I’m Young, Progressive, and a Nonconformist. So Why Am I a Christian?

After publishing yesterday’s post, it occurred to me that anyone reading my blog might be confused as to why I identify as a Christian at all.

After all, I made it fairly clear that my experiences in the church have been less than positive (and honestly, that’s true in far more ways than I bothered to mention). I’ve also shown that I don’t take traditional theology very seriously, and that there are significant differences between my views and those of established Christianity. So anyone who isn’t religious themselves might wonder why I bother with religion at all. Why not let it go, and focus on more practical, less annoying things?

On the other hand, someone who is a Christian might wonder the same thing. If I’m not going to take established theology and church teaching seriously, why do I claim to be a Christian in the first place?

So I decided that, before I write about my personal exploration of Jesus’s teachings, I ought to answer that question.

So Why Am I a Christian?

I’d like to divide my answer into three parts:

1) An acknowledgement of my inevitable biases and unconscious motivations—which I try to be aware of, but which surely color my perceptions and influence my choices more than I realize.

2) Why I’m not a Christian; that is, what my reasons for faith aren’t (at least as far as I can be aware, given my unconscious biases).

3) And finally, why I am a Christian—despite all the practical and reasonable reasons I might have not to be one.

1. Grappling With Biases, Presuppositions, and Unconscious Motivations

People are not usually what they claim to be. Most people are driven by obsessions they’re only barely conscious of, by habits of thought and conduct that have never been pointed out to them, and by subconscious beliefs they aren’t even aware they have.

And I’m no exception. Yes, I’ve tried to identify all the invisible things that drive me. I’ve used coaching, journaling, and meditation to identify my subconscious beliefs and release the ones that don’t seem helpful or true. I’ve spent hours upon hours questioning my values and motives, particularly where religion is concerned. And I’ve carefully studied my own thoughts and behavior in an effort to avoid negative habits.

But the human mind is a bottomless well—the most rigorous scientists will never understand it, and the most enlightened mystics can ever completely master it. And my own efforts weren’t intended to grant me mastery over my mind, anyway—they were just to make me a better person and make my life easier. So I wouldn’t pretend to have identified all my presuppositions or ironed out all my unhelpful habits. I just hope that I’ve dealt with the ones that were negatively impacting me.

That being the case, everything that follows this section should be read with a grain of salt. The fact of the matter is, I don’t really know why I’m who I am, the way I am, doing the things I do. I try to understand myself well enough to make deliberate, positive choices when it counts, because I’ll be responsible for whatever impact I make. But I know the task is ultimately too big for me, and I can only hope that history will look on my inevitable blunders kindly.

So next, I’ll share why I think I’m a Christian—starting with what my reasons for being a Christian aren’t.

2. Why I’m Not a Christian…

a) To Please My Family

I think most religious people stay religious because they feel pressured to. I’m grateful to say that, in my case—well, that just isn’t the case.

I’m not a Christian to please my family. My family was never particularly pleased with me either way, and although we have an agreeable relationship today, it’s been a long time since I was stuck under their thumb.

There were several years when I didn’t speak to my family at all. That wasn’t a happy time by any means, and it broke my heart to sever my connection with them. But it seemed necessary to get my life on track on my terms. Suffice it to say that my family’s influence had no impact on my decision to follow Christ.

b) Because of My Upbringing

I’m also not a Christian just because I was raised in the church. In fact, being raised in the church was almost the reason I stopped being a Christian.

The Christians I grew up around—my family included, sadly—did not leave a favorable impression on me overall. I don’t hold that against them, because life is complicated, and most of them were acting unconsciously. But I certainly didn’t end up being a Christian as an adult just because I was one as a child.

In fact, I went an entire year without identifying as a Christian at all, and even longer without feeling confident that I wanted to be one.

After breaking ties with my hyper-conservative, hyper-religious Protestant family, I seriously considered swinging to the opposite end of the spectrum in every category, becoming an atheist and Leftist. Of course, I didn’t adopt these opposite positions in a knee-jerk fashion. The reason I nearly became an atheist was that rationality and honesty seemed to demand it; the reason I nearly became a Leftist was that, at first, it really seemed to be the only political position that treated people fairly and well.

