Friday 22 May 2009

Christians Give Christianity a Bad Name

The wicked things done in the name of religion were one of the major reasons I rejected any involvement with any religion. There is a disgracefully long list of crimes that the Christian religion has been used to justify, including violence, fraud, greed, corruption and all kinds of atrocities. A few examples readily spring to mind:
Spanish Inquisition and the torturing of heretics
  • Institutionalised child abuse within the Catholic Church
  • Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland
  • Catholics and Protestants burning each other at the stake
  • The crusades in the Middle Ages
  • Selling of dubious relics claiming to be from Jesus or other saints
  • False TV evangelists who are always ready for your credit card

And I know there are many more that could be mentioned, but the most distressing fact is religion is still abused in this way.

What I have come to recognise is that you can’t blame God for the actions of those who claim to be Christian. God teaches us through the Bible and the example of the life of Jesus how we should conduct ourselves; acting always out of love. This central Christian message is separate to the actions of people, however much they claim to be Christian. People after all are only human; they get things wrong, have imperfect motives and are clearly capable of great wrongs. To deny the message of God because of the actions of some followers would be like blaming a football team for the behaviour of its supporters or blaming parliamentary democracy for the MPs expense scandal.

Christianity is primarily about a person’s relationship with God. He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us, but has granted us the free will to decide for ourselves whether we want this relationship. A Christian does not necessarily have to be part of a church or organised religion; it can be a very personal matter.

I have found developing a relationship with God a difficult concept to get to grips with and have been surprised to find many mature Christians also have difficulties. Like any other relationship it grows from small beginnings. It takes time and builds through prayer, which is just talking to God. I find encouragement in books by other Christians, reading about their experiences helps develop your own faith. I now enjoy going to church where I meet other Christians and feel part of a community (the Christian word for this is fellowship). Through church I have joined a house group where we study Christian teachings.

I now see church as a community of like minded individual Christians who come together to worship God.

Wednesday 20 May 2009

There Must be More to Life...

Until recently I lived a Godless life. I felt there was no purpose to life. Modern scientific discoveries showed how the world was created by a big bang and that the universe has been expanding ever since. Over millions and millions of years the earth moulded itself by chance in to a planet that could host humans, who themselves are the product of evolution from some slimy organisms.

Between birth and death is a period of time called life, it is all there is, it is all we have. There is no purpose to life, it just results from a random set of circumstances that have given all of us an opportunity to have some time on earth. What we do with our time is up to us. Why not just focus solely on our own pleasure and not worry about anyone else?

I broadly accepted this accidental, random and meaningless nature of our existence in the world. But I have come to realise that this must be wrong. There has to be more to it than this. There are three key realisations that have changed the way I now view humanity and the world.

1. This World is Extraordinarily Complex

The world is supremely complicated where everything is connected, dependent and interrelated, and I am not talking about technology. Science is discovering how eco-systems work and how the natural world has a perfect balance as a sustainable eco-system. Humans with our insatiable thirst for knowledge and increased capability have developed the power to disrupt the natural balance. Consequently global warming, species extinction and raw material shortage are realities. I am sure human advances will be causing problems we don’t even know about or understand. It seems likely our knowledge is only partial, maybe only ever can be partial, and yet the natural world around us is so fantastically beautiful and intelligent.

It seems utterly implausible to me that the whole world could be the result of random chance. Surely it must have been designed. Even a relatively simple house does not get randomly assembled from a set of accidentally thrown together atoms. The house has a designer and builder. So how could this whole cohesive fantastic system, known as the earth, be randomly flung together? It seems implausible to me it could be a product of chance.

2. There is an Innate Sense of Justice

People have an innate sense of justice, a feeling that some things are just not right. Murder, physical assault and stealing are obvious examples. It is more than law that makes us think this is unacceptable, there is something deep within our core that tells us this is wrong. But it is wider than this we value honesty above dishonesty, integrity above duplicity, loyalty above disloyalty and love above hate. In fact where people engage in the less valued behaviour we tend to require a justification of actions. For example, consider the current MPs expense scandal in the UK Parliament.

What would life be like if everyone was only interested in themselves? It might be like one of those computer games, where the main character can act with impunity and shoot whoever crosses their path. I can imagine a world with endemic violence, deception, and greed, a world without trust, friendship and love, a world where people have no respect for their environment, other people or themselves and a world full of binge drinking, drug taking, neglect of children and rejection of responsibility.

