The Truth About Christianity
- writer_alexandra_lee
- Jun 21, 2020
- 9 min read
Updated: Aug 12, 2020
Well, here it is.
Originally, this was going to be one post, but I quickly realized that it would be an hour-and-a-half long. To save you all from reading that, I decided to make this a series on my blog. Throughout this series, we'll be talking about some lies the world believes about Christianity. I hope each post reveals a truth and that at the end of this series, anyone who has read it has a more accurate definition of what Christianity actually is. I ask that you read all of the posts if you want to get the full picture. All of them are tied together and build on each other.
A part of me doesn't want to write these posts at all, but I know that if I don't write them, I'll regret it. There are things that need to be said, and no one is saying them. There are lies that need to be abolished, and no one is abolishing them. Instead, they're feeding them, and I can't sit back and watch anymore.
These posts are my attempt to provide clarity to Christians and Non-Christians alike on what Christianity actually is because the world's perception of Christianity is overflowing with lies and misconceptions.
So here it is:
I've prayed about it.
I've stayed up until 1:00 a.m. thinking about it.
I don't have all the answers.
I know I never will as long as I'm on this earth.
I'm
just
a
little
girl
saved
by
the
grace
of
God.
And that's all the motivation I need.
Christianity is A Childish Religion
About a month ago, I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for the first time. Toward the beginning of the book, Lewis was talking about some of the reasons people don't believe in God. The one that stuck with me was this: people don't believe because they think Christianity is a childish religion. Lewis went on to depict how, when many people think of Christianity, they think of a little child on his knees with folded hands and a bowed head. They think of Christianity as a religion that you grow out of when you see the pain and challenges of the real world. They think of God (if they think of Him at all) as a tyrant who is prideful, and whose only joy comes from withholding goodness and love. To them God is the voice who whispers, "Why are you doing that? You shouldn't be doing that. You know you shouldn't be doing that." (I'll be talking about a lot of these views of God in later posts.)
Lewis' words got me thinking more about this idea, and I can see why someone would think Christianity to be childish. The Bible, in its most basic terms, sounds very much like a fictional story some child came up with on a Saturday afternoon:
There was a God, and this God was powerful, so powerful that he decided to create a universe. In this universe, he created human beings in His imagine to love and keep Him company for eternity. (What God would do that?) Then there came along a snake—the Devil, Satan, the Fallen Star, whatever you wish to call him. (He's the biggest and baddest antagonist.) But this snake did not start out as a villain. He was an angel once—full of wisdom and glory. Pride took over him, and he wanted to be the king of the world. He started a rebellion in the Kingdom of God and was banished to the earth to corrupt humans.
He succeeded in his mission of corruption for hundreds of years. The people of the earth came to God, and they repented, but then they sinned. They followed His commandments, and then they turned away because Satan's temptation was stronger. We see it all throughout the Old Testament—Adam and Eva give in to temptation because they want to be the gods of their lives, Cain gives into jealousy and pride and murders his own brother, David commits adultery, Aaron (Moses's brother) makes a golden calf to worship because of his lack of faith and patience. All of these sins ultimately lead the Israelites to the Babylonian Exile.
If this was written by a child, he's one good writer. But is the story over? Does it end with humanity being eternally separated from their Creator?
No, it doesn't. Because the child had read other stories, and he knew that good always conquers evil.
Written in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, found only by those who truly look, are prophecies about a king who would save the broken world humans have created (and I don't know about you, but I'd say our world is pretty broken). This man would be the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, the Prince of Peace.
This man would be perfect. He would live a perfect life because he was God made man, and therefore, he could pay the price we could never pay. He would be nailed to a cross and a crown of thorns would sit on his head.
He would die there.
But on the third day, he would rise.
And the only thing still left on that cross would be the sins of his people.
And they would be saved.
Is this childish? I would love to meet this child, and ask him how he is so wise and creative. The Bible clearly wasn't written by a child. The Bible is the Word of God.
But that's not the story most people hear.
This is:
Who are these Christians? Their faith gives them pride. (It does. I've had moments where my faith has made me look down on others. I've seen it at church and on the streets, so I know exactly what you're talking about. "God, kill my pride," will be the prayer I pray for the rest of my life.) Their faith makes them feel superior. They're hypocrites. They are full of the very thing they say is a sin. They cheat and they lie and they judge. They are not kind. They are not helpful. They are not righteous.
They are naive. Where is the God they say is so powerful? Where is the Savior? Why are they on their knees praying to a God that doesn't exist? They should be taking action because no savior is coming. Why are they so hopeful? What is left for them to hope in?
God is dead.
Because if He were real, He'd have mercy on us. He'd save us from injustice, war, disease, and sorrow. He'd take away my addiction, my pain, my grief, my hatred, my anxiety, my depression.
Why isn't He saving me? Has He forgotten?
Or was He never there to begin with?
Both of these views of Christianity are incredibly complicated. The amount of brain power and intelligence it takes to wrap your mind around and dissect either idea, is the proof that Christianity is not childish.
