Atheism 12 - Don't Confuse Christianity With Christians

There's an old joke about a curmudgeonly widower who is complaining about how lonely he has become since his wife died.  After listening for a bit, his nephew suggests he join a fraternal organization.  However, each suggestion the nephew makes - the Lion's Club,  the Optimists, the Jaycees, etc. - is met with the old man's retort:  "they're too gossipy," "they're just a bunch of hypocrites," and so on.  Finally, in a fit of frustration, the old man blurts out "I don't want to join any group that would accept someone like me as a member!"

Sometimes I wonder if this is how some atheists view the church.

I'm going to let you in on a secret; a deep, dark secret that good Christians don't want you to know, to take liberties with that ridiculous TV ad.  We aren't perfect.  Heck, most of the time, we aren't even particularly good.

Try to imagine yourself in a hypothetical scenario.  You have decided you agree with all of the points I've made in my previous posts, and you've decided that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Son of God.  Now what?  What is expected of you at this point?  Well, according to the gospels, Jesus expects you to turn your life over to Him (or, more specifically, to the Holy Spirit.  It's complicated.  Maybe some future post, or ask a clergy member whom you trust.).  Your whole life.  Everything.  Now, let us assume that you're more or less willing to accept this concept at least as an axiom if nothing else.

But...

But what?  There's always a "but."  For every single person, there is something that we cling to, something about ourselves that we really like, something we're terribly fond of.  Something that is at the very core of our self-identity.  Something that makes us us.  Maybe it's our pride, our finances, our parenthood, our sex life, our sense of justice, even our anger.  It could be anything, but there's always something.  That one thing that, without it, we simply couldn't imagine ourselves existing as an individual.  Think for a second about what that might be for you.  There's something, I promise.

For a Christian, that's the one thing we don't turn over to Christ.  We don't. We can't.  We're not even interested in trying.  Would you be?  Really?  To basically give up that thing about you that you think of as you?  I rather doubt it.

Yet, that is the one thing Jesus most wants us to let go of.  Because that is the one thing keeping us from being the person Jesus wants us to be.  The person that, as a non-Christian, you expect to look at us and see.  There's the problem.  When you look at me, you expect to see Christ.  And well you should.  If I profess to be a Christian, that means, more than anything else, that I have given my whole life to Christ, so Christ is all you should see when you look at me.  But, alas, I'm afraid you're a good deal more likely to see Jeff than Jesus.  Jeff, with all his flaws and foibles.  Jeff with all his humanity.

As a Christian, I can't really say that I'm always a particularly good representative of Christ.  I'm not sure I'm always a particularly good representative of a human, for that matter.  All I can say in my own defense - all any Christian can say - is that I am at least aware of my shortcomings, and I try to get a little better every day.  Some days I'm more successful than others, but I do always try.  I suspect that, for some atheists at least, they disregard Christ because they aren't even interested in trying.  They don't want to give themselves up, either.  I don't know that, but my own experience indicates the possibility.

 For many Christians, what they can't give up is their emotions.  Every argument I've made in this blog has been based on logic, with emotion completely removed from the equation.  I have invited my dear readers to consider the points for themselves, to look for flaws in my logic, to seek out invalidity.  It is possible that someone will eventually do so, and, if so, I will be intrigued, but I sort of doubt it.  I've been refining this argument now for longer than the majority of my readers have been alive.  I'm reasonably confident in my position (although I always look forward to learning something new).

For most readers, disagreement will likely come from the inability to remove themselves from their feelings about the church to consider the question from a purely logical perspective.  That is to say, they have decided that they wouldn't want to join a club that would accept someone like themselves as a member. 😊

So, maybe cut some of those verbose Christians we discussed in previous posts a little slack.  They may not present themselves any more tolerably than any of those they tend to publicly condemn, but let us allow enough doubt to assume that they are at least trying; we're just seeing them on one of their not-so-good days.

Pax