would encourage you to try and simmer down your thoughts as much as possible, till the clichés and wordiness evaporate and the meaning emerges clear and soulful.

A note on my terminology. For this exercise, I adopt the meaning of Christianity as a system of thought that emerges from what is called the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

The measure of this system’s validity and relevance is the Person whose name is frequently used to designate this system, the Man Jesus Christ.

In other words, if there is a view or an attitude that’s quite obviously not Christlike, even if it is commonly associated with the organization that calls itself by His name, I still deem them un-Christian.

This means that, again, for the purposes of this exercise, I don’t count the institutional church in how I define Christianity.

The reason might be obvious—there is very little about the institution of the church that I find attractive or compelling. In other words, I do Christianity largely in spite of the institutions of the church.

This might be different for you. I’ve written about my reasons for this mistrust elsewhere.

There is some logistical and social value to the organization that can’t be denied, but I definitely would not save the doctrine of the church from a burning building.

I do think that when Christ called out at Calvary, “It is finished!”, He meant it.

No more religion. No more catalogs of sins. No more living in fear. No more sifting right from wrong.

The definition of Christianity as divorced from the institution does not mean I ignore the many systemic flaws of the established religion. It doesn’t mean I downplay how our mis/interpretations of the holy texts have added to the world’s violence. I know a change must come, and I hope to be part of it.

But at the same time, I can’t very well be sitting on my hands waiting around until a bunch of middle-aged White men or whoever the church is beholden to might feel my rage and pain.

I’m on a journey now, and I need gear I can count on.

That’s what this list is all about.