'Sometimes others ask, sometimes we ask ourselves: am I a Christian?' Photo: Scott Rodgerson / Unsplash.
‘The symbol of Christ must continually be interpreted in new ways.’
Sometimes others ask, sometimes we ask ourselves: am I a Christian? Jens Steensberg attempts his own personal answer.
One day a young man stops me on the street earnestly asking: ‘Do you believe in God? Are you a Christian?’ I am in a hurry to reach the train so I quickly answer: ‘That really depends on what you mean by that.’ For several years I have actually been trying to find answers to these questions.
Most of us cannot live without faith because of the irrationality of life. But it is not possible to express a living faith in words once and for all. As human beings we try to formulate the thoughts underlying our religious experience. All these efforts are preliminary, as there is no final truth. Faith is a fundamental human feeling, vague, a trust that there is a meaning in life. Without faith you may feel helpless – or, in the word used by Søren Kierkegaard, desperate.
God is not dependent on religion. God is presence. Religions are just our worldly and human attempts to get closer to God. Religion helps us to understand the meaning in life. It fills our spiritual need for guidance in human conduct. Some people experience God as an objectively-existing personal authority to whom they can pray. To others, God is the experience that life has a meaning, a feeling of being in accordance with something that is greater than oneself. When trying to interpret who or what God is we must be conscious of our linguistic limitations. God is a reality that transgresses language. We should not give up talking about God but avoid restricting God to definite concepts and pictures. God is the inexpressible.
The German-American theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was seeking ‘God behind God’ or ‘God above God’ because God is the deep dimension in human existence. As God is the source, ‘the ground of Being itself’ of all that exists, God is behind all that exists. We are not able to formulate this in words. All that we say about God has a symbolic and metaphorical nature except the expression that God is ‘Being itself’. One might also say that God is the creating power that manifests itself in humanity’s courage to face life (faith), our openness towards the future (hope) and our courage to love.
Our whole culture is influenced by the figure of Jesus. But the symbol of Christ must continually be interpreted in new ways. It is part of the ultimate reality that cannot be expressed straightforwardly. Jesus was a human being but not only that. He was human in some indefinable way where we may recognise ourselves. He is the archetype of our longing to realise love, truth and wisdom in this world. Some view Jesus as God’s begotten son. Others view him as an ordinary human being that, in the way he lived and died, became part of the eternal divine force that we call Christ. And some see Jesus as an extraordinary healer and teacher whose example is still relevant for us today.
Each individual may have his own story of Christianity. To some the main theme is that Jesus died at the cross to atone for the sins of the world. To others it is Jesus as a teacher of the road that leads to an intimate relation to God, and a radical ethics to love one’s enemies. They put more emphasis on the life of Jesus than on his death. The doctrines of the church represent definite pictures of Jesus coloured by the traditions of the different churches. They picture Jesus in their own images. In protestant theology the expression to ‘believe in Jesus’ is often used. ‘To believe’ is, however, a static concept – we are controlling our lives, we ourselves judge what we chose to believe. If we chose ‘to follow Jesus’ it is a question of mobility, we brake our static existence, we move.
Traditional church Christianity may be characterised by church allegiance not only at Sunday service but also in other Christian activities in the parish. Charismatic Christians continue the revival movement. A typical attitude of church Christians may be a literal understanding of the words and messages of the Bible. We are God’s fallen creatures who, because of our sins, are under his righteous wrath and judgement. We must be redeemed if we are not to perish. We must stick to the teachings of the apostles, the Christian community, the Holy Communion and prayers. To these traditional Christians anyone who has a different experience has no right to call oneself a Christian.
The creeds were written by people in a specific historical situation and do not express the only interpretation of the Bible. They are compromises between the Fathers of the Church and were polemically oriented towards the heretics. They are much more time bound than the Jesus-words of the Gospels. I wonder if all members of the church profoundly believe that God is one and three at the same time, in the dogmas of Virgin Birth, the Resurrection of the Body and the Ascension. What do younger persons today think of the Original Sin? The churches’ definition of the right teaching on this has, I believe, limited the understanding of Christian belief. The religious institutions, dogmas and theology may take the life out of God. To consider oneself a Christian should not imply that one accepts notions and truths contrived by others, but that one orients one’s life by Jesus’s teachings.
For me, the realisation that there is something of God in each human being is crucial to my relation to life. I try to be attentive towards the diversities in my fellow humans, not to pass judgement upon my neighbour who fundamentally is like me. I try to live so that I may answer that of God in those I meet and in myself. I experience that life has a meaning, that I am in accordance with something beyond me, that my life has a goal. I have an inner feeling of what may be true continually trying to reach a deeper insight. I aim at being the kind of person that Jesus wished his disciples to be, to believe in goodness, justice, forgiveness and love – in all imperfection to try living in pursuit of this. I have no relation to the traditional dogmas of the church on Trinity, Virgin Birth, Resurrection or Eternal Life. Therefore, in a church service I cannot say the creed. I am closer to the mystics. I could be said to live at the ‘commons of Christianity’ or probably be labeled a ‘Christian Humanist’.
But, my simple answer to the initial question is that I consider myself a Christian.
Comments
I found this a very thoughtful article. Having moved through a literalistic, strictly-defined kind of Christianity and a period of vague spiritual loss which felt more credible but uncentred and lacking in hope, I have found Quakerism and a sense of peace, belonging, challenge and creative openness. But when asked if I’m a Christian I demur. I have more in common with activist atheists committed to Extinction Rebellion and Campaign Against the Arms Trade than with evangelical Christians who focus on claiming souls rather than addressing injustice. But as you say here, Jesus offered a radical ethics that underpins what I do and who I try to be. So I tend to call myself a ‘follower of Jesus’ (and Quaker) rather than use a label that implies a set of beliefs essential for qualification (and Heaven) which I do not embrace.
By suehampton@btinternet.com on 15th March 2019 - 10:08
Thank you Jens Steensberg. So much of your article spoke to my condition! Especially your reflection on christianity changing with time. I have realised this before but never read this so well articulated. And your interpretations, insights, descriptions of God, Beliefs and Actions are so prefect - including “the limitations of language”. I am going to print a copy and have your article framed for my home! yes really - its so good. Thank you. David Fish Coventry Quaker Meeting.
By davidfishcf@msn.com on 26th April 2019 - 9:06
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