Why I am Still a Christian

UCD – 4/06

Note: I gave this talk a couple years ago to a UCD college ministry. If you are interested in the topic, it gets much better treatment (in free downloadable MP3 format) by Tim Keller here and in his new book. You will recognize some of the material and quotes from past and future posts on my main blog. In retrospect, I’d change a lot of stuff and completely redo or abandon the first point. But for what it is worth, here is my 20 minute summary…

During a recent event, several students erected an enormous wall on the UC Davis campus. In an exercise in sanctioned graffiti, listening and, occasionally dialog, they encouraged their peers to cover it with their response to the statement: ‘Why I am not a Christian.’ Here is a sample of the responses.

There is one Christ yet so many denominations. If they’re all Christians, then why don’t they get along?

Churches have a feel of a social club whose members are “by invitation only”

Too many people have been slaughtered in Christ’s name. (a sobering accusation that must be taken seriously)

Used to promote heterosexist white male privilege.

Evolution, it is real.

-Historically inaccurate
-Scientifically inaccurate
-Logically and internally inconsistent

I love my sin! (I give this person credit for self awareness)

Bush

And let me give you one more response…a little more articulate and well put together, from the most famous answerer of this question: Bertrand Russell, author of the famous book ‘Why I am not a Christian’. He says:

“purposeless (and)…void of meaning is the world which science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”[1]
…

All of this raises the obvious question, Why on earth am I still a Christian? Why would I voluntarily choose to be associated with the crusades, the inquisition and the Religious right. Am I just contrarian, a revolutionary, defy all odds, against the flow of public opinion kind of guy. Well, yes, but I could have chosen any number of more socially acceptable world views that satisfy the contrition nature. No I am a Christian because I believe that despite the checkerd past of associated institutions the way of Jesus Christ is still the most compelling paradigm under which the data of life falls into place. It is a worldview with challenges to be sure, but, I believe in the final analysis it has more explanatory power and, fewer weaknesses than other available options.

So I understand that you had a week of ‘You talk, I listen, but if you have another 20 minutes of listening in you I’m plan to use the time I you’ve given me this evening to hit 3 reasons that I am still a Christian. Now this will be to a certain extent anecdotal and personal as one could not hope to give a comprehensive statement of the faith in so short a time. But the core of the reasons that I am still a Christian involve:

1. Christianity Motivates Heroic Lives
2. Christianity Provides the Most Compelling and Comprehensive Explanation of Reality
3. Christianity Responds to the Universal Experience of Suffering

Let's start with what I will call the pagmatic test...

1. Christianity Motivates Heroic Lives

Most worldviews in our culture are asked to pass a pragmatic test before they are ever allowed to respond to the philosophical or existential queries. People want to know if something works before they will entertain the idea that it might be true. Therefore, in my mind one of the first and most damaging accusations brought against Christianity is the charge of hypocrisy, that it actually does not result in significant personal or institutional transformation and, in fact, its institutions have themselves directly perpetrated crass evil. This is, on many counts, a fair charge. But I am unwilling to fully cede this point.

I would argue, first of all, that much of the evil perpetrated in the name of the church actually support a fundamental Christian doctrine – that the human condition is broken at the core and will use any idea or institution, no matter how noble, be it Islam, Hinduism, Communism, nationalism, Christianity or even Darwinian evolution (if you’ll recall social Darwinism and the robber barons of the industrial revolution) to gain power, pleasure or self interest. There are very few worldviews that have not been tarnished by the abuses of wicked men. However, I would assert that aside from the abuses we have a historical record of the Way of Jesus Christ being exceptionally fertile ground for the development of heroic lives. Where rightly applied the Christian worldview equips individuals to live functional, even inspiring lives…lives that ‘work.’
Biblical Authors and early church figures were calling for care for the poor and action on behalf of the oppressed before it was trendy and increased one’s social status to purport such things. And these words were not always ignored the way they often are today. In the 4th century, the Roman emperor Julian failed in his efforts to suppress Christianity – “He told his officials, “We ought to be ashamed. Not a beggar is to be found among the Jews and those godless Galileans (what he called Christians) feed not only their own people but ours as well, whereas our people receive no assistance whatsoever from us.” Similarly William Dyrness asserts that Christians had lower mortality rates during the early medieval plagues because the spurned the risks and provided each other basic nursing care. It was their understanding that this world was not the final destination that equipped them to live heroic lives of love and courage. And the story of Christ and his people is littered with lives that inspire, from Francis of Assisi to Teresa of Calcutta, heroic lives of love, courage and beauty, virtues nearly universally esteemed…Lives that, if you will, ‘work.’

