Living Christian: responding to things our non-religious friends say

 

In this first article exploring the challenges of living our Christian faith today, I want to look at the things our non-religious friends say.

In Britain, by far the biggest and most dominant religion is irreligion. I contrast this with atheism – the significant conviction in a person’s life that there is not (or probably isn’t) a god. Irreligion is simply a complete lack of interest in the subject.

Like many of you, I have enjoyed the pleasure of deeply meaningful relationships with non-religious people, in my professional and personal circles.

I possess that most subtle of Christian faiths, not aggressively preached but nonetheless allowed to filter through into what I show people of myself. Those who know me can be in no doubt about what it means to me.

This post is written to give what I think are good responses to those comments one will most often here when the matter of faith arises.

 

If it works for you, that’s great!

 

This is typically said in all sincerity. The person is genuinely pleased for you that you have a system of beliefs and a blueprint for living that gives your life direction, meaning and joy.

To acknowledge it with graceful silence can, however, feel like an acceptance of the relativistic implication: it’s good because it’s true for you, rather than because it is simply true. Yet to argue the point feels preachy and hostile.

In this instance, the best thing to do is emphasise what you agree with. Yes, our friends are right that it has huge benefits to our lives and it has worked, and continues to work, very well indeed.

 

I wish I had your faith!

 

This line does open up a dialogue, though care must be taken to consider how much appetite the person has for a religious discussion or an autobiography.

One way to handle it would be to stress the most compelling reasons for Christian faith: it best explains the world we liv in, and it helps us through our lives. Aside from that, everyone puts faith in things all the time.

The other way to handle it would therefore be to talk about what they put their faith in, and use this conversation to better understand what’s important to them, and what they understand about the nature of belief. These relationships, after all, should never exist for the purposes of converting anyone but as beautiful things in themselves, from which both enjoy blessings.

I think that many people believe religious faith to be a kind of blind faith, in which we believe simply because we were told or have had what one might call mystical experiences. And yet, for me, the universe points far more convincingly to the hand of a god than to the purposeless chaos of atheist explanations, to say nothing of the fact that Christianity is unique among faiths for drawing on historical evidence about the life, death and resurrection of the figure at its centre, Jesus Christ.

 

I wish I had that certainty!

 

This is a common one. It’s tricky because I don’t think there is anything in the offer of Christianity that promises certainty, at least at all the possible levels of that term.

There may indeed be certainty about what we believe, and confidence that we are, indeed, made in the image and likeness of God and called to a relationship with him now and eternally.

Yet there is often just as much uncertainty in our daily walk through life – uncertainty about the future; uncertainty about how we’re called to serve others; the meaning of teaching; the big intellectual questions like the existence of evil and of suffering.

What it gives us, rather, is the certainty over the god in whom we hope, which comes with the immense peace that often enables Christians to navigate the troubles of this world in the ways that others admire.

The answer, then, is that our non-religious brothers and sisters know just as well as us what it is to have values and principles, and to struggle to know how best to implement them in their daily lives. That experience we share, even if our framework refers to the teachings of Christianity.

 

It must be a great comfort!

 

Yes, let’s be honest, this is straightforwardly true. Our faith, if it does not give us comfort and hope, is probably in trouble.

That said, it is by no means all one way. Faith may be a comfort but it can also make life profoundly uncomfortable, placing upon us demands we may prefer not to meet and may find especially challenging. Love my enemy? Pray for those who persecute me? That’s one tall order!

 

I try to be a good person!

 

Our non-religious friends will often make this remark, presumably to point out the common ground between us. Affirm their goodness. Building people up is just part of being a good friend. Our friends are also people made in God’s image.

Care must be taken, however, not to allow the idea to set in that Christians consider themselves to be better people. For one thing, our non-religious friends can of course put us to shame in their own morals and goodness. Regardless, however, as Christians we accept that we are sinful and made worthy by God’s grace. We are constantly aware of our unworthiness and called to acknowledge and repent for our faults, misdeeds and sins of omission.

 

I’m not religious/it’s not really for me!

 

When you hear this, it may only be a statement of fact – the establishment of positions on a given subject matter as happens in conversation. It is also, however, a boundary that tells you how the other person sees things.

You know that you didn’t come to faith by force. If it were forced on you against your will and against your intellectual convictions, you would have abandoned it. IT is unreasonable not to allow people the space and the freedom to come to their own conclusions in their own way and in their own time. In any relationship, you must always take people as you find them.

Christians do not convert people – God does that. Your most powerful testimony is the way you live your life. Your aim should always be to treat others in such a way that in an encounter with you, they have an encounter with Christ, our example of perfect love, who should therefore have the concluding words:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12-13.