What is Christianity?

What is Christianity? Is it just a set of rules? Is it just a moral code? Is it just a ticket to get out of going to Hell? Maybe we should just store up a bunch of Bible verses and apologetics in our brain and tell everyone that they’re bad people… oh, don’t forget to say that homosexuality is wrong and to vote Republican. Maybe we should just go to church and try to screw the pretty redhead sitting next to us by impressing her with our piousness. Is that all Christianity is? If so, then count me out. If so, then I hate it entirely as an evil lie and a hiding hole for fake people.

Christianity is on the decline. More accurately, it’s dying out. Should we even care?  Why should I give a damn about the religion of some ignorant, bronze aged goat-herders? What great Christian utopia has there been? With such great Christian role models like the grand torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, Tomas de Torquemada, and the scripture quoting slave owners of the American south, who needs any more evidence that Christianity is a fraud? Well, let’s have more evidence just for the sake of it. Where is God when loved ones die of cancer? Where is God when you lose everything? More personally, where was God when I tried to blow my brains out with a Beretta 9mm on September 13, 2010?

I’ve tried to be a good Christian, but I keep failing. I drink, curse, look at pornography, and hate. God, do I hate. I hate almost everyone. I hate people for not helping me when I needed it. I don’t hear God. I doubt all the time. What worth is the Bible other than as a source of kindling on a cold day?

    

What is Christianity? Christianity is the only thing I have left. Jesus Christ, son of God, is the only thing I have left. When you are left broken, absolutely broken, then you can tell me how stupid Christianity is. I don’t believe in anything, but I believe it when I hear that God loved me so much that he sent his only son to be beaten to a bloody pulp, have nails forcibly driven into his flesh, and to slowly die of asphyxiation on a cross. How violent! How appalling to my senses! This is what I said as an atheist idiot. Christianity is supposed to shock you, to slap you awake.

Jesus died to save me. He saw that we were completely corrupt, but he loved us anyway. His love burned like fire and was blood red. God is love. In fact, that's the only thing God is. Everything else flows from that truth. We cannot escape our deserved fate without him. Everything we do is as worthless as an outhouse without a hole. You have a choice. Everyone has free will. You can choose to have faith in Jesus, or you can choose to spiritually die.

Everyone will inevitably let you down. You will hurt eventually. When this happens, do you have something firm to cling to? If you don’t have Jesus, then you don’t. Even with Jesus, you will scream, you will cry, you will beg for it to end. The difference is that Jesus will not move. His foundation of love will stand. He will not abandon us, for he died and rose again for us.

While I have never physically heard God speak, I feel him. I know there must be something more than this. Don’t give in to darkness. Don’t hurt alone for a second more. Accept Jesus as your lord and savior. He's the only hope our world has ever known.