(This post originally appeared on the now defunct centurybound.com blog on December 22, 2005. It appears here with some major rewrites from the author.)

While surfing the internet, I happened upon the blog of an atheist who was asking the following question of her readers:

 “How many people would believe in a god if there were no rewards promised to the self for doing so?”

This rather loaded question is a complicated one. It is actually not meant to be a question, but rather an attack on the principles of Christianity. The atheist is suggesting that the Christian faith is a selfish one and insinuating that if there were no promise of Heaven, there would be few, if any, Christians. There is no chance I could ever answer the question to this particular atheist’s satisfaction because I suspect she believes she already knows the answer. Furthermore, I’m not sure there is a way to know the answer. Since there is a promise of Heaven, I have no idea how many Christians there would be if that promise was ripped out from under us. I suspect, rather sadly, there would be less. Possibly much less, but that is just a guess. I know that in my own experience, Heaven did not enter the equation. I chose to believe in God because I had an encounter with Him that began to make sense to me intellectually. I then chose to believe in Jesus Christ (and the Christian faith) specifically for an abundance of reasons – none of which were Heaven. I sort of see Heaven as the icing on the cake. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad the promise is there; but my faith doesn’t hinge on it.

I believe we can examine this question introspectively in a way that can help us examine our faith. What if today, we pondered the following question?

Would you still follow Jesus Christ if there were suddenly no promise of Heaven?

If our answer to this question is ‘no’, I would suggest that we may be on shaky ground spiritually. I spent the majority of life before Christ creating a particular version of God in my mind and then imposing those values on the real God. For instance, the God I created was all knowing and all powerful. He had created this world and then stepped back to see what would happen. He was a fair God who would allow pretty much let anyone into Heaven provided they tried to live a good life (you know … paid their taxes, supported their children, didn’t kill anyone … that sort of thing). It was only when I humbled myself that I realized I had no right to impose my beliefs on God. If God were real, I had to allow Him to teach me about Himself and accept even what I didn’t understand. I had no business trying to invent God in my image. I had to understand and apply the old Axum that “Father Knows Best.” In other words, if God, in all His wisdom, suddenly decided there should be no Heaven, I would have to accept it – even if I didn’t understand it. I can’t worship God because of what He promises me, rather, I must worship God because He deserves it.

I am so thankful that my God has promised me Heaven. I also believe there is a hell. Hell, in my opinion, is proof that God loves us. How’s that you might ask? Well, if what we really want is a place that is free from the presence and influence of God, he will provide it for us even though it breaks His heart to do so. That place is hell. It’s not God that makes hell such a terrible place … it is the complete absence of God’s influence that makes hell so bad.

Even though I have a concrete belief in Heaven and hell, I can’t make that the focal point of my faith. Why? Well, if all I do is think about the future … someday far in the future … I am ignoring one of Jesus’ most powerful lessons. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. What did He mean by that? I think He meant that we can experience Heaven right now in our mortal life. If hell is the total absence of God, then Heaven is living in God’s presence. In fact, Heaven is more than just the presence of God – it is a place where God’s Will is done. We can experience God’s presence and live in His will right now. If we spend all of our time looking towards the future, we will miss out on the beauty that is Heaven on Earth.

Think about it … we all know the bitter and depressed Christian who lives a miserable life and constantly talks about Heaven in the future tense. My heart goes out to these people. Thank God they have the promise of eternal life from the One True God to keep them going. I am not suggesting that it would be healthy to totally forget about our promise of Heaven; I just pray that someday we can all experience a shadow of Heaven right now!

The author of the book of James says something odd to open the book.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. “  James 1:1  NIV

The author calls us to joy in the midst of the times that try our souls.  The verse leaves me personally in a difficult place with difficult questions to answer.  If joy isn’t an emotion, then what is it?  How is it possible to have joy in the midst of difficulty?  When the roaring lion is circling me with the intention of consuming me, how is it possible to feel joy in any measure, much less enough to engage in any act of praise?

These questions point to the fundamental disconnect between the life God intends for us, and the life we typically lead.  It points to the notion that our ways aren’t God’s and his ways aren’t ours.  This exposes another facet of the logical difference between what God sees as how we should live thrive and respond to adversity and how we actually live.

