Will Christianity fail me?
I have been reading Ravi Zacharias' new book: Has Christianity failed you? This very question is one that the church as a whole has to deal with from time to time. In Hope Church Singapore, we see people leaving church because of this particular thing: Christianity has failed me. Of course, I have to constantly ask myself this question as well. So has Christianity failed me? Will Christianity fail me? How have I come to deal with this issue in my life?
To start off, I think this question is a fairly loaded one, which can be emotional. People who ask this question often do not see that the question requires a bit of dissecting. It is good to dissect the question a bit here. By Christianity, most people will take it as the whole package, which comes with the system of thinking in place, the people, the structure etc and this includes the God whom we talk about in Christianity. When we say Christianity fails us, we often lump all these components together. I choose to see these separately and let me explain why.
This comes back to a little bit about apologetics. I am not interested in this post to go into the details but the fact that Christianity fails doesn't necessarily mean God, as depicted in the bible, does not exist or does not fit into the picture of natural observation. Let me elaborate. There are a few independent arguments from the bible which can be used to prove God's existence. The cosmological argument will tell us that there is a God who is eternal, self-existing and powerful enough to create something out of nothing. The teleological argument will show us that this God is intelligent and care enough to ensure that the whole condition and the settings of the universe permits life to be formed on this tiny planet by the name of Earth. The moral argument shows that this God provides a certain moral reference to our behaviour. The historical evidence tells me that there are enough evidence, and not enough counter-evidence, to prove that Jesus has indeed come, died and resurrected and that He is who He claims to be. These arguments not only tell me that God exists, but that the attributes inferred from the argument are precisely congruent from what is being described in the bible.
Because of these, I find it difficult, to the brink of impossibility, to find myself rationally defending other worldviews or philosophies which claim otherwise. The natural implication is such that I can never decouple myself from the God of the bible, no matter what my emotions tell me, and no matter how I feel. Because intellectually I know I can never run away from this fact. How I feel will never dictate the death of God in my life. This means I can never leave God without knowing that I am doing the most illogical things on the face of this Earth, because of the awareness of who God really is.
Saying that, this also implies that the things that can fail me in Christianity are the system and the people. To be brief here, the system of a church dictates how the people operate within the church and how people are connected to God. Take for example, in Hope, the system of discipleship ensures that each member has a spiritual mentor assigned to him, and that everyone will have an opportunity to attend cg and service every week. If the system screws up, and does not meet the needs of the people, I would say that the system has failed. If I do not receive enough spiritual inputs, and dun feel that I am growing much in this system, then I would say that the system has failed me... or is it really true?
Can it be due to the people instead? After all, if a system is well-thought through and adhere to biblical models, then the logical conclusion for me here is that the people have failed. And it is in here that I believe trigger most people to stop believing in God and claim that Christianity has failed them. It is in here that I run the highest risk of joining the gang. And in some sense, it is understandable. After all, when the bible says that we are a royal priesthood in Christ and His ambassadors on Earth, in a sense, we represent God to other people. When we fail in our conduct and behaviour to bring about credibility in the eyes of people, people who naturally see us as representatives of God will not be too impressed by our dogmas and convictions.
Not finding excuse for people's failure (which include mine), but I find that this often boils down to misconceptions on the part of the people as well. What do I mean? Some of us have often expect our needs to be met in the church, no matter when and where. We see leaders as people who must be perfect, when we are similarly imperfect beings in the midst of perfection. We expect to see halos on people's head in church. If people do not meet our expectation, then the 'logical' conclusion is that Christianity is not what it claims to be and it has failed and God, by implication, must not have existed. I have indeed met people who tell me that just because a Christian in the church is 'screwed up', the whole entire system and belief is terrible... I wonder how the extrapolation comes about, but that's how people see it. Ultimately, what they do not see is that it is not God who has failed them, and it may not be the people who have failed them but it is their misconceptions about the church and Christianity which have failed them. When people join a church with misconceptions which are not addressed, one can be sure that such misconceptions will inevitably lead to that kind of a convoluted conclusion.
Do I run such risk? Definitely! There were times when I was in NUS and I suddenly have the thought that I was not well-connected with the people and that the people do not connect with me for some reasons. The thought of Christianity failing me was so real. I need to say here that it was, again, my intellectual pursuits into the claims of Christianity that saved me from making stupid decisions then.
