Testimonies
Why I Am For Christianity
©
by
Stephen A. Peterson
There was a time when I sneered at and questioned the validity of Christianity and those who attended church services. Then one day in 1968 after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, I attended Mass at Saint Charles Borromeo just off of the campus of Indiana University—Bloomington. For the first time since I began taking college classes on the Bloomington campus attendance at a Christian church service had meaning. And what did the church offer me? A simple, solemn, reverent service, featured by a homily on the brevity of earthly life and the permanence and beauty of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
I found that I was deeply interested in hearing about anything that offered permanence, hope, beauty and unselfish endeavor. The priest’s words fell on my spirit like strawberry topping on a freshly made banana split. I left St. Charles invigorated and grateful.
The following week I took my curiosity this time to a Presbyterian Church and heard the minister—in a singularly lovely building—talk about God’s free gift of grace and the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on behalf of all humanity. Without a trace of sanctimonious arrogance, he seemed to talk to me about the importance of faith, forgiveness, friendship and unconditional, unbounded love. It was spiritual and it was enlightening to me.
Since then I have made it a point to attend and study the denominations of Christianity as well as non-Christianity. I can state with assurance that the critics of Christianity today don’t know what they are talking about. True, I believe, there exists a minority of Christian churches who offer a dull, demigodic, unrealistic forms of salvation some with outlandish music, some with money seeking, sexually, socially and emotional unstable ministers or priests. But no one has to attend services at these churches nor should journalists, politicians or atheists condemn all churches and minister because some fail.
It is obvious that the critics and assailants of churches and, more specifically Christian churches, do not go to church. They don’t know what the churches are doing these days and they don’t seem to really care. They also don’t know or simply ignore the fact that the average minister/priest is a more interesting, generally better informed than the majority of their critics.
I am for the Christian churches and, indeed all churches because they have something to offer humanity and for civilization as a whole. Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministry in Florida whom I recall listening to at one of his seminars stated: “Let God be thanked for the presence of His church where faith, love (charity), forgiveness transcends nations, class, race and gender which seeks to embody the spirit of Christ and in His name relieve human suffering, promote human welfare and hope”.
Unlike Dr. Kennedy, a few clergy are dull, concerned about tithes, the number of bodies in their sanctuaries rather than God and His Word. Still a few members of the cloth use their office and position to loaf, to use their office and the Name of God to attract attention to themselves and not to God. These are the exception and not the rule as today secularistic media are attempting to lead many to believe.
Countless times I have found in America’s Christian churches something that lifts my spirit, raises consciousness, gives purpose and meaning to human life and helps many and myself deal with the issues of daily living. That, I now believe, was what I unconsciously sought and have found in Christianity. For more than 20 centuries, Christianity has changed the face of the world and predominantly for the better. Those naysayers and those who covertly hate Christianity hide behind a narrow history of the sinful and evil proclaiming these as the norm for all while failing to note their own recent past histories of murder and violence towards humankind. Their hypocricy should and must be exposed for what it is even though such persons argue that all things are relative!
When one attends Christian church, he or she should actively seek something. We must not go like an empty vessel, waiting passively to be filled. When a person attends a rock or classical musical concert, they bring an anticipatory, sympathetic attitude. That is the least one should bring to a church service. In the vast majority of Christian churches in every part of the United States, one may witness congregations of a 100 or 3,000 people obviously getting whatever values they seek. In spite of the media bias level against Christianity among the elite mainline American media services, Christian church attendance, by the way, is bigger than the skeptics think and growing. I challenge those Christianophobics/mis-ecclesiatics to go see for themselves!
The personality of the clergy is the most important reason. Since the days of ancient Rome to this day, when the church is attacked it is its clergy who bear the brunt of the attacks and subsequent persecution of those who hate it existence. The clergy are human and they are not all great spiritual leaders, not examples to look up to or follow in some cases. But when they are—and they are often—they can and do help make one’s relationship with God an astonishingly meaningful, purposeful event that generally affects a person for a lifetime.
The clergy is the glue in a church and much more important than a church building, music or the internal or external furnishings. Despite the criticisms most sermons are surprisingly good and inspiring. It has been said that very few can deliver an inspiring address as frequently as a member of the clergy. It is said by critics that the Christian clergy seldom discuss reality and what occurs in today’s world. Yet fully half of sermons and homilies I have heard over the past 5 years interpreted world affairs and local community issues form a Christian worldview. A third of them dealt exclusively with Sacred Scriptural teachings!
Successful Christian churches are those whose clergy set forth uncompromising Christianity, sticking closest to Christ’s very difficult but challenging teachings! THAT IS THE GREATEST ASSET OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. The more vigorously a church proclaims it, the more people respect and follow that church and its leadership. For the critics the de-emphasis in this area is glaring and not relative!
However, what this author enjoys most about attending Christian church service, regardless of denomination, is it turns one’s attention from the world of the cynical, hatreds and uncertainties to higher things for a little while each week. One, if he or she is willing to let go, can find hope, peace, unconditional love, possibility. Humankind does not live by bread alone; he or she requires cultivation of her or his spirit. A reality an atheist cannot possibly know appreciate. Even when I have found my way into a Christian church service where the cleric was dull, the music bad or lacking, the interior old and falling apart, I have been compelled by my very presence there to think about the presence of God and the powerful words of Christ, His apostles and prophets of old left humanity to reflect upon. Even if one differs with what a minister/priest says, one is compelled to listen to her or him and organize one’s opposing reason in accordance to Biblical standards. That is good for the hearer despite what some say they believe!
In a world haunted by violence and personal selfishness, Christian churches do their very best to represent the spirit and word of God. For this I am grateful. Significantly, the world views which in my lifetime have been officially and philosophically anti-church/Christian are: atheism, atheistic socialism, nihilism, secularism, humanism, liberalism and a notion of so-called tolerance that is a covert cover for intolerance for anyone or anything that speaks of a being greater than humanness.
It may be that the democratic way will not finally overcome tyrannies until and unless free societies somehow crusade under the banner of the church. Not like a tank crushing opponents with bullets and brutality but with kindness, understanding of human needs and unconditional love but never giving into evil and what is morally wrong.
William Penn stated, “Humankind must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants”. His words mostly go ignored as American and indeed Western society by leaps and bounds eliminate God from the social arena right and good for the good of humankind. The world for much of the 20th century was ruled by or threatened by the evils of humans and the resultant principles born out of previous human generations and experiences not learned or taken seriously.
To talk about tolerance of illicit activities and behaviors in the same breathe and as an expressions of love and acceptable to God is contradictory. To love God is to believe that in spite of the troubles that exist in the world, due to a large extent by humankind, that war, poverty, hatred can banish from the earth and that environments favorable to highest development of the human spirit can be created and accomplished. This is Christianity regardless of the denomination.
No matter how one tries to alter it, I find it difficult to distinguish democracy and active Christianity. Believing that, I cannot conceive of solitary, worship behind the four walls of my home or before a television.
It is an exciting spiritual adventure to go to church! Try it! In this adventure, one should pay no attention to denomination even if you are an espoused member to one.
You most certainly would enrich your life and grow spiritually in addition to learning something about your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Whether one realizes it or not, each person has a spiritual quest to discover—the purpose and meaning of life. To reject this part of our humanity is only to cheat ourselves out of living. I have found the Christian churches are good places to pursue the adventure of life and its complexities. If they offered nothing but this, persons of intelligence and good will should now uphold the churches!
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