But eventually, I realized that—all else being equal—believing in God leads to better outcomes than believing no God exists. Besides that, some very interesting scientific studies strongly suggest that the supernatural is more than mere fantasy or superstition (although I’d be careful not to overstate their significance).

I ended up becoming a pragmatist rather than a rationalist, because I decided that tangible outcomes matter far more than having all one’s intellectual ducks in a row. That relieved the feeling that I had to “prove” whether God existed or not. For me, belief in God became a practical choice rather than one based on objective facts. There is good reason to believe God exists, not because of evidence, but because—in my experience—good things happen when you believe. Since I’m a pragmatist, primarily concerned with what works, that’s all the “proof” I need.

(I also concluded that, practically speaking, the Left was doing even less to help people than the Right was. But because I thought both sides often made good points, I’ve ended up a contented centrist.)

c) To Avoid Going to Hell

I’m also not a Christian in order to escape hell and divine judgement.

I don’t believe selfish self-preservation is an acceptable motive for following Christ. I also believe that, from a biblical worldview, there’s no reason to follow Christ with that as one’s sole motive.

The Bible tells us to “count the cost” of discipleship before making our decision—to honestly weigh what we may have to sacrifice—and to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” It has never been Christ’s way to compel people to follow Him—He invites them, and they follow when they see that He is good.

To be quite honest, I don’t believe hell’s true purpose is eternal punishment, either. Satisfying God’s righteous anger and sense of justice is not a reasonable purpose for hell to exist—it’s just a poorly-disguised mind trick to make a clearly-reprehensible idea seem reasonable and necessary. In fact, the biblical passages that most support the idea of eternal punishment have been deliberately skewed to support Christian orthodoxy, nearly every time the Bible has been translated into English.

Personally, the God I see in Christ is not a god who would create an entire race, only to curse them with free will and doom the overwhelming majority of them to eternity in hell.

If a human inventor created living creatures, subjected them to an elaborate test, and then set about to torture the majority that failed, we would all call that the basest form of barbarism—and we would be right. The entire model would only make sense in the twisted, cruel mind of the inventor—no well-adjusted, intelligent person would justify it. And yet the majority of my friends and those I respect somehow find it plausible that our good Father would do it!

However, that is not to deny Christ’s rightful place as judge, as well as savior. I believe hell exists; I simply don’t believe it lacks purpose beyond that of a medieval torture chamber. Hell is God’s, not the devil’s, and I believe God uses it to purge the unrepentant of their selfish rebelliousness. That way, they can be redeemed back to Himself in the end. In my theology, the purpose of hell is not punishment for punishment’s sake—what we would normally call ignoble vengeance—but redemption.

And because I am not afraid of God, or of being made good, I also have no reason to be afraid of hell. If God wanted me there, that’s where I’d want to be, too. Christ saves us from sin, not from God. For my part, I refuse to treat God like a sadistic tyrant that we must escape from.

So I’m not a Christian to escape hell, or to please my family, or because I was raised in the church. I suspect those are the reasons most people would remain Christians after growing up. I’m also not subjected to any significant cultural force that would compel me to be a Christian—neither my income nor my social position either requires or incentivizes me to follow any particular faith.

3. Why I AM a Christian

Simply put, I’m a Christian because I believe God is worth believing in, and because I have fallen in love with Christ.

My awe and adoration of Christ is beyond reason. I’ve become so entranced by Him that I would continue to be His disciple and preach His gospel, even if science and archaeology somehow proved He never existed. He is the best and most beautiful thing I have experienced or can imagine, and to me, that alone makes Him worth following.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. When I was a child, I didn’t see Christ as being particularly beautiful or kind. He was just God’s main representative in the New Testament—nothing more.

And God was someone I feared deeply.

