My Confessions (2)

TWO: A Primer on Christianity.

            

            Before taking a look at my personal faith, I would tell you what true Christianity is. By knowing Christianity, we can see the difference of my faith with this belief.

Christianity is not merely the tongue-speaking weirdos in a Church. It is not about John Constantine-ish people who cast demons out with cross-shaped woods. It is not, pragmatically, a belief where people who sing “Hallelujah” and suddenly they get to heaven.

“Well, you’re not a Christian, you said. How can you know this (you may say) subjectively-claimed TRUE Christianity so well that you’re about to tell us about it now?,”

I have lived 19 years in a very religious family who go to the Church every Sunday. Some of my families went to missionary works. My father has about 500 theological books in his mini-library.

Sufficient? Nope, I know. Even some theological seminary students might not be a Christian. How can I speak about Christianity?

There’s still a lot to learn. RIGHT.

But this is what I know. Do you wanna listen to me or not? If not, you are absolutely free to go. Close this tab. Leave my blog. Go on other sites. You deserve to choose whatever you wanna choose. But if you wanna listen, pay attention closely so that you may know what Christianity – at least in my version (and many Christians’ version) – is.

The root of Christianity is Christ. That’s why it’s called Christianity. Christianity itself translates literally as “followers of Christ”. So logically, Christianity is nothing but lies until it is Christ-centered. (Yeah, you we’ve seen some money-centered and power-centered Christians throughout the history. They are not Christians. That’s why we’ve been hearing myths (or facts?) about Christian sexually harrassing little Children. By the way, have you known some sex-associated interpretations of “St. Teresa’s Ecstasy”? It should have been about the emotionally sanctified spiritual experience. Epistemologically Diacrony? Yeah whatever. Stick to that Foucaut’s crappy, half-true Synchrony (hey, I’m not Foucault’s hater.).)

You may have heard the keywords such as “sin”, “salvation”, “Christ”, “redemption”, “damnation”, “blood of Jesus”, and “justification by faith” through different forms of media (Internet, DVD, the Scripture, etc). And you’re absolutely right if you associate these terms to Christianity. Let’s briefly take a look at these terms and preview its common misconceptions and prejudice (usually initiated by non-Christians) on them. [By the way every critique to Christianity has been mostly un-comprehensive. Even Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics has bunches of nonsense where she does not understand the Scripture at all. I doubt even if she has ever read the whole scripture with theological interpretations.]

Sin: Why is it so serious that sinners need to die?

Modern people often views the concept of sin differently, especially after the late modern (pre – postmodern) philosophy. Talking about social constructivism, for example, they believe everything – including sin – is socially constructed. The belief is justified by Nietzsche’s beyond good and evil. There came Foucault, Sartre, Russell, Wittgenstein, and other giants in philosophy who do not believe that the notion of sin does exist. The thing is, these philosophers do not believe in God.

If you wanna know Christianity, you must believe (or at least assume!) that God exists. (“If God exists, prove it.” I’d say, if God doesn’t exist, prove it. Both Atheists and Religious people cannot prove God’s existence or inexistence. Non-religious people assume that we are, just like Parmenides says, the measure of the universe. Religious people believe we have our limitations. WHOA. The concept of God is another debate, and here is not the place.)

When you talk about religion, there must be a God/gods. Talking about Abrahamic faith, they believe in one God. Christians believe in Trinity, which is another complicated story to tell here. Anyways, my point is, Christians, just like every other Abrahamic belief, believe in God. And what is so unique about this God?

His Absolute Holiness.

[Let me stop for a while and remind all of you once again, if you wanna understand Christianity, think like a Christian. It is a fair way to do so. Just like you expect a Christian to free their mind from the religion to understand your philosophy, retributively free your mind when you try to understand Christianity. Free your mind from social constructivism and its siblings. The premise is that the notion of God is not constructed. A man-constructed being can’t be God, therefore, God is not socially constructed. The second premise is that there is such thing as absolute Holiness which transcends our relative, corrupted world. The third premise is that there are three types of states, two of which is binary opposition, and the other one is the one in between. God is absolutely good. Satan is absolutely evil. We’re in between.]