The key to resolving this fundamental disconnect is found in understanding joy.  Joy isn’t an emotion, it isn’t a feeling, it isn’t happiness by another name.  The book of Galatians tells us that it is a fruit of the spirit.  In other words, it is an attribute that grows out of a life spent in humble communion with our redeemer, our savior, our creator, and our God.  It can’t be forced, faked, or cajoled into being.  It simply is not  unlike air, or gravity, or the wind.

So the response to this disconnect is found in qualitatively measuring  joy.  If we don’t feel joy in the midst of difficulty, it should tell us that something is not right with our relationship to God.  That isn’t meant to say that we shouldn’t feel anger, grief, or loss in times of difficulty.  We do, we should, and we will.  Rather, joy should be somewhere in that mix.  The degree to which we experience joy should function as a mirror to show us the state of our walk with Christ.

If our walk is functioning as it should our joy is derrived from our delighting in our God.  The degree to which we experience joy is directly proportional to the amount of delight we derrive from our relationship with God.  As a result, all of this boils down to the nature of our relationship with God.  When its good, right, and properly rooted in the mind of Christ, we should be experiencing Joy in some measure.

This reveals, at least to me, that joy is not a situational thing.  It is not something that comes and goes like a spring rain shower.  Rather it is a foundational thing that comes and abides in us like a well.  Joy should function to sustain us in trying times.  It should remind us that God is the creator and sustainer of our lives.  It should tell us that it doesn’t matter how hard the wind blows or how loud the the lion growls, God will act as our protector and redeemer kinsman.

It means that in spite of circumstances God’s love abides.  It means that in spite of the temporal trials we face, God’s committment to his children is eternally enduring.  It means that as long as we reside in the resting place that is our savior, the situations of life are devoid of power over us.  It means that God resides in relationship with those that are called by him, and live in community with him.  God protects his own, and seeks their best interest, even that best interest isn’t obvious to anyone involved.
It doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to us.  It doesn’t mean that we won’t face trials or difficult situations in life.  It doesn’t mean that our hearts won’t be broken in this life with the pain of loss and the accompanying grief.  It means that the joy of our foundational relationship with God sustains us in those times.  It means that when the flood of negativity invades our very soul, God is there with a hedge of protection and a flood wall to save us.

I think I am so interested in Atheism because I used to claim it for myself. I used to declare quite vehemently that God did not exist. I was appalled at the idea of sacrificing my will for a God who would figure my every step out for me. I frequently visit atheist blogs (of which there are many) and am always stunned by how bold and militant (I use the word militant to describe the tone of their discourse, not because I actually believe they are armed and dangerous) many have become in their opposition to Christianity. Of this, I have noted two common threads. First, it is only Christianity that elicits such a response from the atheist. Of course they may object to all faiths that claim a higher power on paper, but it is only Christianity that makes their skin crawl. Secondly, most of the “militant”  atheists are former Christians. Normally, they were raised by devout fundamental parents who forced them to go to church. In each case, they are able to tell their stories in great clarity of how they were wronged by their parents or their denomination. They remember with much angst every Christian they have ever met that fit the stereotype of the close-minded, Bible-thumping, fundamentalist that hated gays, women, and minorities all in the name of God. In most of these cases, I must admit, they are right. This post; however, is not aimed for such the atheist. Before I continue please allow me to offer the slightest bit of chastisement. If you fit the above description and have allowed a bad experience with a Christian, denomination, or family member the throw you into a tailspin and out of a relationship with God than shame on you. You should of had the courage to stand up in the face of such absurdity and proudly announce that the God of Abraham, Moses, Paul, and Mary found such behavior sickening. You should of had the foresight to study Scriptures and learn what the true living God felt about the behavior of His followers. You have allowed the actions of men to dictate how you feel about God and for that only you will be held accoutable. Quit using the actions of others as an excuse to be hateful, spiteful, and stupid.

Now that I’ve made a bunch of people mad at me … let me continue.

This post isn’t intended for those listed above. It is intended for the atheist who feels that perhaps they have made a mistake. Maybe they can’t decribe it, but there is a feeling in their gut that tells them there is a God out there somewhere. Maybe they’ve witnesses little hints of His existence but can’t quite put their finger on it. I know you’re out there because I used to be just like you. Even when I was boldly declaring there was no God there was a part of me that wondered if I was wrong. I didn’t know in what form God existed, but I slowly came to believe that He did. It was if the more I denied Him … the more I wondered about Him.

If this is your case, than I pose the following question to you. Which God will you claim? Which God is the God of the Atheist?

