Nobody I know says that they are filled with joy when they see that ubiquitous pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses slowly walking up to their front door. We all respect their right to pursue their faith. We just wish they wouldn’t be trying to “shove it down our throat” so often. The country where I live is a place where good manners dictate that you don’t discuss “religion or politics” in the public space. These are personal or private matters. The same can also be said for a lot of other irritating believers, and not just the pesky JW’s, who are always talking about God and Jesus,. So why are we Christians so annoying?
Well, imagine you, as an inquisitive individual who is open to new ideas, are quietly taking in some of the smorgasbord of information on offer in our new digital world, and you stumble on an obscure web page that asserts firmly that it has found a cure for a well-known, and commonly-occurring, fatal illness. Of course your skeptical antenna goes up immediately. How many times have you heard all this type of stuff on the internet before? But simultaneously your emotions become heightened because you realize somebody you love very much has this specific illness, and they are facing certain premature death. Your heart is pounding. But this is not the time for emotions. This is a time for calm, reason, cool headedness, detachment, and hard and searching questioning. So you begin a process of due diligence.
The things that you discover while fact checking on a number of other web-sites are revealing. The treatment outlined runs foul of some very strong vested interests who appear to be hell-bent on destroying its credibility. Groups like drug companies, the massive industrial medical complex, major health insurance companies, and even those bastions of enlightenment the universities are all equally challenged by this alternative treatment. Somewhere in its history of this treatment researchers have made the startling claim that its efficacy was not in dispute anymore. So of course the vested interests fought back heavily.
When do you tell your loved one about this, and when are you confident enough of what this alternative idea can achieve for you to present it to them? You know that they are sick of having their hopes and anticipations dashed. How many times have they been told about some new miraculous treatment that ultimately turns out to be nothing but another stream of bogus snake oil solutions? You then find that there areactually millions of testimonials from sufferers of this illness. When they embrace the new treatment, they claim they start to feel a little better almost immediately. They never claim they are completely cured, or made well, and of course over time they all die. We all do that eventually. But in the meantime they claim the quality of their lives is so much better as a consequence of the new treatment. So in spite of all the push back from the entrenched vested interests its survival as a cure remains.
Now we can stop the extended metaphor and cut to the chase. We all know that none of us can avoid “death and taxes’. But we “annoying” Christians have a solid belief that we possess certain truths that are a remedy as to how an individual can avoid death and actually live on for ever. We firmly anticipate a future where the principle of pure love and justice will forever be our guiding light, and a meaningful and purpose filled life free of suffering will be the natural order. And nothing is going to take that away. But this is where it gets a bit complicated. Just like the smorgasbord of data about miracle cures, there is a similarly thought-strangling array of opinions on which brand of religious or spiritual faith is the true one. All this is seen by those on the outside as a very strange outcome that is not worthy of respect. Within the phenomenon of Christianity alone, back in the year 2000, there were more than 32,000 registered Protestant denominations in the US with a new one starting up each week. The reality is it's a bit of a mess.
Now if any believers are truly honest, we have to accept that no Christian actually has a firm, rock solid idea when it comes to the nuts and bolts of just what, where, when, and how this wonderful future is going to happen. Some of us think our soul will go to a place called Heaven to be later reunited with our physical ressurected bodies, while others believe that our future is going to be here on a re-created earth with our God dwelling among us. The fair minded among us will admit that strong opinions about what constitutes heaven or everlasting life are actually contrary to the Bible. We should be wise enough to accept what Paul said when he quoted the Jewish Prophet Isaiah from the 8th Century BC. “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1st Corinthians 2:9 (KJV) He goes on to say that on a Spiritual level however we, by faith, understand the power of this truth.
But the meaning in this statement is pretty unequivocal. Those who decide that the Christian God can be trusted and is worthy of our understanding, and act on that knowledge, are promised that this current life is just an aberration. Ultimate reality is radically different to the scrappy fight we have to endure right now. So if the practical details of this future are not absolutely settled, how do we “annoying” Christians know it’s true? Well happily that part is relatively easy. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is the starting point for all our knowledge, experience and understanding. But first we need a slight detour into how we know things to explain the significance of Jesus.
