The word apologetics has many definitions. One of them is the following: "the branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity." (courtesy dictionary.com) Hence the title of what will in all likelihood be a series of posts over the future called "Amateur Apologetics", in which I undertake to defend Christianity. Any inspiration I have for any ideas will be credited where the credit is due. This one, however, came from me, and it's something I've been feeling for some time. If someone else has articulated a thought along the same lines, more power to 'em.
The Lord's Legitimacy
Have you ever noticed that we're much harder and more judgmental with our families than we ever are with our friends? That that which is familiar has much less luster than the forbidden fruit--especially if we feel like that which is familiar restricts us in some undesirable way?
That's basically human nature. There's nothing extremely sinister with human nature... it's just a little inconveniently sinful, that's all. Just enough to derail us subtly from time to time. And sometimes that happens.
I want you to picture something in your mind, okay? Picture the world without Christianity, okay? Let's say we have some other major religion in the mix that has very little to do with Christianity.
Have you pictured that? Okay. Now let's say that humanity discovers a lost continent populated with a previously unknown people. We start making contact with this people. And we discover something amazing.
These people, we discover, are not ignorant of the wicked nature of this world, yet they live with a hope for a better future and life. We come to find out that they believe in a loving, father-figure God, who loves each individual infinitely, no matter who they are, great or small, rich or poor, saint or sinner. (To a world for whom Christianity and its tenets are foreign, what a mind-blowing, beautiful concept that would be! Christianity is the religion that has given the most hopeful and simultaneously sound ideal that there is, after all, and despite all, a loving God up there somewhere, that good will be rewarded, and all will be okay in the end.) They believe that this God is over all things and that even the horrible things that happen can have a greater purpose. Those among them who truly live this religion (and there are always those who don't, and one can't really judge a religion by its population of couch potatoes, just as one can't judge the entire religion of Islam off of some kook-fringe wackos living in caves) are happy, and enlightened.
We soon come to understand more about what makes these people so unique, and their beliefs so enlightening and cheering. They believe not just that God loves them and is their Father, but also that He sent His only Child, His Only-Begotten Son, to live a horribly painful and difficult life on the earth. At the end of His life, this Son, who, keep in mind, they believe was perfect in every way, suffered unimaginably and was virtually tortured to death. They believe that part of that suffering was this thing called an Atonement in which He suffered the pains of all humanity and, on top of that already substantial burden, suffered for their sins, thus buying back their souls from hell to where they would have invariably gone. They also believe that all that this Son asks in exchange for this wonderful, infinite gift, is that they love God and their fellow men--and do their utmost to act accordingly.
What's more, they have written records of the teachings of this wonderful Man! In this record, we see that they believe that He performed incomprehensible miracles, and also that He taught both amazingly complex ethical principles and theological concepts in beautifully simple terms that laymen could understand, as well as very simple--nearly trite, one would say--morals that are often under-appreciated. He was a master teacher, and an unparalleled genius in the use of parables.
This people also believe in prayer--that God hears and answers all prayers through a myriad of ways, but especially through a special, spiritual messenger called the Holy Ghost.
To a world who had never heard of such things, what would be our reaction?
I imagine that we would, at worst, find it cute and nice that they could believe such BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL things despite the sordid state of the world. (And I do believed we would be forced, every man, woman, and child, to acknowledge out of our good sense that the doctrines of this discovered faith are beautiful and wonderful--the thought an individual human soul was worth THAT MUCH, that there was a God who REALLY cared about us individually, and had PROVEN this care by sending His Son to be tortured and killed for us, are the most heartwarming, life-changing concepts the world would have seen.) After all, I hear westerners finding much more barbaric, hopeless minor religions with much less face-value virtue as well as more substantial virtue cute, fascinating, and oh so wonderful.
At best, I daresay there might even be a massive movement to convert to such an ideology, even if it was not wholly true, purely on the merits of its warmth and fuzziness. (For the record, I believe 100% that Christianity is true.)
This is basically an imperfect but accurate allegory (like all allegories) for what happened at the time of the Roman adoption of Christianity as the state religion. It had been a largely unknown and very misunderstood sect prior to this time. And prior to this adoption, the world hadn't quite seen such a radical change in terms of mass-religious-conversion ever before. (Saying the Roman adoption of Greek theology is the same is an invalid over-simplification, as it wasn't so much an adoption as a blending; some blending took place too, obviously, between Paganism and Christianity, but much less of it, and on less significant things, such as the time of the year one celebrates Christ's birth, for example, though that had been set before the mass-adoption of Christianity. My lack of extensive knowledge of ancient Roman history prevents me from finding a better analogy. Please forgive me.) Christianity was novel, and as such more fully and finely appreciated.
Sadly, nowadays, we here in America (and also in Europe and other parts of the world) have largely "grown up" with Christianity. People rarely appreciate it for what it truly is--an amazing, unique way of seeing the world, and an amazing way of life. It has lost its inherent "cuteness" in the eyes of so many, and they've lost their base respect for it (which is even worse). As a Mormon missionary in post-Christian Western Europe, I saw this and other related phenomena all the time. I saw people stare at my name-tag bearing the name of my Savior and snort and use His name in vain, mock and ridicule, in a way I'm sure they've never mocked or ridiculed or attacked Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever else you want. If people were a little more objective, open-minded (to a certain degree, there is an ideal degree of open-mindedness, as I will explain further in a later post), and, most of all, humble and not quick to judge foreign points of view, even post-Christians would see Christianity in a much different light than they see it now--and the greatest difference in the two perspectives would be accuracy and correctness!
Maybe I expect too much of people. After all, how audacious is it of me to expect that people have the same base of respect for all non-dangerous, non-radical mainstream religions? Heaven forbid we should actually try to live up to ideals.
Then again, there was one man who lived perfectly to His ideals, wasn't there?
We would do well to imitate Him.
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