The institution and idea of the Church has been systematically and diabolically abused by corrupt men. But the Way of Jesus Christ has produced countless lives of beauty and courage. If beauty and courage can be viewed as appropriate metrics of evaluation, Christianity does - in fact - work.

And from there I’ll move from a pragmatic test to a test of correspondence with reality.

2. Christianity Provides the Most Compelling and Comprehensive Explanation of Reality

I generally reject pragmatism and the premise that something is true if it works. Does the Way of Jesus Christ actually provide a paradigm that accounts for the observed phenomena of human existence? If someone asks me why I am a Christian expecting a one sentence answer, my answer is something like this: The Way of Jesus Christ provides the most comprehensive and compelling organization of my understandings of my world and myself. In other words, it describes me and my world in most precise agreement with my observations of both.

First, to borrow from Ravi Zechariahs, Jesus Christ diagnoses my condition most precisely. He articulates clearly the things that are apparent to me about me. That I am somehow intrinsically good and valuable yet fundamentally broken and bent on self service. It is the Christian narrative of creation and fall that accounts for both of these aspects of the human condition, a condition simultaneously capable of such sublime beauty and diabolical wickedness. Malcom Muggeridge unpacks this point well. He says "(human) depravity…is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, yet the most empirically verifiable" Any worldview that asserts either that I am fundamentally good or that I am fundamentally evil (including those that say I am some sort of biological automaton bent only on self service and genetic propagation) do not correspond to my self understanding. Jesus Christ diagnoses my condition most precisely.

Similarly, expanding from the person as a microcosm to the world in general, a world created purposefully by God but fundamentally broken by a cosmic fall provides the most compelling description of the world I see out my window each morning. I reject Beauty and Justice as social constructs. They are too universal in their acceptance. I will talk shortly about how a Christianity like other world views must respond to the problem of evil. But there is a flip side to that problem, a problem of beauty. A worldview must be comprehensive enough to handle the world as it is with its great beauty and undeniable evil. The non-theistic worldview has trouble with beauty. Russell himself said “No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?.” The materialist has trouble with beauty. Why should a glaciated, uplifted, plutonic intrusion generate the transcendent sense of awe one experiences walking through the Yosemite valley or why should we respond to art at all, a human artifact that does not aid our propagation as a species. Christianity handles beauty very well, and says that our capacity to recognize beauty is part of being created in the image of its source. We respond to created beauty because we resonate with its source.

Likewise, Christianity explains the universal requirement for justice as a reflection of our Creator’s fundamental nature. This is far more compelling to me than any materialist explanation for the surprisingly universal moral affirmations. A naturalistic explanation of social evolution, ‘nature red in tooth in claw,’ really struggles to underpin why we should care about poor inner city schools or why ethnic cleansing or rape are wrong. Both of these latter examples though especially diabolical, are particularly problematic as they both serve the interests of genetic propagation. But Christianity rejects what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls the biologization of the human person.

Now I want to be very clear here. I am not saying that since society would fall apart if we embraced a truly naturalistic view of the world and therefore we shouldn’t. I’m with Nietzsche and Russell in thinking that if this were the true state of affairs we should get on with it and create a society based on these principals (a society incidentally, that I think would look very different from ours). What I am saying is that this is not the human experience. The human heart cries out for justice in all languages. Russell himself claims that Christianity is immoral, Derrida demanded vehemently that an individual was simply wrong for profiting off his work, both suggesting a fundamental standard by which oughtness can be evaluated.

Finally, under correspondence to reality, I will invoke the strongest of Aquinas’ 5 arguments for the existence of God: what has come to be known the teleological argument, or the argument from design. There is plenty of talk in the news about design these days. It is a debate I’m not particularly interested in here. Because, beyond the pedantic debate of how it was created, as a scientist I am basically convinced that it is not what we don’t understand that make the case for a creator, not the remaining mysteries of the universe that require us to invoke something magical, but what we do understand that points to purposeful involvement. I was often told to be careful of science, particularly biology and geology, because they would damage my faith. I of course paid no attention to this, in part because I was a punk kid, but mainly because I had no interest in holding a worldview that was not robust enough to handle the best observations of the secular mind. What I found in the sciences, rather than the ruin of my faith, was a great call to worship. I found the study of natural revelation, the careful observations of our world, to be almost as worshipful as the study of specific revelation, the scriptures themselves. And I am not alone. When I was a graduate student in Wisconsin the Christian Fellowships hosted a debate with the local Atheist clubs in commemoration of the great Russell/Copelston debate. They went after their top choices for both sides of issue and got them. William Lane-Craig For the existence of God (an able thinker and retoratician with multiple doctorates) and Anthony Flew (widely recognized as Craig’s intellectual superior) for the dissenting position. Several thousand people came to the debate. So I read with interest a couple years ago when Flew issued a statement that he was no longer an atheist. The reason he gave for his public switch was that he was “convinced by the scientific teleological argument”.