Imagine if you are walking along the beach and you kick up some sand and discover a coin, what can you conclude? Well it’s not complicated, you can suggest pretty forcefully that at some time in the past someone with money was standing on the spot where you now stand. Whether the coin was dropped by accident, or was put there deliberately is something you can speculate about, but given the available evidence there is no way you can know for sure. Now imagine you’re an archaeologist and you discover something that resembles a human skeleton. Well you can similarly conclude they are the remains of a deceased person. Whether it’s an old burial site, or that somebody a long time ago simply dropped dead for what ever reason, and over time their remains became covered by the earth, is once again speculation. However, if the skeleton is also accompanied by some ancient artefact like old tools, weapons, or utensils you might then think it more probable that it’s a burial of some kind because those who performed the burial appear to have purposefully put stuff there. If further digging reveals more and more skeletons with similar artefacts in the same specific area, it would be reasonable to conclude you’ve stumbled across an ancient burial site. And once again those who performed the burials had certain beliefs that made them want to bury people in a certain way. Then if all the graves had something like the remains of animal carcasses along side these human remains, you could reasonably speculate that this tribe of individuals had a particular set of beliefs about animals. You don’t know what those particular ideas were, but because of what the evidence suggests, it’s more than a coincidence.
This is how we use the historical method to understand the past. We look at some piece of evidence and decide what we can know from it. Sometimes there is speculation, and other times there is factual assertion. While there are no replicating experiments in a lab as in the modern and much heralded scientific method, when someone finds a written document, a piece pottery with images on it, a coin of currency, or what now looks like a cemetery, they ask, what does it say? Who most likely wrote or created what’s in it? Is what it says of any significance? Is it original? Is it accurate or reliable in what it portrays? Is it perhaps a purported eye witness account of some significant historical event? And does it’s existence justify serious scrutiny and careful comparison with other sources?
Now you can’t prove Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that Socrates drank the hemlock, that Lincoln gave The Gettysburg Address, or that Hitler invaded Poland in a laboratory. But what has come to be known as the historical method is just as rigorous as the scientific method. Modern science has given us a mind blowing array of achievement and knowledge, but it only can go so far. The historical method, and its implications for our understanding, goes unashamedly into the realms of human experience where science, with its endless data and facts, cannot even speculate. Why did he do this or that? What is the broader meaning of this piece of writing? What form in this strange script? Where did this list of laws come from? Why did a whole nation act in that apparently strange way? In understanding our history we look at the big questions of why.
Now we come to the confidence of believers in Christianity and the reasons why they think they are unique. Christian belief doesn't begin in the mind of a guru, teacher, prophet, wise man, or philosopher, but it is established in the real events of what we now know as the Easter weekend, and especially the resurrection of Jesus. And in relation to what is reported to have happened on that morning, there are many good reasons for taking what has been recorded in the New Testament and elsewhere quite seriously. If you apply the normal critical processes that have evolved from thousands of years of human intellectual activity that we have just discussed, the Gospel stories are considered believable history. Today even secular historians who don’t believe the Bible accept their veracity.
Furthermore, if it happened it represents something that’s completely new and different to all other kinds of religion. You see the main reason why the Jewish authorities back then wanted Jesus executed was because he had committed the major crime of blasphemy. He had said that He, Jesus, was actually God in human form. The Romans couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. They were polytheists. Becoming a god was not uncommon for them. Some of their emperors were already gods. But then real gods don’t end up crucified. And it is this that creates the huge problem in relation to Jesus. C S Lewis in his book ‘Mere Christianity’ puts it best. He says that you can’t cherry-pick the words of Jesus and only take on board the touchy-feely bits that you like and are nice. You have to take it all. And somebody who claims that they are God in a man's body, in Lewis’s words is either a raving ‘Lunatic’, a massive ‘Liar’, or alternatively, maybe telling the truth, and is really the ‘Lord’. The logic is quite tight, and quite frankly we are all free to chose which version of Jesus we want to believe in, but what C S Lewis asks is that we at least be consistent with all the facts. If you take the totality of who he was and what he said you are left in a difficult place.
Looking back at history, belief in gods where the one who was supposed to be the supreme creator and sustainer of the universe ends up being humiliatingly executed by His own creation, like the most of shameful criminals - crucifixion was kept for the worst of the worst - is a story that was so much more than beyond weird that it defies any human input. This story or 'Logos' is a one-off. Nobody could make it up. And it confronts the criticism about God that is made by the modern critic – that He is invisible. The divine realm of almost every other kind of religious mythology is out of sight, and inhabited by a cacophony of creations who strangely resemble the worst excesses of humanity with all its deviance, freakishness, and malignant eccentricity. Don't ever read the activities of Zeus, Wotan, Belenus or Apollo out loud to your children at bedtime. But you don't get anything like that with the Jesus of Nazareth.
