The Sales Pitch

So a while back, a friend on catastrophebook posted that "If you're Christian, you shouldn't be posting about how hard life is, about how you think it sucks, etc, because what will it make people who aren't Christian think?" Now, granted that's a really short paraphrase of what he had to say, but it boiled down to "We should make Christianity appealing to people, so they'll choose it."

This was like two months ago or something, but regardless, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It sounds so simple and true, on the face of it, so why am I bothered so relentlessly by it? It was a pretty convicting quote, do I bitch too much about my life, and all the things I struggle with?

Like all things theological, the best place to start is with the Bible itself. Matthew 10 has a lot to say about what's in store for Christians. So does Luke 14. They're...umm, they're not nice. We're going to be hated, hauled before the authorities, put on trial, face family troubles, and in a lot of ways, it's going to suck. Intensely. Paul had nothing resembling an easy life, neither did the rest of the Apostles.

So if we're just trying to say "If you choose Christ, your life will be easy!", we're still nowhere near correct as to what the Bible actually says. Yeah, life gets easy in a way, but just because the straight and narrow path is simpler doesn't mean that it's ever truly easy. The Christian life is a war against evil, both the evil in the world and the evil in us, and that war won't stop until we're dead.

But, that's not actually the issue I have with the post I saw two months ago.

See, what I've realized is that if we have to sell Christianity properly, then we've tacitly accepted that we're selling it based on how good it is compared to other options, not that it is the ONLY option.

I can't speak for other people, but I'm not a Christian because the benefits package is better than that of Islam. I'm not a Christian because it pays better than Hinduism, or because the girls are prettier than Mormonism. No, I'm a Christian because I believe it is true. I'm not a Muslim because I believe it to be false. Same with every other faith.

Every major faith in the world is mutually exclusive to all the others. One is true, the rest are false. A false religion is not "another option", it is a complete and total waste of everyone's time.

Because I believe Christianity is true, because I believe that Jesus Christ really did die for my sins, because I believe God exists, than to me it doesn't really matter what struggles I have or don't have in this world. It doesn't matter if I end up being Job #2, or if God decides to bless me with a beautiful wife and a dozen kids. It doesn't matter if I'm going to spend the rest of my life broke, of if I'll be wealthy.

None of that matters, because I didn't choose Christianity out of the crowd just because some dude pitched it just right and convinced me that I should give it a shot. I'm a Christian because I believe it to be true, and The Philosophical Requirements of an Extant Deity demand certain things.

So, then, what should we do?

Well, maybe we should START by acting like it's true, and not simply one option among many. Let's start tomorrow by living the most authentic, Christ-centered life we possibly can. Let's not hide our struggles, but instead say "Yes, I'm struggling mightily with X or Y or Z, but in Christ I will prevail."

I certainly don't mean this to brag, but a few people have said my life inspires them. I'm guessing they're not talking about the time I got thrown into a psych ward, or the times I've been homeless. I'm pretty sure they're not talking about being single and lonely, or struggling to cope with being manic-depressive.

What they might be talking about is that no matter how badly I get my ass kicked by life, God picks me up, dusts me off, and says "Well, I hope you learned something, my child. Now, try again, and stay close to Me." Because by this time, the things I've survived inspire me, so it figures that they might inspire others as well.

So my non-Christian friends, who also struggle mightily with life, what do I want them to see? I want them to see that I struggle, that I fail, that I come up short, because it's in those moments when God lifts me up out of the muck and mire, and redeems my failures. It's not my life that I want them to see, it's God working in it.

I can't talk to people about how God has beautifully, miraculously, and graciously worked in my life without discussing the times I have utterly fucked it up. Those are the moments I cherish, albeit after the fact, because I can now point to God and say "When I was at my lowest, when all my efforts brought ruin, when all hope was gone, God stepped in and turned everything around...again. I'm a moron, God is awesome!"

My goal in life is to bring Glory to God, not to make God sound like a better option than Thor. I talk about my weaknesses, my failures, and my utter lack of being able to handle my own life because, like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, Christ's power is made perfect in our weakness, not our success, strengths, and triumphs.