My Protestant Upbringing

Because we were old-fashioned Nazarenes, my family believed that to be a Christian, you had to live without sin. They also believed a person could lose their salvation by committing sins after being saved.

Being an unusually sensitive and anxious child, I did not handle these realities well. I was frequently smitten with terror by such confusing passages as Hebrews 6 and Matthew 12:31, which seem to speak of some unpardonable sin.

There were nights when I would lie awake until the wee hours of the morning, with my heart racing and sweat pouring off my body, as I tried to recall any sin I might have committed the day before so I could repent and seek forgiveness. I feared that if I died in my sleep without first confessing everything, I would go to hell.

Thankfully, my family members were more reasonable than to assume my fears were justified. My parents, and even my oldest brother, would often console me, and tell me I had nothing to fear as long as I trusted God to save me. But although I believed God could save me, I didn’t believe I could be good enough to satisfy Him, and the fear of accidentally losing my salvation never left me.

But as a young adult, I began to question the things I’d been taught as a child.

My Period of Questioning

I had always placed my parents on a pedestal. In fact, I believed everything they told me without question. But eventually, I began to see that the things we believed and did often led to unwanted outcomes.

I was beginning to become a pragmatist—to value the outcome that was more than the explanation of what should be. And when I studied the Bible and reflected on it, I began to seek the core truths that unite all believers together, rather than the evidences and proof texts that reinforced my particular branch of belief.

At the same time, I began studying practical psychology and personal development. My family did not believe in studying success literature or self-help. But as I saw it, if a system worked in practice, then it had to be true; if it was true, then it could not be opposed to the Bible.

The early scientists believed that an intelligent God created an orderly universe, and because of that, they could study creation and learn things about how it works. Then they could use that knowledge to create new technologies and practical systems that produced improved outcomes.

To me, the “science” of success and the mind, though less rigid than physics, was no different. God created the mind and the world it inhabits, and we can study both to improve our practical results in life by learning to use the tool God gave us—our minds—more effectively.

But all of this study tended to lead me away from the faith of my youth. I still identified as a Christian (at least until well after I had moved out of my family’s home). But I no longer felt that I belonged in my family or the church. We seemed to be of two different minds, speaking two different languages, and seeking two different versions of God’s Kingdom. The church wanted Christ to come back and pronounce judgement on unbelievers; I wanted to build God’s Kingdom on earth and save souls.

My Departure From Faith

Around this time, my experiences in the church started to become less positive.

I spent a considerable amount of time in two different ministries which were both led by narcissists and sociopaths (literally). I also had multiple pastors, Christian friends, and even my parents break my trust, and behave in ways that seemed out of character and wrong. At the same time, I was experiencing severe and worsening depression, partly as a result of multiple failed jobs and relationships. It began to seem like the church and my family had played me for a fool, and sold me a system of belief that didn’t work in practice.

So I gave up on religion altogether. I still prayed and believed in God, but I no longer felt I knew who God was. I went through a long, painful period of soul-searching and study as I tried to cure my depression, resolve a crippling anxiety disorder, and learn to manage my severe ADHD (which had only recently been diagnosed now that I was in my mid-20s).

There were many times when I felt tempted to give up on myself and commit suicide. On at least one occasion, I know I would have done it—at least if hadn’t been so afraid of going to hell. But just in time, a kind family unexpectedly came to my aid. They allowed me to live with them while I got my life in order, and showed me real, unconditional acceptance for the first time in my life.

So at last, I had time and space to heal and sort myself out. And thanks to some incredible books and teachers, I finally overcame my depression and anxiety, and learned to live with my ADHD.

My Spiritual Turning Point

A year or two after I moved in with my host family, I decided to try going to church again. Most of them attended church themselves, but I hadn’t gone to one since I moved in with them.

My first Sunday back in church was honestly a rather awful experience. The pastor’s message was about how God will save us from anything if we ask in faith—addiction, sexual immorality, even depression or anxiety.

