Why I Am Still a Christian
Last Monday I looked at How I Became a Christian. This week, I want to explain Why I Am Still a Christian.
In Australia, as in other places, we live in an increasingly post-Christian world. Not post-religious, I think politics is becoming the new religion. But you get my point.
Whether it was the iPhone, COVID, or abusive pastors, church attendance is declining in many places.
The fastest growing religious group in the West are “nones” or the “dechurched.”
The church where I became a Christian has now closed.
Seminary education in America and Australia has declined by about 30% since 2015.
There is a massive shortage of pastors and priests in most Australian cities. The Australian Defence Force - God help us - is partially replacing chaplains with “Well Being Officers.”
The evangelical golden age of the 1990s has well and truly gone.
We are not in “exile” - gosh I’m so tired of that metaphor - it’s more like London in the 1720s or France in the 1820s, society is divided and decadent, and the church is regarded as deceitful, decrepit, and defunct.
The Christian community may pray for revival, but they will probably struggle for survival in the Anglophone world towards the end of the twenty-first century.
So why remain a Christian in an age of atheism and apathy?
Well, for one reason.
The absolute worshipability of Jesus Christ!
Jesus is worthy of my worship
Because Jesus loves me and gave himself for me by bearing my sin on the cross and taking away the penalty that was due to me for my wickedness.
Because Jesus brings us to the love of the Father and grants us the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because Jesus’ power is immeasurable, his compassion unsurpassable, his yoke is easy, his burden is light, because his reign is eternal, his justice is inescapable, he’s not safe, but he’s good, and he has promised to make everything sad become untrue.
Because Jesus has the words of eternal life.
Because Jesus intends to build his church, to create a forgiven family, and the doors of death will not breach it.
Because Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and treated its shame with scorn, to make us God’s children.
Because the world is cold brutal and dark, and Jesus and his church (at their best) are a light in that darkness.
Because Jesus breaks the boundaries of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, nationality and ideology, and makes one people out of many, in a way that for institution or organization ever replicates or competes with.
Because in a world where men and women ebb between the torments of life and the terror of death, Jesus is the life and has a love so powerful that even death cannot stop it.
Because Jesus is my righteousness, my holiness, and my redemption.
Because Jesus is a healer to the sick, he is comfort to the grieving, he is peace to the afflicted, because the weak find him their champion and powerful discover him their conqueror.
Because he is and will forever be the man Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Lord, the exalted human over the cosmos, and where he is, he has promised we too shall be.
Because for 25 years I have served him and my master has done me no wrong.
And that is why I worship him!
Everybody worships. We worship what we desire and we become what we worship.
In Jesus, we encounter God-for-us, the God-man who is worthy of our worship, a worship that disciplines our desires, and Jesus deserves our adoration as much as our imitation.
Jesus was, is, and will forever remain worthy of my worship.
Well said! And all true! Inspiring like a classic MLK speech, and you are a wordsmith! I echo it, although you said it better!
What a resounding hallelujah for Jesus. Thank you have reposted for my fellowship group for encouragement and reflection.
Interesting that with the unchurched they refer to the institutions and/or people all of whom seem incapable of not sinning (Aristotle). I have never encountered one who says, well I left because of Jesus (failure, etc). Many seem to continue in a private faith of sorts in God (however their concept is framed). Those who have never encountered Jesus seem to have issues with "Church" and the people they encounter within this conceptual framework. Having never encountered Jesus in the reality of his authority and compassionate love, they disagree with a "self generated" concept. Perhaps we need to consider our approach to these people, if it needs reframing.