Yes, this does sound familiar and perhaps it is what happens when we take God out of society, we turn our back on his values and pursue only self-gratification.

No, I thank the Lord that there is a different way.

3. People can be Unselfish

People do have a strong inner sense of unselfishness. We form friendships, groups, societies, become fans and supporters, campaign for others and causes, help other people. Above all we love, we trust. If our love is betrayed or our trust broken we are devastated and if we break someone else’s trust or hurt the ones we love we are disappointed in ourselves. We are clearly meant for companionship. A common thread that comes out of articles about people who have turned out to do bad things, murder etc is a lack of love in their lives from an early age.


These three realisations point me to the conclusion that there has to be a God. A God who has created mankind for his purposes, a God who has given people intelligence and free will to do what they decide, A God granting the consciousness of what is right and the desire and capability to behave in an unselfish manner. If more people could explore the teachings of God, through the Bible and the example Jesus gives in his life on earth, then our world would be a much better place.

Sunday 17 May 2009

Christian Beginnings

Becoming a Christian is a gradual journey for me. There has not been a single "Eureka" moment or "Road to Damascus" conversion that I can identify, where I know I became a Christian. When I was child my paternal Grandmother was a firm believer and attended her local CofE church each Sunday. I think she was more involved than that, but not totally sure in what way. I recall Grandma being the subject of family jibes about being the "goody-goody" for going to church. Her response was always the same, "I go to church because I am not a goody-goody, but because I am bad". I couldn't understand this, it did not make sense. How could my Grandma, a sweet old lady, be bad? I now know that no-one else in the family really understood this explanation.

Throughout my teens and twenties there were various things that kept me from developing a positive interest in Christianity. Whilst studying the Renaissance and Reformation periods of history I was appalled by the Church, this was mainly the Popes. Then I developed a keen interest in left-wing politics, blinding me to Christian perspectives, though I did recognise a similarity of some of their ideals. I have been on the periphery of a church since 1995 when I married my Christian wife, but at that stage was committed non-Christian. In fact I could go further as I was an agnostic.


I believed, and it was a belief, that you could not prove the existence of God one way or the other. If anything I thought there probably was no God because of various difficult objections I held.

  • How could all the world's population be descended from Adam and Eve when they only had two sons?

  • How can God have created the earth and the heavens when we now know it was created by the big bang?

  • How can God allow there to be such evil and wrong doing in the world?

  • Why do churches seem to be at the heart of many wars?

  • How can God have created all the species on earth when Darwin showed they evolved?

These are big questions and there are lots more, but these will suffice for now. At first they precluded a belief in God, but I was beginning to look for answers to bigger questions. I had a successful career but was getting completely disillusioned with work, chasing money and promotions, defining success in terms of career progression, home, lifestyle and material possessions. In short, I was thinking there had to more to it than this. At this time there was an advertising campaign running with the slogan, "there has to be more to life than this". I seemed to come across the advert everywhere I went and looked. On billboards, radio, TV, magazines and newspapers the images and words kept greeting me, it was as if someone was speaking to me directly.

The advert was for something called the Alpha Course. I mentioned it to my wife who informed me there was one about to start at the church of which she was a member, so I enrolled. I started discussing God and asking for my wifes views, I started reading and thinking and shyly saying some fledgling prayers. Gradually my knowledge has grown and I have come to believe in God and accept that there is much that mankind does not fully understand. I know this sounds a cop out and so I will return to this subject later, but for now I am comfortable with this.

At the moment I am at the point where I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ is not only the son of God but was God on earth. I believe Jesus died on the cross for everyone. He died to forgive our sins. I believe he was resurrected from the dead. I believe he modelled the values that we should live by. I repent my sins and look to lead a life in this world inspired by Jesus and his love for all. I know that I am a sinner and that I am not perfect, that I am doomed to fall short of the perfect standards set by Jesus. But however I fail, Jesus still loves me. Jesus is the path to heaven and eternal life with God and all we have to do is genuinely believe, with all our hearts, that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins and genuinely try in our imperfect way to live our lives in accordance with his values.

I'm not sure how theologically correct I am but I know I will continue to learn more with God's guidance. I now also know what my Grandmother meant. She recognised that she like everyone else is a sinner and needed the forgiveness of the Lord God. The true belief in Jesus dying to forgive her sins will have seen her to heaven. I hope to meet my Grandmother there again one day and talk about what I learned after her earthly death.