I felt so many mixed emotions at once while I was there that it quite overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t keep from crying bitterly the entire time. It felt bittersweet and sentimental to be in a church meeting again after so many years. However, I also felt guilty again, like I always did when I was growing up, because I still didn’t feel like I was good enough for God.

I felt sad, too, because all these people were sharing their testimonies about how God saved them from horrible problems in life—problems like the ones I had—yet I had never experienced miraculous healing or deliverance like they did. And I felt confused and furious, because it seemed like the church had sold me a lot of lies—it had promised me salvation, “life more abundantly,” and a future, as long as I devoted myself to God and righteousness. But I had experienced none of these things.

I didn’t know what to think. I felt condemned, but I also felt unjustly targeted by a force that was, itself, unjust. I felt that lacking religion in my life was a bad thing, but I also felt that religion had nothing good to offer me.

When the service ended, I bowed my head and frantically dabbed at my face with my handkerchief, hoping no one would see my tears. The father of the family—one of my dearest friends, and a brilliant businessman, named Eric—gracefully approached me, and, shielding me from the eyes of the crowd, gently walked with me to the doors of the church. He didn’t mention that I was crying or ask what was wrong, and he didn’t act like anything was the matter. But I could tell he was intentionally helping me get away from the crowd. I was deeply touched by his kindness (as I often had been before, and have been since).

Even when we were outside, Eric did not pry or show any sign that I was behaving oddly. He was exceedingly respectful of my feelings and privacy—in fact, that had been a hallmark of my whole experience with him. But in this instance, I desperately needed to get my thoughts off my chest to someone who would listen.

I told him that I felt far more confused now than I had before I’d visited their church. I confessed that, despite all the talk of miracles and salvation, in my case, it had not been Christianity that saved my life, but psychology. If Christianity had been all I ever had, I would have either committed suicide long ago, or I would be enduring a terribly dysfunctional existence.

This was an enormous weight on my mind, because it felt wrong that I’d gone to sources outside the Bible and the church to cure my depression, overcome harmful sexual habits, and get my life sorted out. I had devoted the best years of my life to the church’s teachings and ministry, and my faith during this time was perfect—I truly believed in everything I was taught, everything I said, every biblical teaching I applied to my life. But somehow, it seemed all in vain. God never worked any miracles on my behalf that I knew of—instead, it seemed He had made me do the work myself.

While we were talking, I also confessed to another problem that weighed heavily on my mind. I admitted to feeling permanently damaged, because I had once been in an intimate relationship that did not last.

The church teaches that your virginity is sacred, and that it must only be taken by your spouse, whom you must then remain with forever. Although my partner and I had never officially married—there was no justice of the peace where we lived, and our circumstances were such that making arrangements with a church would have been complicated—still, we approached our relationship reverently, and with every intention to make our union permanent. (I wouldn’t defend or justify our decision now—in retrospect, I can see we did many things that were unwise, and I’ve paid for it many times over—but that was the basic context of the situation.)

However, we were both wracked with depression (and, in fact, we both had untreated ADHD), and eventually we allowed circumstances to pry us apart. In the aftermath, I felt exploited, irreparably broken, and unworthy of ever being loved again. Of course, this was a “purity culture” mindset—something the evangelical church is especially guilty of perpetuating. As long as I avoided the church, I avoided the feeling of being worthless, damaged, and perpetually ashamed. But now that I had been inside a church again, the wound felt fresh again, too.

After I had shared all of this—my confusion and my shame—what Eric told me next is the sole reason I continued going to church afterwards.

In regards to my confusion, he pointed out that God made the mind, and so the way the mind works is the way God designed it. Just as there’s nothing wrong with seeking medical treatment when you are sick, there is nothing wrong with using tools of the mind to help a dysfunctional mind function normally.

He reminded me that, if information is effective and produces positive outcomes, then it might as well be of God. For me, it seemed that psychology and self-help was the vehicle God used to change me, and make me a better, happier, more useful person. As I mentioned earlier, the results are what count: “by their fruits ye shall know them;” “do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”

As for my shame, he said that the church tends to collect rules over time that were never intended by Christ or the apostles. He said it often makes unrealistic or unreasonable demands of people, then pronounces harsh sentences upon them after they’ve failed to meet their towering expectations. He said that he did not believe this was helpful, or that it was of God.