This is why the notion of “other-ness”, such as paganism, sin, wretchedness, are treated very seriously among Abrahamic Religions.

Back to the sin thingy. Why is it so serious?

The logic is simple. God is Holy and something Holy cannot blend with something corrupted. That’s it. Christian God wants to take people to heaven but the problem is, we are all sinners. None is holy.

Furthermore, the essence of God is life and the essence of sin is death (the famous Paul’s saying in Rome 3:23 and Rome 6:23. NOT A SERMON HERE, it’s a citation.). Life is contradictory to death. Just like the anti-dualism says. Death is a name for the condition where life does not exist. Therefore, logically, sin is a condition where God is not there. When a man sinned, the relationship to the source of life (yes, let’s imagine James Cameron Avatar’s Eywa) is over. Not only broken, but it’s all over.

“Ah, it all begin with the ridiculous myth of Adam and Eve!”

It is ridiculous if you take it 100% literally. It would be as stupid as if you take Nietzsche’s Got ist tott literally. [I mean, come on! Got ist tott is rooted on the critique to Modernism, damn it!] There’s always something behind every phenomenon written in the Scripture – that’s what Christianity sees.

According to Christian faith, it is not the phenomenon of “eating the fruit” that corrupts our kind. Truth is, Christians believe Adam “dethroned God” (sorry I forgot whose term this is. It’s not mine.) by disobeying Him. In fact, Adam did not believe that God was good even when He says “Thou shalt not eat”. It’s all a matter of faith [Put aside your irritation to the old (funny, he died young) Kierkegaard].

And Christians believe that Adam sinned because his own choice. God is never the source of evil. Man was created with choice [see, christianity is actually that close to existentialism, even Sartre’s] and to be responsible to his choice. Both God and satan were only, let’s say, guide/teaser. True Christianity never teaches a man to put the blame on God or satan.

“So if Adam was responsible for his own sin, why should we be responsible for his? Adam sinned, why are we condemned too?”

First of all, you, me, we all sin. We are all evil. [Come on, take a look at our hearts. Can you really stand before a being so absolutely holy? Even if you’ve done some limited number of relative, corrupted goodness, can you brag about them before the absolutely good God who does not need any of our good deeds (even any of us)?] Let’s just admit that and that ticks the whole checklist of why we can’t go to heaven.

Second, Adam was the representative of men. So clearly he was the origin, and “the best of our kind! Even the best of our kind failed. What makes us think that we can replace Adam’s position instead and be the solution of mankind? (Edward Oei)”

So let us be clear now: God logically cannot accept sin. We all sin. We are all going to hell. Homo, hetero, man, women, elders, teens, pastors, prostitutes, businessmen, thieves, the sane, the insane, the good, the bad, rich, poor, EVERYONE is going to hell.

Yep, that’s what true Christianity teaches. [And it seems some people are happy with that with that song “I’m on a highway to hell”. A Christian would think, “Gosh, what God has ever done to you that you loathe Him so much that you reject heaven and celebrate our effed up, can’t-be-helped ride to hell?”.]

 And whatever man. If you read Christian’s bible, we’re not gonna be ghost-rider-cool in hell. We just burn. By the way honestly I’m still thinking whether the Bible’s eternal flame is 100% literal or 100% both literal and figurative.

Reminder: Try to think their way, man. It’s all logical when you accept the premises.

Jesus and the Cross = Salvation? Redemption of Sin?

The cross of Jesus is the main core of Christianity. You can see Christians have cross-shaped accessories like necklace, earrings, (even tattoo!). You can see that most of churches around the world, both Catholic’s and Christian’s, have at least one cross, usually behind the preacher’s podium. And whenever a service preaches about Jesus’s sacrifice on the tree, you can find many Christians are so touched that they even start to cry. You may have often heard that evangelists, even Jehovah’s witnesses (which are, in fact, not Christians), say this seems-so-cliché phrase: “Jesus died for your sins.” (And you may say, “What the hell? Jesus died on the cross, so what? How could that save me? Where’s the logic?,”)

Or You may have been wondering, what’s so special about the cross?