I suppose you could create your own deity. Perhaps you could sit down with  your old D&D buddies and create the perfect God from scratch. You could first decide what qualities you would want in a God and then create the being and a theology to match. This might work for awhile, but it surely will not satisfy your curiosity. It would be a bit like trying to satisfy a deep hunger with the mud pies you made as a child. It may look like real food but it lacks the necessary ingredients to sustain your body. Let’s pretend, for an instant, that you are desperately lonely and in need of a friend. To meet this need you, like many children before you, create and imaginary friend; we’ll call him Ralph. Ralph may be fun to play with for a little while, but what happens when you are hurting and need a real shoulder to cry on? What happens when you are being bullied and need actual fists to come to your defense? What happens should you need a simple hug. Ralph will work just fine until you are in real need of a friend and then he proves inadequate. It is the same way with a false god of your imagination. The false God will only work until you need the real deal … then you are up a creek. So let’s dismiss this notion right away.

If we have decided not to design a god from scratch, we are left to consider some of the more popular religions of the world. Many of these religions are pantheistic. Of those, we can dismiss them almost immediately. Nothing can be more disturbing to someone with an atheistic bent than to find out there are multiple gods all around us … or that all things, including ourselves, are gods. There other holes within pantheistic faiths, but we are speaking only to needs of the atheist at the moment. While the leap from atheist to deist may seem incredible, monotheism should be somewhat more palatable to the atheist. Believing in one God seems to be a far shorter step for the atheist than believing in multiple gods. We can now dismiss pantheism along with a god of our own design.

This leaves us with only a couple of options left (if were are only examining the more popular faiths). I believe we can scratch Buddhism off the board right away. I’ve heard Buddhism described as being neutral on the existence of God and atheistic. Either way, it doesn’t meet out criteria. The atheist already doesn’t believe in god so to choose a religion that either has no opinion on the subject or denies His existence seems to be a step sideways at best and at worst a step backwards. Remember, we are trying to decide which god the atheist should choose … Buddhism may be a choice of religion or of practice, but it is not a choice of God. Thusly, Buddhism can be ruled out for th atheist.

After ruling out creating our own god, pantheism, and Buddhism;  we are left with the three great monotheistic religions of the world. I understand there may be a god worshiped on an island somewhere that I am leaving out, but I am trying to be realistic. As a result, we are left to examine Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Remember, this is geared for the atheist that is on the cusp of choosing a god. The following will not apply to everyone, but I ask that you momentarily put yourself in the shoes of the atheist.

Judaism: To the atheist, the conversion to  Judaism may seem a little overwhelming. To the best of my knowledge, it is virtually impossible to convert to Orthodox Judaism as there are matters of culture and birth to be considered. Also, according to the tenets of the Jewish faith, it isn’t necessary for a non-Jew to convert to Judaism to be considered righteous. In fact, if I understand it correctly, a person who converts to Judaism is held to far higher standards than one who doesn’t. At any rate, the difficulty of converting to Judaism seems to outweigh the benefits.

Islam: Along with Christianity, Islam seems to me more concerned with converting non-believers than other religions. You may expect that my arguments against Islam may include the beliefs that they convert people through force and kill those who choose to recant the Islamic faith. It may surprise you that I will not use those arguments. While it may be true that directions to kill and use force may be found in the Quran, it is certainly not the practice of most Muslims to do so. I think in some cases, Christians twist the words of the Quran around and take them out of context. Please note that I said in “some” cases, not “all.” I believe an extensive review of the Quran reveals many things the Islamic faith is lacking … but there is one specific item that Islam is missing that should deter the atheist from choosing Allah as their God. This lacking will be revealed when we examine Christianity.

Christianity: If the atheist scratches home-brewed religions, pantheism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam off of her list, she is left with one viable option; Christianity. The question is should the atheist scratch off Christianity as well and return to a Godless existence or give Christianity a shot. What follows is a a brief argument for the latter.

As an atheist, Christianity offers the only God that shares your doubts. Let me explain. In His defining moment on the cross, Christ exclaimed,  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). I’ve seen many armchair theologians debate this passage, but I can only assume that Jesus was expressing exactly what he felt at that moment. He felt alone and abandoned by God. At that moment on the cross, Jesus did not feel God the Father’s presence in His life. To be fair, many theologians will argue that this couldn’t be the case because to doubt God is a sin and Christ lived a sinless life, so they will come up with any number of explanations for what Christ said in His defense. For them, I offer the following thoughts; I entirely agree that Christ lived a sinless life, but considering His words on the cross, I can only assume that doubting God and feeling abandoned or alone is not a sin. Perhaps Christianity is teaching that it is natural in some circumstances to doubt, question, and feel alone.