I’m afraid I can’t do justice to what he said here. I’m sure there are several key details I’ve forgotten. In the moment that he was speaking with me, it felt as if time stood still. I was enraptured by his affirming, hope-giving, life-giving words. This was a man I respected—a conservative man, a man of business as well as ministry, a man who got things done and provided help and solutions to others, a man who had been a Christian longer than I’d been alive—and he was telling me, in a word, that I was okay.

Had anyone ever told me that before? Yes; had I ever believed anyone who said it before now? I don’t think I had. This was someone who had nothing to gain from flattering me, on whose dime I lived because I could not yet fully support myself, and who proved his beliefs with successful action and results. I could not help but believe him, and it changed my life forever.

My Gradual Return to Faith

I was a long way from feeling at home in the church, though. Although the guilt I had once associated with religion was mostly gone, it was still hard to find anything in a church building that interested me. Even now, I typically find church services uninspiring and impractical.

But I did begin studying religious books and preachers in my spare time. I reread The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, which I had discovered as a young teen and been greatly impacted by. I read How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer, a controversial but respected author in a similar vein to C. S. Lewis, whose books I also read. I eventually studied the works of George MacDonald, whose book Phantastes Lewis credited with his departure from atheism. I ultimately became a firm follower of MacDonald’s theology—to the extent that he had a theology at all; he was more of a prophet than a teacher; more a poet than a theologian.

At first, my faith lacked conviction. I was still wary of committing fully to something that had, at one time, been such a scourge in my life. I also had not quite fallen in love with Christ yet. But God was patient with me, as He is with all, and I was allowed to come to Him in my own time and my own way.

Primarily, I had to be convinced that Christianity was good for everybody—not just for Christians and conservative Americans. Above all else, I am extremely fair—I cannot tolerate a lie, a double-standard, or a discrepancy. I knew that, if Christ taught the Way, then it had to be the Way that works ALWAYS, for ALL people. But in evangelical Christianity, that did not always seem to be the case.

However, thanks to teachers like Jordan Peterson, Tim Mackie, Andy Stanley, and Michael Phillips, I finally arrived at my conclusion: if Jesus’s Way was followed by all, it would truly create a magnificent world, where all people would belong and be happy, regardless of their differences or peculiarities. And that is when I became a firm Christian, at least in terms of my philosophical position.

But at what point did I actually fall in love with Christ Himself? It’s one thing to believe Christ taught the truth, but it’s another altogether to be in love with Christ as a person—and as God. How and when did that happen for me?

As with most changes that really count, it happened by gradual degrees. The biggest breakthrough was when I ceased to see God as something dreadful and cruel; as someone to be feared. Once my fear was gone, loving God was easy—awe and adoration turned out to be the most natural things to feel when thoughts of God entered my mind.

And to me, that makes perfect sense.

When you look at a smiling baby—or, better still, at happy little children at play—you cannot help but have your face split into a broad smile. You might even find yourself tearing up—goodness knows I do. No matter what else may be going on in the world, for a moment, you feel a kind of joy you may not have felt since you were a child yourself. Your heart explodes with awe, adoration, and care, accompanied by a strong desire to protect and nurture the little ones, and create a world where creatures like them can thrive and be happy.

You don’t need to explain it—the reaction defies explanation; it’s utterly irrational, and it is self-evident. You don’t need to be told why children are beautiful, and why they matter. When you see them, you know it.

And so it is when you see God. So it is when I read the gospels, and when I think about Christ’s actions and message. I find all that is good, beautiful, and meaningful there. I find hope that transcends hope—radical hope, hope for eternity, hope for ALL—and I find the source of beauty and true power. And as with the angels in John’s Revelation, words and rational explanations fall away amid a single joyous heart-cry of,

“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND IS AND IS TO COME.”