[“In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever.” – Fanny J. Crosby]

Remember that earlier we’ve had a discussion on the notion of sin, and its nature is death. God cannot be together with sinners, that’s why sinners need to be separated from life. Every man is a sinner, that’s why every man dies (Valar morghulis.). For this reason, Christians believe in hell. Hell is a place for all of us. Nobody’s going to heaven for we are sinners. [You may ask now, “Why don’t we just die so we don’t have to live this biological life on earth?” To Christians, that’s just showing God’s grace. Even when we have to die (going to hell), we are still given to have a foretaste of both heaven and hell. To a Christian, this world is their Father’s world. That’s why it’s full of beauty and marvels. And these beauty is granted for everyone to experience. Rainbows. Sunshine. Sunsets. Raindrops. Petrichor. Cliffs. Meadows. Fields. City Lights.]

Now God is facing a dilemma here. He has to punish mankind for their sins. But He doesn’t want to. Remember the most-used verse, John 3:16, “God so loved the world … (that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.)”. Christians believe that God loves the world so much. But He needs to be consistent to His essence [otherwise philosophers would criticize Him for being inconsistent. Well, even when He’s consistent we philosophers like to mock Him for being too illogical, or inconsistent, or metaphysical, don’t we?]. In other words, He needs to kill mankind.

Finally with His wisdom, He sent Christ [remember Christians believe the Trinity, one God, three Persons], who is by nature God and Man [reminder: think like a Christian], to represent mankind before God the Almighty to be punished. In other words, Christ was sent for a suicide mission. God the Father chose to give all the punishment the sinners deserve on Christ alone in the cross. And because Christ is also God, He can hold all the mighty wrath of God.

“Why the cross?,” you may ask. And my very subjective answer is because God is a mad artist and semiotic expert. He chose the way Jesus should die, and he chose the most painful, the most symbolic, the most philosophical, humiliating way of death. These are where God is clearly an artist and a semiotic expert.

One, a man on the cross is philosophically “in between”. His body is hanged between heaven and earth. It’s like “both heaven and earth despise you.” It’s a very artsy and philosophical way of death sentence. “Cursed is he who is hung on the tree.”

Second, crucifixion is the most brutal way for a man to die. It’s a total torment and suffering for a human being to be crossed. I think Jigsaw’s methods are gruesome, but it’s all less painful than the cross. (I heard a pastor citing an expert saying, “The pain was so extreme that Jesus’s heart popped when he was crucified.”) A crucified man could last for days until he dies. Imagine the thirst, the humiliation, the contraction of tendons, the blood dripping drops by drops from your hands and your feet. Even Jigsaw’s method never lasted for days.

So we can see that Jesus’s sacrifice was meant for a substitute. Christians believe that Jesus receives all God’s (His Father’s) wrath, which was originally meant for us. Now that God’s wrath is over, mankind can go to heaven through Jesus. This is what it means, for a Christian, to believe in Jesus. It is to understand that there’s someone named Jesus who redeemed people’s sins so that God may welcome mankind in Heaven. The punishment for mankind is over. Every sin in the past, present, and future has been forgiven.

“So everybody wins?”

“So nobody’s going to hell?”

I still could go a long way to explain a lot more of this complicated core of Christianity, but let’s stop the primer on Jesus’s cross here. Call a devout Christian nearby for further information. My point is, Christians believe that God seeks men and not the other way around. Salvation comes from God’s absolutely good will, and not a man’s relative, “good” work. [This is where, I think, Christianity is so unique.]

Forgiven = Sinning all the way, just like the old times?

We all have seen a jerk who names (or named) himself a Christian but living an ungodly life (the writer of this writing, for example. He used to believe he was a Christian.). Is that because they are forgiven, that it’s okay to sin for them?

