CULTURE
The image people have of the Christian faith is, of course, almost entirely shaped by the culture they live in. Northern Europe tends to think of Protestant churches. Southern Europe thinks of the Catholic Church. When you bring up this topic, you can almost literally see church towers appearing in someone’s mind. But the Christian faith is not the product of a culture; nor is it the same as a culture. It has influenced culture in some parts of the world, but the faith itself stands apart from it.
IT IS NOT “WESTERN”
As a result, the Christian faith is often seen as something Western. Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists shouldn’t be bothered with it, people say—they have their own truths.
IT IS NOT “UNSCIENTIFIC”
The modern generation tends to view faith as something unscientific. Religion, values, and opinions are, according to many young people, not part of the scientific realm but of the emotional one—something that might provide a bit of meaning if you feel you need it. In their view, faith and science do not go together. Faith is “in the clouds,” while the educated, scientific person has the facts in hand.
That is why spirituality is popular. The idea that everything can be scientifically explained, that everything is matter, and that we can never truly know the meaning of the universe or of our lives has greatly impoverished Western people. As a result, they look for spiritual things that might bring some balance to their lives. The Christian faith, for many today, is just one of those spiritual options—personal, non-binding, and certainly not something that should still be proclaimed in our post-Christian society as the one truth.
That people think this way about the Christian faith is very understandable. Anyone born today enters a world in which Christian elements exist only on the margins—a kind of cultural heritage that may soon become too expensive to maintain. The modern person therefore feels “of this time” rather than a person of the past. Moreover, they are hardly given the opportunity to be properly informed about the faith of their ancestors.
But are these views correct? To answer that question, we will later in this article discuss what the Christian faith actually is.
IT IS NOT “RELIGIOUS”
Anyone who defines religion as belief in a deity or deities will, of course, be supported by the dictionary. It describes religion as an idea about the supernatural, shaped by a particular culture. As many cultures, so many religions. If we adopt that definition, then everything we consider Christian would naturally fall under it. However, we will see that reality is quite different.
Anyone who reads the Bible discovers that the Christian faith is not a spiritual, mystical, optional, and purely personal activity for people who happen to feel the need for it. Nor can it be reduced to a beautiful but no longer relevant piece of Western heritage. Those who read that Book discover that it presents a fundamental worldview—one that was not only meant for past, more credulous generations, but still forms the indispensable foundation of our entire reality today. A foundation on which every person, consciously or unconsciously, relies every day. Why this is so will be discussed below.
Whoever reads that Book also discovers that many cultural forms of Christianity have very little—often nothing at all—to do with what the Bible actually teaches.
For example, we read nothing about Christian priests who stand between God and people, providing church members with what they need to earn heaven.
We read nothing about dead “saints” to whom we should pray.
Nothing about a purifying fire we must pass through after death in order to be cleansed and made fit for heaven.
We read nothing about baptizing babies in order to make them Christians.
We read nothing about a non-committal faith or subjective feelings on which belief should be built.
Nowhere do we read that “as long as you live a good life, everything will turn out fine.”
TRUTH AND TRADITIONS
Two thousand years is a long time—long enough to invent and add an almost endless list of ideas to what the Bible teaches. Those who do not question much will soon fail to see the differences between truth of traditions.
Most of us have grown up and become lost in that vast forest, where the Bible and traditions have been so mixed together that we can no longer speak of the original Christian faith. Catholicism is the most well-known example of such a forest. Millions within that world may still know their inherited religious traditions, but show great unfamiliarity when it comes to the Book of the Christian faith—the Bible. Those who do read that Book discover that many things long considered “Christian” are, in fact, not Christian at all.
THE CONSEQUENCES
The confusion that has arisen over all these centuries is enormous. When it comes to the Christian faith, the majority of people “cannot tell their left hand from their right.”
Confusion leads to ignorance, lack of motivation, and indifference—and that is very understandable. Why would you still wonder whether something might be important or true if you live in a world that has told you from a young age that these are matters only relevant to your grandparents? And if you have had a university education (something your grandparents may never even have heard of), you were probably already told in your very first lecture that Christianity is only of any use to the faculty of history.
What that old Bible tells us, however, is very different from the idea modern people have—or want to have—about it. And those who seriously reflect on this will also discover that the biblical message alone provides us with a foundation on which we can build and understand reality.
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