I remember growing up when Sunday mornings were always something special. You crawled out of bed, put on your best clothes, maybe ate some breakfast, and then you were off to church. From 9 a.m. to a little after 11 a.m., your morning was filled with moving prayers, uplifting music, and sermons that really, truly made you think. When you got up from that pew and walked toward the door, the day just felt like it was going to be so good.
When I left home to go to college, I just expected Sunday’s to feel the same way they did when I lived with my mom and dad, but things change. You stay up too late on a Saturday night and crawling out of bed the next morning is a little harder. Someone makes fun of you for pulling your Bible out of your desk drawer and, for a minute, you sing that hymn a little softer. Being a college-age Christian is not always easy. On the contrary, living a life modeled after Christ when it is not something popular or, at times, acceptable can be very difficult. But the amazing thing about living a life of faith is that something, a phone call, a kind word, or even just a feeling, can haul you out of bed on Sunday morning and let you turn the other cheek when someone taunts your lifestyle.
We are people of love, not people of hate.
When many people think of modern Christianity, they conjure up images of people toting signs proclaiming “God Hates Fags” or lines of screaming citizens protesting the funeral of a solider. Those people are not living the life that Christ would want them to live. They are taking an amazing message of hope, love, and forgiveness and using it to justify a lifestyle of hate and bigotry. That is not the kind of Christian I aspire to be.
What I aspire to be is someone who uses the Word of God to truly bring people to an understanding of what we are as Christians. A piece of scripture I always go to in order to explain how we should live on a daily basis can be found in 1st Corinthians 13:4-8.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
We are called to be teachers and caregivers and to truly look out for those who are burdened by the world around them. We are never instructed to judge or condemn those who we feel are living a life of sin. In reality, we all live lives of sin. Just because I am a Christian does not mean that I claim to be perfect. I stumble and I fall and I have to ask God every day to forgive me for the mistakes that I make.
All of this shows that we are meant to be a people of love and forgiveness and are not, in fact, the people of hate that many chose to label us as. Are there those who twist the Word and use it qualify their hatred? Yes, there are. However, they are forgetting one of the most important scriptures we are instructed to live by. While it may not be widely quoted, Romans 13:10 says:
“Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
If we chose to live as people of hate instead of people of love, we are not only smearing the images of other Christians, we are also refusing to live by the rules given to us by God.
We take everything in the Bible literally.
When many chose to criticize how Christians live their lives, they attempt to use the Bible to condemn our lifestyle. They chose to say things like, “If you believe the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, then why do you still eat shellfish or wear cotton. Those things are wrong in the Bible too.”
While I appreciate the attempt, what people do not realize is that we are no longer bound by Old Testament law. In the Old Testament, there were three kinds of law: civil, ceremonial, and moral. When the New Testament came into play, the civil and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament became null and void. However, the moral law of the Old Testament still remained intact. While the civil and ceremonial law did make sinful the eating of shellfish and the wearing of cotton, the moral laws were the laws that warned Christians against lying, stealing, coveting, and yes, homosexuality.
While we may be instructed to view homosexuality as sinful, we are never instructed to persecute or demean those who live in this way. Once again, we are instructed to love, much like in Luke 6:35:
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”
We cannot always take the Bible in a “written in stone”, literal sense. As Christians, we must see that the Bible was written in many different ways such as poetry, history, parable, and allegory. The best thing we can do is to live a life that reflects, in the best sense, the best aspects of our Christian walks.
The Bible condones slavery, demeans women, etc.
While I find that this is one of the more ridiculous claims that people make against Christianity, it is still one that should be addressed. Christians do not believe that anyone should be viewed as a less human being or demeaned or ostracized because of who they are or the lives they live. Why would we want to ostracize people when, as Christians, our ancestors have had to flee for centuries in order to live in their faith? Actually, both the Old and New Testaments specifically condemn the slave trade (Exodus 21:16 and 1 Timothy 1:10). Just because slavery was a common practice in the ancient world does not mean that God condoned it. The Bible speaks of many activities that were common or customary, but were wrong in God’s eyes. Indeed the Old Testament, in particular, was a history of how bad mankind was, which precipitated the necessity of Christ to come to earth to set things straight.
Now, what does the Bible say about women? In fact, the Bible elevates the status of women. Christianity has had a freeing influence for women, especially in comparison to other religions. The passage that is sometimes pointed to that critics say demean women is Ephesians 5:22-33. This passage, while it points out that men and women have different roles, says that husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies just as Christ loved the church.
We get to Heaven without any work at all.
One of the biggest criticism of Christianity is that we come off as superior or holier than thou because we believe in a life after death. As a Christian, my faith is fueled by a belief that my life will not end after I die. This not because I am afraid of death or never want my life on Earth to end. It is because I believe in a joyous Heaven, a place of eternal peace, love, and harmony.
Living my life as a college-age Christian is not easy. I am confronted every day by stumbling blocks; obstacles on the path of my pursuit for a faithful life. We do not believe we are better than anyone else. We know that our lives are an ongoing struggled to rise above the sin that we face in our daily lives. Do we always succeed? No, we fail, sometimes on a daily basis. What keeps us going is the fact that our works are not what saves us. Well, we do get to heaven based on good works, but not our good works! We get to heaven based on the works of Jesus Christ! The Bible teaches that no one is good enough to get to heaven on the basis of their good works. It is Christ’s sacrifice for our sins that saves us from God’s wrath and Hell. We are saved by grace (that is, it is a gift) through the medium of faith, and specifically not through our own merit (Ephesians 2:8-9).
In the end, we all must remember what is said about our lives in Psalms 139:14:
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
