In my Christianity & Culture class this semester, we talked a lot about tolerance, which is the highest (actually, the only) virtue of moral relativism, which is basically the mindset much of the postmodern world has adopted. I can’t help but read Jesus’ words and worry that Christian love will get lost in all the tolerance and acceptance other people show. That is why I think that, personally, I want to be explicit about my love for God and my faith in Jesus Christ. I mean, I don’t want to beat people over the head, as it were, but I want to be so open about it that it just pours out of me, not as an attack, but as a joyful confession of my beliefs. And shouldn’t it be that way anyway? Shouldn’t Christians feel such an overwhelming joy that they can’t help but talk about it?
Not that we have to be happy all the time, and not that we have to limit our conversations to only religious topics, but if we are strong in our faith, it should be something that is constantly with us, supporting us, filling us up. When we are down, we seek solace in it. When we are up, we find glory in it. When we are in doubt, we wrestle with it. We can’t escape it, and we don’t want to. We want to get deeper with it, and become so comfortable with it that expressing it—our faith and love for God—is as natural as breathing. I know it can seem awkward at times to bring up the word “God” or “Jesus” and sometimes I might stutter or pause while I work up the nerve, but I want to work past that. I want these to flow out of me so that people can hear and sense how easy it is for me to bring it up.
Talking about things tends to make them seem more concrete, so discussing something that is mainly based on faith can show that you view it as something more, as something “real” and almost physical or tangible. A lot of people view their faith as just something abstract, something separate from their real life, and they may not even think about it too seriously except for Sunday mornings, if even that. It’s just a kind of vague notion that they don’t see as really important, and it may not even occur to them to try to figure out how strongly they believe it.
But Jesus Christ is so much more than a vague notion: He is meant to be a person’s everything. He is the thing a person should drop everything for, give up their life in service for. That’s anything but a vague notion. He is very real, and His influence and power is incredibly strong. When a Christian gets to know Him at the level where they feel Him and want to know Him more, and want to do work for Him and want to share Him with others, that’s when you know He is not a religion that is just one compartment of life: He is life itself, so how can you not talk about Him? That is not meant to be an accusation, it’s an honest question. How can any Christian go one day without talking either about or to God? I do sometimes, and it’s weird to me. I feel like, for all that Christ has done for me and the rest of the world, for all that He IS, shouldn’t He come up more in my daily life?
Well, I would like Him to, so it’s my goal to kind of condition myself to be more forthcoming in my faith, because really, I do feel great joy from knowing Christ, and I feel like I’m hiding something by not letting it come out more naturally. Especially in this time where any kind act could be interpreted or motivated by simple tolerance of others, I think it is important that Christians prove we can show love and compassion to the people in our daily lives and not only in church or on a big mission trip. This life is a mission trip, and we are supposed to be identifiable be the love we show to others, the way Christians in the very beginning were. Now tolerance is just expected because of the big emphasis on individual rights, so Christians first of all need to start showing love to others rather than the radical hatred and prejudice that we have become known for, and second of all to be open about why we show such love, so that people can actually associate our actions with our faith.
That may put a high standard on us to start acting better in public—because once people know you are a Christian they will start watching you to see if you act the same loving way all the time—but is that really a bad thing? Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to a higher standard of living? We don’t have to feel like failures if we are not saints, but we should monitor ourselves so that we can catch ourselves before we do something we shouldn’t, like cheat or steal or explode with anger. If we can be more conscious of our actions and turn what we might have done into something positive and have that reputation of being a Christian, then I have a feeling people would notice that we are trying harder to live out what we preach, which would make a huge difference in others’ perceptions.
So yeah, being open about our faith might be worrisome at first because of the pressure to be better in public, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing since it will make you more aware of how you act, and if you are serious about your faith, I think you will want to live a life of love and justice.
You can have personality, I’m not trying to say we should all be little cookie-cutter angels, not at all. By all means, let your character shine! We need diversity to reach all the different types of people in the world and to prove that Christ can live in any one and that anyone can love through Christ. This is getting into the realm of the theoretical and a scope that is way too broad for my musings here, but I just believe that in order for Christians, who come in all sorts of fun flavors of personality, to be identified, we need to be loving AND open about our faith, because atheists can be good and tolerant people and a lot less worried about their reputation since they’re not trying to represent anything. But we are, and I for one want to make a good impression for Him.
