“Hello, I’m a Christian…”

[Here’s a fun spoof](http://www.thinkchristian.net/?p=960) of the “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC.” ads. Fun. :)

**Update:** Oh good heavens… I said “fun” twice in the span of less than a dozen words. I hang my head in shame. Look, it was late.

4 thoughts on ““Hello, I’m a Christian…””

  1. God talk.
    Why not just do good work? Why not love WITHOUT faith?
    It seems a much braver thing to do, to love for no other reason than to love.
    To face death in all its finality, with no afterlife—could make one ferociously loving in this life.
    I am not against religion. I think it was necessary to bring a culture of love to human beings. So great, really.
    But now, today, why not embrace the love that is in you and embrace the love all around you? All the mental energy used in believing in a book (the Bible) could be used, simply, loving others. No credo. No rules. Just love. 100%. That, is God.

  2. Hi Dan! While it strikes me as odd that you’d bother to comment here, thanks nevertheless. From your web sites, you appear to be a busy man, and I appreciate that you took the time.

    Certainly this is a conversation that would be more useful carried out face-to-face over coffee than in brief sound byte comments, but I’ve two quick thoughts I can offer.

    First, “No credo. No rules.” is in itself a credo. I think it may not be credos per se that you find outdated, but rather simply those which you do not subscribe to. I do find my “credo” and “rules” in the Bible, which, far from somehow interfering with me loving others, gives me the foundation from which to understand why I should love and helps me understand what love is.

    Which is basically my second thought: what is love? I’d agree with the Bible that love considers others more highly than ourselves; that love is sacrificial for the benefit of others. Love is not merely an emotion, but a call to action. But with “No credo. No rules.” we may have to throw all that out. Anything could suffice as a definition.

    Could someone not call you unloving because you are diminishing someone’s belief? (I don’t say so, by the way.) With the credo “No credo. No rules.” you’d have been “true to your faith,” but may have harmed another. You could say “ah, but what harm is that? There’s no real harm.” or “It’s OK. What they believe isn’t true anyway.” but in doing so, you’d be taking the role of God upon yourself and deciding the credo and rules for another, and acting in a way very similar to what probably repels you from “God talk.”

    Why could not someone’s definition of love be nothing but love of self – say physical gratification or material gain – even at the expense of others? The answer from my perspective is that individuals have intrinsic value, and that value comes not from a malleable “social contract,” but from a transcendent law giver.

    When we say “love is…” something, we’re making assertions about reality; saying something is true. What is that grounded in?

    When we say “should” in the context of a person other than ourselves, we’re applying a moral which we believe transcends the hearer. What is that grounded in?

    Well, for me, it the Bible. Not because it’s convenient, because it’s very often not. Not because it’s popular; it’s very often not. But because I believe it to be the best, most accurate expression of who man is and what the world is like. That doesn’t make me traipse along with my head in the clouds waiting for eternal reward. It makes me keenly aware that I’m responsible to act rightly in the very moments I find myself in.

    So you asked why… there’s my (never very) quick, thumbnail response. :)

    And though it sounds like we come from different perspectives, I couldn’t agree more that we need to love “ferociously.” (The phrase reminds my of a character in Lewis’ The Great Divorce.)

    I get the impression that you perhaps have been on the receiving end of a lack of love from Bible-believers. I hope that’s not true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is. If so, I’m sorry. We Christians still often fail. However, if you look at Christ rather than Christians, you will at least see what we acknowledge as right and good and true. Don’t judge something based on it’s misrepresentation.

    “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Mahatma Gandhi

    P.S. OK, I’m sorry… one last obvious comment concerning “To face death in all its finality, with no afterlife—could make one ferociously loving in this life.” Yes, and it could also make one ferociously cruel or ferociously self-centered. Why go with loving?

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