Being Christian

Dear all,

I dun suppose i am the best candidate to talk about being a christian. There are tons of people who are more suited, but this is my blog..

I guess being christian isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially when you learn some hard history about christians, you realise that everyone, every christian has gotten it the wrong way:

The world don't owe us anything; we owe the world a lot.

There was an event once in america [i heard of it once] where in the middle of some busy place christians set up a confession booth.

"Presumably for people to go in and confess their sins" most people would think.

But when someone actually went in, the first thing that they heard was this:

"I'm sorry for all the things we have done." from the other side of the panel.

That is so so dreadfully true. Much as we would not want to admit it, we christians do many terrible things in history. In the name of God, we have committed crimes that are inhumane and hurtful.

Even right from the beginning, when Christian churchs first started out. When the Jews were writing polemics [kinda like slanderous letters] about Christians, what was the reaction? Christians fought fire with fire. Polemics after polemics were written, slandering each other in the most horrible sense of the word slander [especially in the context of religion], each seeking joy in the downfall of the other. Unthinkable? Here is a site which lists the anti-semitic stories that European Christians wrote in the past. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/antisemitic.html

Slightly after, Christians were guilty of the worst anti-semitic acts. Around the 6th to 8th century, there was a case where the Eucharist was found missing; immediately the Christians pinned it on the Jews living in the district, and 15 Jews were murdered before the real culprit was caught: a christian who was suspect of heresy.

Even later, Christians were guilty of even greater bigotry; religious intolerance, which rose to murderous levels that left history bloodstained. The crusades were formed against heresy and muslims and thousands upon thousands were killed cold-bloodedly, in the name of the one true God.

Even amongst Christians we are guilty of the very sins we preach against. In the case of the Knight Templars, the Bishop and the king collaborated to plunge the whole order under the charge of devil worship and idolatry and heresy. The result? The Bishop and King dissolved the order that was growing too powerful, and came away with the riches of the Knights filling their own coffers. The Knight Templars were a monastic fighting order that was formed to protect pilgrims making the trip to the Holy City of Jerusalem during the crusades, formed a great army doing so, and pledged allegiance to the king, joining arms with him if there was a need. Yet they were betrayed, because they were growing powerful and proud.

Not to mention the witchcraft persecutions. Regrettably, the very people who were charged to love one another like ourselves, to forgive one another, and to do self reflection before accusing others of their sins, were the very people who persecuted innocents, dragging them through the most devilishly ingenious torture methods to obtain the confessions that they wanted. Not stopping at the confessions, they went on to force those who confessed to further feed the craze by naming others.

And those who perpetrated these crimes were the very ones entrusted with the faith and belief of the whole religion; the popes, the highly educated theologians, the ordained inquisitors and in cases, the kings. Indeed, the so called 'enlightened' ones were the one who were blinded in their pride and knowledge that they failed to see the act they were committing.

Even in the present, in parts of the world we still have Christians persecuting others based on their faiths. We have stories of people being dragged to slaughter by professed Christians. And on top of that, we Christians have been so good at dividing ourselves that we now have too many proud denominations that people actually care for.

We have Christian so full of themselves that they go around telling the world that Christians are going to heaven and the rest of the world is going to hell. We have Christians condemning the world to be full of sin while they claim that they are the ones doing things right.

Being a christian is what it's all cracked up to be.

And back to the story of the confession booth. If there is anyone out there willing to listen to me, i will tell them that as a Christian, i am sorry for all the things that we have done. I am sorry for all the persecutions that we have committed, all the false accusations, all the bigotry we are guilty of. I am sorry that sometimes we think that we know everything and act with pride and lack sensitivity and empathy. I am sorry that most of the time we do not practice what we preach. I am sorry that i am thinking of myself most of the time. I am sorry that once, we thought that violence hidden with hypocrisy was the answer to the world's problems.

Here is the punch line:

Most Christians do not realise that we have nothing to be proud of. Have we accomplished anything? If indeed the world commends the church for charitable deeds, remember that it is by Jesus's command that we love the world and the people who live around us. Those accomplishments belong to God and God alone. We however, have a part in persecuting those around us, either with religious bigotry or insensitivity. And it's not alright to be proud being a christian despite that.

Being a christian is not about being saved, or going to heaven. Being a christian is not about going to church and singing songs. Being a christian is about obey God's commandment to love the people, and care for them. Being christian is not primarily about bringing people to christ; being a christian is about loving people and caring for them, and by doing so naturally share what they are interested in.

Because Jesus did not ask any of the sinful people to worship Him; He ate with them and talked to them when the others would shun them; He washed their feets and taught them, He healed them and He gave them hope. He loved them, never demanding that they be Christians and worship Him. He loved them, and wanted them to lead righteous lifestyles.

Being a christian is not to be proud of nothing! But to understand that to be Christian, we must be prepared to be associated with the body of Christ, to be associated with the mistakes that as a body we have committed, and to be associated with the movement to set things right.

Kudos to you if you made it thus far. Hope you are blessed with this revelation i had.

Stay Blessed,
Brian