This kind of sick believe happened to be a plague for Christians in the early Church reformation. As Martin Luther (not King, Jr. Because 16^th century Martin Luther wrote 95 theses instead of making one of the most wonderful speech of all time) emphasized on “Justification by faith alone”, Christians began to sin. They thought they have been saved and they will always be forgiven. Of course, that’s not what Luther was trying to say at that moment.

When someone believes in Jesus, a Christian believes the person has been justified (all the forgiveness we have discussed earlier on the previous part). But that does not transform a person into an übermensch or DC’s Superman [or captain Marvel]. People are not immune to sins. Their status have been changed and now it’s legal for them to go to heaven, but existentially they still need to choose between sinning and not sinning. [To sin or not to sin, that is the question!].

However, it doesn’t mean that God permits people to “freely” commit sins all the way. A Christian believes that if a person has truly believed in Jesus, that person would not dare (or at least would think twice, or thrice, or fries, or as many as it takes) to sin. Even if the person sins, he will humbly confess his transgressions and ask for forgiveness to God in a prayer. In some cases, some Christians cry in their confessions (though this does not guarantee that they are truly apologizing). So, yeah, they are not Superman.

As they keep getting trials and temptations, a Christian always fights back and “rises again everytime they fall”. Pretty much like Kratos, who has been dead for like a zillion times and sent to underworld, but eventually he made it all the way back to Olympus to take a revenge. And everytime a Christian stands again, they believe that the Christian will get stronger than ever. They will not, however, achieve a perfect state, but they will always be in a process of perfection. This is the process of sanctification. Christians believe that the primary work of the Holy Spirit to them is Justification and the process of Sanctification. Justification, as has been mentioned before, is Holy Spirit’s work to convert sinners to believe in Jesus Christ (who has replaced them for the divine punishment). Sanctification, on the other hand, is a process where Christians are refined and renewed again and again. As they are renewed, their life is getting more and more Christ-like so that logically it leads to a condition where sin is no more powerful. Consequently, as days go by, Christians hate sin even more and more. This means that they may do sin, but sinning may not be their habit. So, yeah, it’s not sinning all the way anyway for being forgiven and renewed. That’s true Christianity.

I guess that pretty much sums up Christian worldview. All men sin, Valar Morghulis, Jesus replaced them once and for all, now there’s hope, and their lives are now in a holy process of sanctification to be more and more Christ-like that God is pleased with them and may use them for His ministry.

However we should not stop there. We need to ask one pivotal, introspective question for Christians themselves. After these long (supposedly brief) and complicated primers on Christianity, who are worthy of the title “True Christians”?

There’s a bunch of theological books about it (which I don’t read at all), but I guess there’s one important key to distinguish true Christians from the fake ones. It’s simply their relation to their God. This is a Christian’s hope and reason to live. They do everything, consciously or not (and hypocritically or not), for their God (except sinning). [Now here’s something I believe to be absurdly impossible, at least for me myself. What? Just look at that, you’re going to Starbucks for God? Watch a movie for God? Fall in love with someone for God? Well some guys I know seem to manage to do these impossible things and they stay living as good Christians, but I just CAN’T. Anyways.] That is why they have their morning prayer. That is why Christians go to fellowships. That is why Christians willingly go to Church every Sunday while other people can do every other recreational activity. And this relationship to God is what makes them be in the process of sanctification. [The Holy Spirit’s work, rememeber?] By having this intimate relationship with their God, their lives become God-centered (and not self-centered). So ideal. Too good to be true. [Though some people I know have proven to successfully live good Christian lives].

So yeah, Christianity is not all hypocrisy. I bet Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre, and some other great philosophers had only the chance to see Christian-douchebags in their lives. Their skepticism probably started from those fake Christians naming themselves Christians while they are not Christians. I guess that kinds of skepticism is acceptable. You know, who is not disgusted to see someone talking about God and goodness while his life is way worse than satan’s?