My dad recently sent me a book called The Reason For God by a man named Timothy Keller and I’ve been trying to read a little bit of the thing each night before bed. As far as I can tell (I’ve been skipping around a bit), Keller takes common arguments used by people to dismiss the existence of the Judeo-Christian or “traditional” God and then explains the irrational logic assumptions behind each claim. He must transition into a more positive approach somewhere along the way, though, because I skipped ahead to a chapter entitled “Religion and the Gospel” and he was saying some pretty interesting things. The chapter ends thusly:
Grace is only a threat to the illusion that we are free, autonomous selves, living life as we choose. The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life. Christians, however, often fail to make use of the resources of the gospel to live the lives they are capable of in Christ. It is critical for anyone reading this book to recognize this fundamental difference between the gospel and religion. Christianity’s basic message differs at root with the assumptions of traditional religion. The founders of every other major religion essentially came as teachers, not saviors. They came to say: “Do this and you will find the divine.” But Jesus came essentially as a savior rather than a teacher (though he was that as well). Jesus says: “I am the divine come to you, to do what you could not do for yourselves.” The Christian message is that we are saved not by our record, but by Christ’s record. So Christianity is not [either] religion or irreligion. It is something else althogether.
This one paragraph was all I actually read from the chapter, but in these few sentences, Mr. Keller raised several issues that have long since been on my heart. Firstly, the line about grace breaking down our own illusions of self-autonomy caught my eye because I was so recently discussing that sort of thing with Amos. He’s been on a “Tower of Babel” kick lately and it’s come up almost every time we’ve hung out since I moved to Washington, lol. But either way, I essentially agree with both Amos and Tim. The main, underlying barrier to Christianity shared by most people is that it seems to be so dang intrusive on autonomy. God actually dares to ask us to submit ourselves to him willingly! Especially in the US, where we’re so obsessed with ideas like equality and civil rights, this is a hard pill to swallow. Really, though, the reason I was so captured by this one paragraph was the deft way in which Keller describes one of the basic, fundamental aspects of Christianity. Namely, that Christ came not in order to establish some religion; some secret set of steps and rules set towards gaining an ever-elusive divine favor. Nor did he come to abolish religious practice - Christianity has rules and regulations, morals and ethical truth-claims. Rather, Christ came to establish the one truly different way that humans are to interact with both each other and God. Where most religions focus on the religious actions of their practitioners, Christ says “believe and I will save - trust and I will do the impossible for you.” Indeed, this is the very essence of Christianity, but the radical, almost paradoxical nature of the whole situation is something that is often overlooked because at first blush it seems so much of a subtle difference…
Either way, another thing Amos and I were talking about this weekend is the world’s obsession with mindless marketing and consumerism. It pervades everything these days. Politics are no exception. All too often we are pitched this message that X or Y candidate will “finally shake things up in Washington!” or will “once and for all put to rest the divisive politics of Capitol Hill!” In the end, though, what may have seemed like a genuine promise of change turns out to be just another piece of the same old pile of crap. This comes in the wake of the Democratic National Convention. I make no bones about my negative feelings for both the candidates, but if there’s one message that has been hammered into my head in recent months it is that we shouldn’t even be putting our trust in politicians anyways.
My point is that there are things that seem to be original. They appear to be something new, when in fact are just a pseudo-unique twist on something fundamentally the same. This is why I think Christianity is so compelling. It truly is, at its fundamental rational level, something unique. Christ preaches a message so wholly different from any other major world religion and the effects his message have had on culture are immeasurable. I have forgotten that fact often lately, and it’s been hard to keep proper perspective what with me being so busy and the political season being so horrible and all. But this book has done much to refocus my mind. I very much look forward to reading it the whole way through. Also of note, the next chapter begins with the following quote by Malcolm Muggeridge:
I would catch a glimpse of the cross — and suddenly my heart would stand still. In an instinctive, intuitive way I understood that something more important, more tumultuous, more passionate, was at issue than our good causes, however noble they might be… I should have worn it.. It should have been my uniform, my language, my life. I shall have no excuse; I can’t say I didn’t know. I knew from the beginning and turned away.
Two proverbial smacks in the face, philosophically in one night. I wish I were better at actually taking things to heart and then executing them and integrating ideas into the every-day of my life. For now, though, I’ll sleep on things.