It takes a great deal of wisdom to understand joy and love and faith.
But it takes a great deal more to understand grief and sorrow and pain.
So whatever your current view is just know that it's okay. Because if there's one thing I've learned it's that faith is a journey full of every emotion, every experience, and every surprise you can possibly imagine (and a lot you can't).
But it's also full of miracles.
And before we finish, I'd like the opportunity to change the: "Christianity is A Childish Religion" lie and make it instead into a truth: "Christianity is Not A Childish Religion, But A Religion For Those Who Take The Position of A Child."
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14
He also said: "Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:4-5
Finally he gave us this warning: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3
When Christians are baptized and pray for salvation, we say we have been reborn. What that means is that when you accept Jesus as your savior, you have to re-learn a lot of things. When you are reborn, your personality doesn't change. You are still the same person, but you are a person who has become cleansed from your sins and regrets. You have a new-found purpose for your life. You may have the body and mind of an adult, but you have the spiritual maturity of a child. In order to grow spiritually, you must feed your new spirit. You do that by reading the Bible, praying, going to church, serving people, talking to other Christians, etc.
To take the position of the child means that you humble yourself—you realize what you're currently doing is not what's best for you. (I know this particular line may seem really confusing, and a lot of you may be thinking, "Well, if I don't know what's best for myself, who does?" I promise to explain this more in a different post. That's why I said at the beginning that all of the posts are tied together.)
A Christian who truly loves God continues to look at themselves as a child, even after they've fed their spirit. They remain humble. They may know a lot about the Bible, they may know a lot about God's character, they may be the wisest Christian to ever walk the earth, but they will still study God as if they never knew Him at all—they will study as if they were still the child because they know they have much more to learn.
The problem though, is that many do not take the position of the child. They try to build their new spirit on the remnants of the old. This creates two problems:
1. They do not have a sturdy foundation to build their new spirit. Instead of digging into the Bible for wisdom and guidance and actually changing their life, they continue to live as they lived before, expecting to get different results. They don't go to church. They don't pray. When you become a Christian, there are some things you just have to cut out of your life if you truly want to focus on God and glorify Him. These people don't cut those things out because they think they can grow their faith and enjoy worldly pleasures at the same time. They continue to live the life they lived before, expecting that to bring them closer to God. But you can't feed your spirit with worldly teachings and expect it to come out looking like Jesus'.
2. Since parts of the old spirit are still there, they can come back.
Do not underestimate a defeated devil. - Jon Bloom
I found this article when I was doing some research for this series, (Link: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-not-underestimate-a-defeated-devil) and when I saw the title, I thought: I needed to hear this.
There are so many people who need to hear this. When you come to Christ, God's going to come after you. He's going to send people and thoughts to remind you of the commitment you made to Him. You're going to have people say things like, "Hey, maybe we should go to church this week?" You're going to have little thoughts that come out of nowhere when you're sitting at home on a Saturday: "Maybe I should get out my Bible and read a few chapters? I should go to church tomorrow." (P.s. If you don't own a Bible, you can get a free app on your phone or simply search it on Google.) But God's not the only one coming after you—Satan's coming after you too. He sees that you're slipping from his grasp, and he's going to do everything in his power to get you back. Do not underestimate the power of a defeated devil.
We as Christians love to push the boundaries. To us there's this imaginary line: On one side lies sin and on the other lies salvation. We like to get as close to the sin side as we can without stepping over the line. We make excuses for ourselves like, "Well, the Bible doesn't specifically say that I can't do this, so it's fine." The other big one is, "Well, everyone else is doing it, so it's fine. They can't all be wrong, right?"
When we say these things, we are like that child, and I know all of you know who I'm talking about. This child loves to push the boundaries. When mommy and daddy say, "Don't do that," this child is going to get as close as they can to doing the action, but not close enough that they have to go sit in time-out. Christians sometimes think the same way: "I'm going to push God's grace as far as I can, but not far enough that I lose my spot in heaven."
A part of me can't help but laugh when I come across people who believe this. Do you truly believe your God is not intelligent enough to see through your scheme? Because if you do, you do not know Him at all. The other part of me wants to cry because I played the game for a long time. But the truth is that your God does not want you to be stuck running back and forth from the line to salvation and into sin and then back into salvation and then back to the line and then into sin again. And I know it seems impossible right now. I know there's a sin you cannot get rid of and it just keeps coming back and back and back again, and you're about ready to give up.
But God's not ready to give up on you.
I'm going to leave this conversation here for now because I want to talk about it more in another post, but for now I want to give you all a warning:
I'm telling you right now that none of you are going to like the truth we talk about in the next post.
I hated it.
It made me question everything about myself. It forced me to give up control, and that is the very thing I feared the most.
I loved being in control.
I loved being praised.
I loved being the best.
But that's not the person God made me to be.
The next post will put some of you off of Christianity for the rest of your lives, but I hope it sticks with some of you forever.
Because it is a hard truth to swallow.
It's probably the hardest one I'll share.
But it's a truth that's changed my life.
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