My point here is that if we can understand Christianity by first understanding who God really is, and getting rid of our misconceptions of who we think God is, and stop making people in church and God fits into our plans, and stop becoming consumers in church, we will be able to see that even if people in church have failed us, there is always the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob to sustain our belief in Him.
To start off, I think this question is a fairly loaded one, which can be emotional. People who ask this question often do not see that the question requires a bit of dissecting. It is good to dissect the question a bit here. By Christianity, most people will take it as the whole package, which comes with the system of thinking in place, the people, the structure etc and this includes the God whom we talk about in Christianity. When we say Christianity fails us, we often lump all these components together. I choose to see these separately and let me explain why.
This comes back to a little bit about apologetics. I am not interested in this post to go into the details but the fact that Christianity fails doesn't necessarily mean God, as depicted in the bible, does not exist or does not fit into the picture of natural observation. Let me elaborate. There are a few independent arguments from the bible which can be used to prove God's existence. The cosmological argument will tell us that there is a God who is eternal, self-existing and powerful enough to create something out of nothing. The teleological argument will show us that this God is intelligent and care enough to ensure that the whole condition and the settings of the universe permits life to be formed on this tiny planet by the name of Earth. The moral argument shows that this God provides a certain moral reference to our behaviour. The historical evidence tells me that there are enough evidence, and not enough counter-evidence, to prove that Jesus has indeed come, died and resurrected and that He is who He claims to be. These arguments not only tell me that God exists, but that the attributes inferred from the argument are precisely congruent from what is being described in the bible.
Because of these, I find it difficult, to the brink of impossibility, to find myself rationally defending other worldviews or philosophies which claim otherwise. The natural implication is such that I can never decouple myself from the God of the bible, no matter what my emotions tell me, and no matter how I feel. Because intellectually I know I can never run away from this fact. How I feel will never dictate the death of God in my life. This means I can never leave God without knowing that I am doing the most illogical things on the face of this Earth, because of the awareness of who God really is.
Saying that, this also implies that the things that can fail me in Christianity are the system and the people. To be brief here, the system of a church dictates how the people operate within the church and how people are connected to God. Take for example, in Hope, the system of discipleship ensures that each member has a spiritual mentor assigned to him, and that everyone will have an opportunity to attend cg and service every week. If the system screws up, and does not meet the needs of the people, I would say that the system has failed. If I do not receive enough spiritual inputs, and dun feel that I am growing much in this system, then I would say that the system has failed me... or is it really true?
Can it be due to the people instead? After all, if a system is well-thought through and adhere to biblical models, then the logical conclusion for me here is that the people have failed. And it is in here that I believe trigger most people to stop believing in God and claim that Christianity has failed them. It is in here that I run the highest risk of joining the gang. And in some sense, it is understandable. After all, when the bible says that we are a royal priesthood in Christ and His ambassadors on Earth, in a sense, we represent God to other people. When we fail in our conduct and behaviour to bring about credibility in the eyes of people, people who naturally see us as representatives of God will not be too impressed by our dogmas and convictions.
Not finding excuse for people's failure (which include mine), but I find that this often boils down to misconceptions on the part of the people as well. What do I mean? Some of us have often expect our needs to be met in the church, no matter when and where. We see leaders as people who must be perfect, when we are similarly imperfect beings in the midst of perfection. We expect to see halos on people's head in church. If people do not meet our expectation, then the 'logical' conclusion is that Christianity is not what it claims to be and it has failed and God, by implication, must not have existed. I have indeed met people who tell me that just because a Christian in the church is 'screwed up', the whole entire system and belief is terrible... I wonder how the extrapolation comes about, but that's how people see it. Ultimately, what they do not see is that it is not God who has failed them, and it may not be the people who have failed them but it is their misconceptions about the church and Christianity which have failed them. When people join a church with misconceptions which are not addressed, one can be sure that such misconceptions will inevitably lead to that kind of a convoluted conclusion.
Do I run such risk? Definitely! There were times when I was in NUS and I suddenly have the thought that I was not well-connected with the people and that the people do not connect with me for some reasons. The thought of Christianity failing me was so real. I need to say here that it was, again, my intellectual pursuits into the claims of Christianity that saved me from making stupid decisions then.
My point here is that if we can understand Christianity by first understanding who God really is, and getting rid of our misconceptions of who we think God is, and stop making people in church and God fits into our plans, and stop becoming consumers in church, we will be able to see that even if people in church have failed us, there is always the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob to sustain our belief in Him.
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