In Christ, atheists will find the one God who entered the world to feel the same emotions they have. To quote G.K. Chesterton, atheists will find “[the only] divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”

Only one religion teaches that God entered our world and shared our doubts, pain, and took our sin upon Himself. It is Christ that all other religions lack.

Christ is the God of the Atheist.

Sources

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
Reading Islam
Judaism 101
Holy Bible – NIV Translation

In his book, What is Reformed Theology? Understanding the Basics, R.C. Sproul explains the difference between Religion and Theology. He explains that religion is the study of particular types of human behavior, while theology is the study of God. In other words, religion is man-centered while theology is God-centered. It has occurred to me slowly over the last few months that much of what we do as Christians has little to do with God. We seem intent on practicing a religion that is man-centered.

The desire of any Christian should be to focus his life on Christ. We should all be more interested in how God would want our faith to play out in our lives. Too often, we take our cues from our pastors, denominations, authors, small groups, and other areas of influence when we should be taking our cues from Christ.

Sometimes, I think we have created a faith that has little to do with the real living God.

I am beginning to lose interest in the faith we have created. In the faith we have created, we expect God to manifest Himself in a variety of ways. How many times have you heard someone say after a church or worship service, “Wow, I could really feel God’s presence in there,” or, “The spirit was really moving during that sermon.” Have you ever heard someone say that during a moment when you didn’t feel God at all? I know I have. It is in those moments that I feel like the worst Christian in the Kingdom. There’s been moments when I wondered why everyone else seemed to sense God’s presence when I couldn’t. I wondered what I was doing wrong. Then it ocurred to me … those people are lying.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you can never feel God’s presence during church or feel the Spirit moving during a worship session; however, I am saying that we have created a church environment where you fall short as a Christian if you don’t feel God’s presence at the right moments. So much of what we do as a church and as Christians involves creating moments for God to reveal Himself. We create emotional sermons, passionate worship songs, tear-jerking service opportunities, and intimate small group discussions with the expectation that God will participate when and where we say so. There are even some denominations that expect the Holy Spirit to make you jump around, dance, and speak in tongues; and if it doesn’t happen, there is something wrong with you.

It is as if someone says, “Let God out of His box now so we can all feel better about ourselves … just be sure to put Him away when we’re done!”

I am nearly forty years old and I have been a Christian for going on ten years. While there have been several times in my life when I have felt God’s presence and even times when I felt as if Jesus were speaking right to me, I must admit that none of these moments occurred on demand. Rather, God has spoken to me in moments of His choosing. Do we really think that we can demand the Creator of the universe to speak to us because it is Sunday morning and expect to get a response?

When you study the life of Christ it is apparent that He never acted and responded to the people around Him in the way they expected. He changed all of the rules and all the expectations they had for their savior. He was a rebel that refused to be typecast. Shouldn’t we expect Him to be the same now. I fear that far too often, we attempt to turn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into our own personal puppet.

In his book, Real Church, Larry Crab attributes all of this to an addiction to ourselves. I couldn’t agree more. We create these moments for God to participate in our religion because we selfishly want to feel His presence on our schedules. We play worship music not because we feel He is worthy of our praise, but rather because it gets our adrenaline pumping and makes us feel better about ourselves. We create service opportunites not out of a desire to serve our fellow man, but rather because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We pick and choose our churches like we pick and choose our movies … we’re not interested in attending the church where God wants us because we are too busy trying to find the one that entertains us the most.

Our religion has become all about us when it is supposed to be all about God.

Study the life of any saint worth remembering and you will find they lived a life that was God-centered rather than man-centered. Mother Teresa’s life would have been impossible if she had been afflicted with this addiction to self. Rather than wasting her time creating opportunities for God to reveal Himself, Teresa went about the business of serving her fellow humans and waited patiently for God. By her own account, she went decades without feeling the presence of God … but yet continued to wait for Him.

