Why I'm (Still) Christian
Aren’t Christians Hypocrites?
Isn’t this small minded conservative thinking?
And why do you still believe this stuff?
It was a warm summer day at a friend's estate in an upscale community in the San Francisco Bay Area. A few friends were gathered around the pool with plates of food and a wide selection of drinks. A bottle of Dom Pérignon was being sabered by a friend with a Colombian machete. Then crowning this brutish act, we made mimosas.
This scene was far from how I was raised on the border between San Diego and Tijuana. My upbringing was a sometimes confusing mix of Mexican Catholicism and English Protestantism in the Post Calvary Flavor of California Christianity. The conversation at my friend’s estate was a continuation of ongoing topics ranging from finance, health, and technology while never shying from politics or religion. As kids of the 90s in America, most of us had grown up with some flavor of Christianity, with varying commitments. However, I was the only one who still went to church and would identify as a Christian.
More recently there has been a movement of spiritual agnosticism or religious atheists. One of the first essays I read by David Perell, Why You’re Christian, intrigued me. In that essay David writes:
Deep down, I’ve chosen to remain an agnostic because the existence of God is beyond my comprehension. Asking me about God’s presence is like asking an ant what I should order at In-N-Out Burger. The sentence doesn’t compute.
While I agree with the sentiment of comparing a double-double burger to an ant, I will further the analogy: ants do not order at In-N-Out, but they will graciously have anything you are willing to leave them. As ants still eat, here are a few reasons why I still am a Christian.
A Crucible of Character
Most Christians I knew growing up who have shed their faith were once baptized. But I don’t know many who went into the wilderness. To be clear this is not a mission trip, or week away at church camp. Jesus’ time in the wilderness is character affirming and career ending. Can you take 40 days away from anything? A career, a relationship, or even only the comforts of your shelter and food. For 40 days? I am not conceited enough to believe I have even fully conquered this crucible of an example Jesus put forth to announce his ministry. But I can say I have had my career destroyed in part because of my faith. And I have gone into the wilderness, with my in-laws for about a week though I am not sure I would last another. Even living in Idaho now, I have probably spent no more than 48 hours alone in the wilderness at any given time. While enough to make a dent in my own hardened heart but nowhere near enough to complete the challenge, I do believe the discipline of confronting one's character deprived of worldly cages camouflaged as comfort is the truest point of entry into the abundant peace that Christ offers. This truth has been inescapable as it is inconvenient.
In my own wilderness moments I have realized I had been tempted to make my living out of hard things. Rocks into Bread. Hustle to bring home the bacon. I realized I had been tempted with the super hero intro: Throw yourself into a daring situation, stick the landing, make a name for yourself. I realized I had been shown the world and tempted for what it is now but how can one be tempted by the world for what it is when one has even the slightest sliver of how it was supposed to be? This image will forever gnaw at me.
Uniting the Left and Right
Before Jesus goes to the cross there is this moment he wants James and Peter to witness. In a flash on a mountain there is Jesus with Moses and Elijah. While modern readers will be quick to see the audience value of perhaps the greatest crossover event in history, there is a more beautiful picture painted than I once saw before. The statement Jesus makes is one about how the greatest work that was about to be done would be in perfect unity of the law and the prophets. The word would be conserved and fulfilled. The right wing and left wing would be united as in fact it takes two wings to fly and Jesus knew the weight of it all had to be at the center.
To say we live in a divisive time would be an understatement. And in that same way the university educated Jews of Alexandria felt quite different than their Judean counterparts away from the coast. I have heard many leave the faith because they have only known American Christians still listening to bad music while misquoting Pauline doctrine like it is the Gospel. But befriending people on both the left and right as a Christian has shown me these two sides can be united. History has already proven this true. Unity doesn’t have to be uniformity. We can still unite, and give something of value not only to other people but to posterity.
A Lesson On Three Loves
Years ago, I was writing code as a software engineer when I began to think of the question Jesus was asked: “What is the greatest commandment?” When we think of a commandment the image, at least for me, is of a commanding general or warrior king. Marching orders. Do this to be the disciplined ones. But as the keystrokes came to a halt I realized something. Jesus isn’t some petty officer attempting to berate his troops into submission. He is sharing with us the code that was already written, already running. Running on now nearly 8 billion people on the globe. Considering this as our own human software:
You get to choose your god, and you will love that god with all your heart.
You will love your neighbor how you love yourself.
In an instant I began to see those temptations to choose lesser gods: Money, status, comfort, Colombian Machete Sabered Dom Pérignon. I saw how others chose their gods. Most passively loving something they don’t know they even worship. I saw the harm I had handed to others from the abundance of harm I had wrought on myself and how those who had done me so heinously were doing so in an outpouring of their own inner turmoil. Forgiveness became possible as I saw myself in everyone else. Reconciliation became believable when humanity became my neighbor. True love is passion and as Jesus poignantly put with his death: your passion will kill you. In that, I am reminded of all the short sighted times I believed my work was my passion. While it was killing me, it wasn’t worth dying for. True love is mystery, it doesn’t compute, it looks more like questions that make for conversation and I have realized in all this my life is better swept up in a divine dialog between creator and creation than what can be comprehended and what will always compute.
It is through those little truths of mysticism shining light through snips of the dark shrouds woven through history that I am still Christian.
This essay is the first entry in a series of works for Write of Passage. I already could not say enough good things about this cohort based course. For your insightful feedback on this essay, thank you to Jonathan Vasquez, Elizabeth Edwards, Josh Knox, Elise Entzenberger, Tere Sagay, Chad Smith, Sachin Bhatia, and Oscar Obregón. A special thank you to Sandra Yvonne, for being the editor I always needed and David Perell, for his essay, Why You’re Christian.