All posts tagged I'm a Christian by choice

President Obama spoke these words a few days ago, and I even quoted them here on my tumblr.  He made a great statement on his faith, and I encourage you to read it.

These five words, though, really sang out to me, and I knew as soon as I pasted the quotation into the dashboard that I was going to need to say something more about them.  The thing is, faith is always a choice.  If you’re a Christian, then you are a Christian by choice.  Christians are not born; Christians are made.  This is why a sacramental rebirth becomes so important, so that we have a way to say, “Here!  Here and now, I choose to be a Christian!  Today, in this place!  I choose Christ!”

Many people think of faith in the same way they think of happiness or sadness, that it’s a vague feeling that just sort of happens to us.  We’re either given great faith or not, but we really don’t have any control over it.  These people are wrong.

Faith is a verb.  Faith is a deliberate, intentional choice.  Faith is using your mind and your heart and your body and your soul, integrating the knowledge that you’ve gained from every part of your self, and choosing what to believe.  We don’t need faith for ideas like The earth revolves around the sun or Water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom or even There is actual cheese in Cheez-Whiz.  These ideas can be demonstrated to be correct or incorrect.  No, what we need faith for is ideas like God created the universe for a purpose or A place or state of being exists that is free from all suffering or I am a member of God’s chosen people or There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed (PBUH) is his prophet.

Faith is informed by questioning, by doubting, by engaging in the process of working out ideas.  Faith actually requires some doubt!  If there is no doubt or question about an idea, then it is a fact and not a statement of faith.  Questions help us work out tough concepts. 

For example, the bodily resurrection of Jesus strikes me as improbable, unlikely, and quite frankly, absurd.  [Let me get this straight.  God took on the body of a human being, who grew up in what’s now called the Holy Land.  Then he traveled to Jerusalem, the most sacred place in Judaism, where his own spiritual leaders had him arrested, interrogated, tortured, and killed.  And he decided to come back?!?  WTF!]  My mind just can’t understand this.  It doesn’t make any sense.  But the thing is, that’s okay.  I choose, intentionally and deliberately, to believe that it is true.  My brain questions and doubts the literal, physical facts, so my heart accepts the beautiful mystery of the resurrection of Christ.  This is faith.  This is my choice. 

If you are a Christian (or a Jewish person, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an atheist, an agnostic, or anything else), and you did not choose this faith, then you have some work to do.  What do you question?  What do you choose to believe?  Why do you make these choices?  Does this really fit the definition of your faith?  Does it need to?  How do you live out your faith choices? 

If you did not choose your faith, then your faith is weak and immature.  Just as Socrates tells us that the unexamined life is not worth living, so is the unexamined faith not worth holding. 

So when you say that you are a Christian, recognize that you choose to be a Christian.  Know that you wrestle with the improbable and absurd — resurrections, feedings of thousands, healings, wheels of fire in the sky, great floods, and other miracles — and that you still make this choice.  Know that you choose God, choose Jesus, choose the crazy upside-down-ness of God’s kingdom. 

Be an intentional Christian.

Be a Christian by choice.