“Why are you a Christian?”
I’ve been asked this question more times than I could count, and sometimes it feels like I ask myself this more often than others ask me.
If you had asked me when I was young, I would have told you it’s because my family and I go to church on Sundays. We recited the prayers, I attended religion class like clockwork, and I made my first communion in the Roman Catholic church. It was just what I did, and what I thought everyone else did, too.
If you asked me when I was in high school, I would have told you it’s because Jesus saved me. After joining a Bible study at school, I was introduced to the idea of having a relationship with the God I only got to talk to on Sundays. For the first time, I read Scripture and understood what it meant. I started going to a Protestant church and leaned into my newfound community, spending as much time as I could with the people who introduced me to Jesus.
If you had asked me during early college, as I began to dive deeper into biblical scholarship and the history of the Christian church, I would have told you it’s because Christianity has had immense influence for centuries as a central force in the Western world.
If you had asked me during late college, as I began to wrestle with doubt and questions for the first time, I would have told you it’s because of when and where I grew up. I am a Christian because of what Rachel Held Evans calls “the cosmic lottery;” my geographical and socioeconomic position in society, none of which are within my control, have all influenced my faith.
If you had asked me six months ago “why are you a Christian?”
I would have said, “…am I?”
I have had a complicated relationship with faith so far, and I have often asked myself why I even bother with it at all.
Why – after so much change and confusion, of searching for answers only to be left with more questions, after witnessing all the division within and because of the church – do I still call myself a Christian?
If you asked me that question today, I think I’d give you a little bit of all of those reasons.
I recognize that my geographical and cultural influence impacted what religion I was raised with. I recognize that my unique set of experiences have partially led me to right where I am as I write this.
But I also recognize the experiential nature of faith. In the moments where I have nothing, I still have Christ. I have come to see the grace in every breath, the magnitude of life-giving prayer, and the simple act of getting to know the One who created all things.
I’ve often considered packing up and jumping ship. I’ve questioned what role I have to play in the church, or if I have any role at all.
At times, I’ve wrestled with more doubts than beliefs.
But at my very darkest moments, when I felt I had lost everything, when I fell to my knees as the ground gave out from under me, it is the still small voice of Christ that has kept me breathing.
I have faith because I see my faith saturated in the very fabric of the world.
I see the resurrection as the sun peeks over the horizon, bringing new mercies every morning.
I see goodness and kindness in my community, as my friends and family hold my hand and walk with me through my heartbreak.
I see hope in the internal cosmic pull, the gravitation toward something bigger than myself and all those around me, the hope everlasting and the joy never-ending, that continues to reel me into Christ, whether I like it or not.
I’m a Christian not because I believe the correct things, not because I know my theology like the back of my hand or because I ascribe to the right doctrine.
I’m a Christian because I believe in the radical rabbi who loved us enough to become one of us.
To embody human flesh and share a meal with us.
To work as a carpenter, to touch leper’s wounds and wash the feet of fishermen with us.
To laugh and cry and struggle and die with us.
To resurrect and restore the brokenness of this world with us.
The Christian faith is part of my story, woven into every seam of my life, present throughout every move I make. Whether I like it or not, I am one in the family.
And it’s a pretty good family.