God is not fast food. We can not have Him our way. We can only experience Him in His way and on His schedule. Larry Crabb teaches that this anticipation is more valuable at times than any experience we can have of God in this life. Jesus taught that this life is all about anticipation. Heaven is so close we can taste it. We should look forward to it like a little child does Christmas morning. There is no experience we can have in this life that will come close to the experience of being with Christ in Heaven … we should embrace this anticipation and quit trying to put the cart before the horse.

Church, sermons, worship songs, service, small groups …. these are all good things if they serve to increase our anticipation for God. He will reveal Himself to us on His schedule. The Spirit will move among us … not like a pay per view movie, but rather like the living, breathing God that He is. We should embrace those moments when we can’t feel God’s presence in this world because He has  promised we will live entirely in His presence someday.

Manipulating God into doing our bidding … creating moments that feel religious … these are the things that false religions are made of. These are the things I no longer have an interest in.

Father, my prayer is for you to speak to me and fill me with the Spirit as you see fit. I ask that you help me stop and take notice of You in the moments You are trying to speak to me. In the moments that I can’t feel Your presence, I ask that You fill me with anticipation. Father, I want to desire your presence like a child desires his Christmas present. Lord, lead me to worship, praise, study, and serve with the right motives. Help me to conquer my addiction to self and become more addicted to anticipating You.

Amen.

Further Reading:

Real Church by Larry Crabb
What is Reformed Theology by R.C. Sproul
Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit by Charles Stanley

A few years ago my friend Russ and I decided to get into bike riding. It happened kind of on a whim, but I jumped in with both feet and went out and bought a fancy road bike with all the bells and whistles. Soon after, I bought a nice mountain bike and cycling became my primary form of entertainment. I can remember with great clarity how exciting it was when I first rode over ten miles. Soon, a ten mile ride was nothing to me. Before I knew it, a fifteen or twenty mile ride was common place. I even logged a few rides over fifty and sixty miles. It was a blast. Life eventually got in the way; however, and I got a little derailed. I sort of fell of the bike riding wagon and gained about fifty pounds. Riding the bike was suddenly harder for me. I rode just today and had to work to get in seven miles.

If you put my bike riding into church-talk, you could say that I “back-slid.”

“Back-sliding” is a phrase that I hear often. If you hang out with Christians for any length of time, you’ll eventually hear it as well. Normally, it comes just after someone finds out I’m a Christian, “I didn’t know you were a Christian Clark. I used to be one, but I’ve sort of “back-slid.”

This terminology drives me up a wall. My first response when someone tells me they have ‘back-slid’ is to ask them how. I ask for specifics. I am interested in knowing because it blows me away that someone can think they have fallen so far off the track that they no longer qualify as a Christian. Normally, after I talk to someone long enough, I discover that they don’t mean they have quit believing in Christ or the lessons He taught … what they normally mean is that they have fallen back into a pattern of sin that they thought they had outgrown or given up for good. It is the recurrence of that sin in their lives that prompts them to describe themselves as a “former Christian” that has “back-slid.”

Let me explain why this cheeses me off so much. Being “back-slidden” as described above is a man made concept. Obviously, there are some people who used to believe in Christ and possessed a Judeo-Christian faith that have quit believing for some reason. That’s a different story than I described above. The problem is that most people who describe themselves as “back-slidden” don’t fit into that category; rather, they have allowed the presence of sin in their lives to convince them that they no longer qualify as a Christian. Maybe that’s a concept that their pastor taught them, or maybe it comes out of their denomination’s doctrinal statement; but it certainly isn’t Biblical. The Bible says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! We’ve discussed the concept of grace in detail on this blog … tell me, whom among us deserves it?

Denominations that allow people to think they can “back-slide” enough to make God quit loving them are doing their members a huge disservice. So you’ve got sin in your life, huh? Guess what … so does every Christian that walks the earth!

The heart of the matter here is cowardice. People that say they have “back-slidden” out of the grace of the All Mighty are cowards. They make it sound like something that happened to them involuntarily. Certainly, there are addictions and what-not that are harder to fight than others, but all of us who call ourselves Christians have to deal with the presence of sin in our lives. It isn’t always easy, but Christ calls us all to deal with the sin in our lives and live for a higher purpose. Paul compared following Christ to running a marathon because it isn’t always easy.

We have a choice … we can dub ourselves back-slidden and fall deeper and deeper into sin …. or we can get back on the bicycle and huff and puff our way for seven miles … and accept the fact that Jesus Christ died for us no matter where we are on the path.

Clark