Any serious historian today accepts the following as indisputable facts. Jesus was crucified. He was buried in a tomb. And the tomb was empty after that Sunday morning. Many, many people, possibly in the hundreds, and maybe even 1,000 plus, believe that they met a risen and resuscitated Jesus. Now not everybody believes that the miracle of the resurrection really happened as Christians do, but they are all pretty much certain that those who were “there” did “believe” that they met an alive Jesus. They touched Him. They talked to Him. They even had meals with Him. And they believe that they saw Him leave “here” with the certain promise that He would come back soon. So in a sense it doen't come down to questionable facts, but rather to which explanation best suits the available facts. Furthermore, the encounter one can experience through belief in what the Bible tells us about this God-man Jesus, this can dramatically impact the life of anybody who choses to believe. People have been changed in ways never seen before in the history of mankind. Society's leaders, prostitutes, wealthy business men and women, along with slaves and social outcats were all equal parts of a new revolution that was premised on love, acceptance, graciousness, and forgiveness. It is promised us that this extraordinary miracle, through the Holy Spirit, would permeate our consciousness and ultimately redefine our existence. That’s certainly what has happened for millions and millions of people in the time since. Jesus is the most significant and influential human to have ever existed. He divided history in two, and there has never been another event that has changed so many people's lives. There is Jesus, then there is daylight!
So that’s why believers assume that they have been given the privilege of access to endless life. It’s not a theory. It’s not a philosophy. It’s not a creed. It’s not a story. It’s not a system of beliefs. It's not a chant. It's not a ritual. It's not esoteric or secret knowledge. It's not a magic spell. It's not a myth. It’s a non-disputed historical fact that offers so much more in the here and now than simply the mere truth of its existence. That then brings us back to our story of the miracle cure we discovered on line for our loved one’s illness. Should we tell them about the potential cure we has found for them? Of course we should. What they do with it is entirely up to them. But to do anything less would call into question our love. We Christians all know and love lots of people. We all have friends who we really care about. We have families that we love so much we would give our own lives for them without a nano-second of hesitation. For those among all our loved ones who don’t know and experience the truth about Jesus, we just can’t let you die without at least trying to tell you the truth we know. We wouldn’t be following that second great commandment as told by Jesus, “...to love your neighbour as yourself…” if we didn't keep banging on about the precious gift that we have for every non-believer.
Furthermore Christians, on the basis of their faith in the risen Jesus, also believe there is going to be a “Judgement” one day. But just like the technical details of what the afterlife looks like are a bit scratchy, likewise the where and how this judgement will take place nobody can be dogmatically certain. But there is total agreement that everybody will one day be “aware” of the consequences of the choices that are made here in this temporal zone we inhabit. Now for people like Hitler, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and an endless list of other horrendous individuals that seems fair enough. There has been enough suffering inflicted by mankind upon his fellows over the centuries to warrant a zillion of God’s judgements. And fortunately Christians believe that only God has the levels of knowledge required to pass judgement. (see 1st Samuel 16:7, 2nd Corinthians 10:7) Now for you who are friends or the loved ones of us “annoying” believers, but are not a believer yourself, we have this fear that when you face this judgement you’ll look at us and say, “why didn’t you tell me about this?” And quite frankly, that’s a fair enough question. If I possess knowledge and don’t tell you about it, well what does that say about my love for you?
Now that won’t be able to be said about those snail-paced Jehovah’s Witnesses will it? They might be irritating in the extreme but at least they are operating for good reasons. Rightly or wrongly they feel that they have a truth, and all they want to do is share it with as many people as they are able to, so that those souls might be saved, and that seems a fair enough motive. So cut them a bit of slack.
Why are we Christians so annoying? Well as the apostle Paul says in 1st Corinthians 13, this current transient life is like seeing “in a mirror dimly”, and then “when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.” If we care about you we want you to have the hope that we have. If we firmly believe that we possess the gift of eternal life and we don’t try and tell you about it, we would be extremely despicable friends, and probably not worthy of God’s reward. We won't apologize for it. And to be perfectly honest if you get sick of us just tell us to shut up, and we might for a metaphorical five minutes.
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