The teleological argument has had its problems but it is most convincingly cast in the form of the ‘fine tuning argument’ or the ‘anthropic principal.’ Francis Collins, the long time director of the human genome project, summarizes this well:

‘Now that the origin of the universe and our own solar system has become increasingly well understood, a number of fascinating apparent coincidences about the natural world have been discovered…Altogether, there are fifteen physical constants whose values current theory is unable to predict. They are givens: the simply have the value they have. The list includes the speed of light, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces, various parameters associated with electromagnetism and the force of gravity. The chance that all of these constants would take on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life forms is almost infinitesimal. And yet those are exactly the parameters that we observe. In sum, our universe is wildly improbable.” (The Language of God)

There has been a healthy amount of philosophical debate on this issue, but the naturalistic explanations of these phenomena are rich with faith commitments.

Immanuel Kant, an able and influential philosopher who set out to systematically undermine Thomas Aquinas’ 5 proofs for the existence of God said that there were only two things that he could not get past ‘the starry host above and the moral law within.’ Beauty, brokenness, justice and purpose. Christianity provides a compelling paradigm that organizes the data of life.

3. Christianity Responds to the Universal Experience of Suffering

The great weakness of the teleological argument or the argument from design is that it is hard to credit a God which is the great source of justice and beauty with a world that is so widely characterized by injustice and suffering. Here we face the problem of evil, a quandary that I am sure that you, in your careful listening to your peers, have encountered again and again: How can a good and all powerful God allow such desperate suffering. It causes one to question either his goodness or his power.

Now there are many responses to the problem of evil, some of them quite helpful. I do not have the time to do this justice. It would take much more time and, likely, a more appropriate speaker. But just briefly a couple of approaches include:

i. a careful discussion of the metric of goodness – that it may be something other than happiness by which a good word is evaluated

ii. Certain goods require adversity to be fully realized: generosity in response to need and bravery in response to danger

iii. Plantinga talks about the possibility that the best of all possible worlds is not, in fact, a utopia of our imagining but a world of volitional moral agents with the ability to choose God or rebel.

These approaches and several others each have strengths and weaknesses. In the end they are sufficient but not overwhelming. These are reasons I am not not a Christian.

What I do find compelling, however, and one of the reasons that I am, in fact, a Christian is the Christian response (not explanation but response) to evil. It is clear that God allows evil, for whatever reason we choose to explain or not explain it – it is also clear that He is not OK with it. It is the Christian God who take evil and suffering seriously…seriously enough to stand in solidarity with those who suffer. It is the Christian God who is the suffering God. It is the Christian God who is the crucified God. In this beautiful and broken world that we live in he becomes the present co-sufferer. In the Christian narrative God experienced the God-forsakeness of suffering in the person of Jesus Christ.

In summary, I believe that it is because Christianity is true that it reflects the fundamental nature of empirical reality with all of its complexity, beauty, justice, evil and suffering. This is why I am still a Christian. And to return to the pragmatic question, does it work, I would say that a worldview that takes seriously the fundamental goodness and brokenness of our world and our condition prepares one to take on life as it truly is and respond heroically. I think G. K. Chesterton sums this up well. This quote is particularly poignant for me since it is one my brother quoted at my Father’s funeral: several days after our Father had been killed by a reckless driver and a couple days before the birth of my brother’s first child…a time when the beauty and brokenness of our world stood in stark proximity. The Christian world view is robust enough to embrace this complex reality. The arms of Christ reach far enough for this embrace. Chesterton says:

"For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist?"[2]

This is what the Way of Jesus Christ offers. A fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent and a God who so passionately stands in solidarity with us in both the joys and the sufferings as we work to mend the brokenness and look to a final mending. This is why I belong to Jesus Christ. This is why I am still a Christian.

[1] Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian Second page of “A Free Man’s Worship”
[2] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, “The Flag of the World”