Christian author C.S. Lewis once said,
“If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however
helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it,
even if it gives him no help at all.”
Being a Christian, the session on
Christianity was a bit interesting. I did learn a few new things, but I did not
feel that the session was a thought provoking one. While I appreciated the
session from Rev. Jean-Claude Basset, I respectfully felt that he stated his
remarks from a very academic point of view. He taught as one who has studied
Christianity which is a necessary view to impart. Yet, I believe his focus
should have been more on the beliefs and what is the meaning of being a
Christian. What I experienced in the sessions with Rabbi Guedj, Shady, and
Mahmoud, was that they academically knew the teachings of their religion, but
they taught as a person within that religion, and I believe that should have
been the direction of sessions on Christianity as well. Nonetheless, I believe
that I did learn quite a bit, and I was exposed to the various teachings in
Christianity.
Based
on our sessions, I came away thinking that Christianity cannot truly follow the
commission of Christ as we are not very united ourselves. There are over thirty
thousand Christian groups in the world today, but there are only 350 that are
members within the World Council of Churches. That means not everyone is
working for the unity and the mutual respect between the churches. You can tell
everyone about Jesus, but at the end of the day, if they knew this much
information, then they would ask why they should join something that is so
divided. Yes, I do agree that diversity is great, but unity within diversity is
important. Otherwise, enmity will spring forth. Also, I do believe that the
region, culture, and languages play an integral part of the creation of
denominations, but from an outsider’s perspective, the more groups there are,
the less unified we look, regardless of what we do.
Despite
our diversity, I believe that we are unified in the essentials of Christian
faith. Rev. Basset considers the essentials to be: Jesus, Bible, Faith, Church,
Salvation, Mission (Love), and Spirituality. I believe that these are points
that any Christian can agree on. Jesus is the Savior of the world, and he came
to the earth to redeem us from our sins. Now, we live our lives to glorify his
name. Rev. Basset also went on to say that when we refer to Jesus as the Son of
God, we do not use that term in a biological way, but rather, he is the visible
image of God, just as mentioned in the Gospel of John and in the Epistle of
Hebrews. Then, the Bible is our sacred text, and we see the Bible as the
fundamental basis of our faith. Faith has two definitions. First, faith is about
having confidence and trust in something that we are otherwise not sure of, and
faith also means to be faithful. We should be faithful to God, and if we say we
trust him, then we ought to live in such a manner. The church is not a
building. In Greek, the word used to describe church is known as “ecclesia,”
and ecclesia means “assembly.” Therefore, the church is not the structure, but
rather, the believers or the body of Christ that assemble together.
Furthermore, our duty as Christians is not just to sit inside the four walls of
our building, but we are called to live what we learn, and that is the purpose
of being a church, in my opinion. Salvation has two meanings as well. First,
salvation is about liberation which is in context of slaves. We are slaves to
sin, and liberation is freedom from being a slave. Salvation is also about
redemption for prisoners. We committed wrong, and we are imprisoned for that,
but freedom comes from Christ. Mission, which he interchangeably used with
love, is not merely a doctrine, but a way of life. We are to live a life that
reflects our Savior. Finally, the last essential of faith is, spirituality. The
church began with the day of Pentecost which was the Holy Spirit coming down on
the Apostles. Similarly, Jesus’ ministry also began when the Holy Spirit
manifested himself. These seven are essentials, and of course, several
denominations has various beliefs about each of the seven, but I think they’ll
agree on the seven.
Rev.
Basset discussed the various aspects of Jesus that each of the Gospel writers
tried to pinpoint. Matthew would be the Gospel closest in context to Judaism,
because Matthew presents Jesus as a Jewish master. Mark presents Jesus as the
secret Messiah, because in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus works very hard in making
sure his true caricature is not known until the end. Luke presents the moral
teaching of Christ, and Luke shares parables of that Christ told. John is of
course the most different from the other three. The other three are known as
the Synoptic Gospels, but John enables those that read the book to see the
spiritual side of Jesus, and that he is the image of God the Father.
Jesus
left the earth around 33 A.D. Christianity was truly established as a religion
in 313 A.D. Until then, the early church was worshiping and teaching about
Jesus, but did not deem the need to be established. Once Constantine the Roman
Emperor converted to Christianity, he felt the need to provide Christianity
with structure, so as to not allow the religion to fall off.
In
the Nicene Creed, we read the church being described as the “Catholic and
Apostolic Church.” Apostolic, because most of the churches were founded or
started by one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. In the context of India, Thomas was
that disciple for India. Many wonder why Catholic is the term used here, and
they begin to wonder if the only church to be saved will be the Catholic
church, but the truth is, Catholic means universal, and one day, the divided
groups of Christianity will be united and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.
In
our group, we had quite the heated discussion about witnessing. My friend felt
that as Christians, witnessing is just the diplomatic way of proselyting, but I
viewed that on a very different scale. We do not proselytize, but we share the
joy that is in our heart. There is nothing that we can do to gain more of
heaven. Christ died on the cross for our sins, and he paid the ultimate price
for us. Now, we live our lives as he did, doing good things for others, because
we want to. This was perhaps the most heated and the most conflicted of
discussion that I have had after coming, but I am glad I did. I did not expect
everything to be all happy go lucky, but our time together should stir
disagreements, and really get to seeing each person’s perspective. I believe
that overall, I had a great experience today.
"In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
-Matthew 5:16
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