Written: Mar 17, 2022. Edited: Sept 20, 2022.
Christianity is a religion that many Christians claim is a relationship with God, rather than a religion, thus setting it apart from any other form of “religion” throughout the world. However, there is a shortsighted trend in today’s Christians that had existed for over many hundreds of years, which suggests something different than what is claimed by the Christians. I want to bring this issue to light in this article. It is nothing earthshattering or something that is so esoteric that demands everyone’s praise or thanks, but it is a little insight and an observation that should 1) bring shame to every Christians that claim to be a spiritual leader and 2) initiate a sense of wonder and appreciation in those that are just getting to know their creator.
So, to get into perspective, Christianity is, in a literal sense, a religion that follows the way of Jesus Christ, the son of God that was meant to be sent by God to be the savior of all humanity that will take away the sin of the world. The key theme, here, is that Adam, the imperfect son of God, brought the concept of sin into this world, and Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, which is also a descendant of Adam, will take away the sin of this world. If I put this into another perspective, an imperfect man’s sin was taken away by a perfect man, thus letting humanity “fix” its own mistake, and this was made possible because God came down to earth, as a man, and suffered the ultimate sufferance, death, as a man and returned to his kingdom, the Kingdom of God, where we all belong.
This knowledge is provided to us by a well-known book called the Bible that has helped us, the modern Christians, learn about our creator, but at the same time, became a source of handicap that kept us from having the real relationship with God that today’s Christians, mistakenly, claim to have. I dare say such because, instead of having a real live relationship with God, they have a relationship with the Bible instead, based on what is written in the Bible, as they treat it as God just because it is written that, “the word was God,” according to John 1:1 which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” As people mistakenly believe that ALL of the Bible, every single word, is the word of God, therefore it, the Bible, is God. There are hundreds and thousands of Bibles being burned or ripped or trashed in the world, and there had been tens and hundreds of thousands of Bibles that were burnt throughout the history of the world. Does that mean God had been burnt, ripped, and trashed for hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of times since God created the universe? “Of course, that is not the case, as you are taking things a little too literal,” so says the avid defenders of the Bible. Well, then, when does the word become God and when does it not? Does the Bible have a temporary “Godhood,” as the situation directs it (i.e., it is a God when taken good care of, but as soon as it is burnt, it is no longer a God)?
No. Bible is not God just as every word that is written in the Bible is not the words of God. If what’s written in the Bible, or rather, if there is only “one” word of God written in the Bible, would I be burning God just because I burnt the Bible? Of course not. What does that mean? I have just proved that the “Word of God” that John 1:1 speaks of is not the same “Words of God” that make up the whole Bible. John 1:1 is referring to the beginning of time when God manifested as the “Word” and at the same time, God. In other words, John 1:1 is not saying that the words of God written in the Bible are manifesting as God. Does God create copies of himself whenever he utters a word? If I continue on in this logic, I have to say that in this world, there are millions and billions of copies of God running around. Is that true? If that was true, God has to call himself back to put himself back together every time he gets done with whatever he had to say. Of course, it is not true! This just goes on to say, that we can’t always take what is written in the Bible literally and that the truth is not always so apparent.
Bible is known to be the “inspired” word of God where God had inserted thoughts and ideas into select individuals that had contributed to the books of the Bible. Though the meat of this topic is a tangent that will be covered in another article, then, how much of the Bible is inspired thoughts and ideas from God? The claims vary from 100% inspired to an unspecific answer of, less than 100% inspired, as the Bible has many controversies as well as oddities that, simply, do not fit into the normal logic of the world.
However, for the sake of the focus of this article, even if the entirety of the Bible was 100% inspired, there is a question that is begging to be answered. Which relationship is more real, between a relationship based upon the past versus a relationship based upon today? The answer is the latter. Do we live in the past or do we live in the now? We live in the now. Can we have a life-affirming relationship with past memories or do we affirm our life through relationships that we make during our journey of life, in real-time? We affirm our lives through the relationships we make now. What does the Bible represent in terms of now? Bible does not answer all of “now.” Does it meet and satisfy all of our needs, concerns, and questions stemming from modern-day issues and crises? No. Does it have answers for ever-changing phases, societies, and advancement of knowledge? No. I am not saying that all of the answers obtainable in the Bible are obsolete, as some things never change, but there are things that do change that the Bible does not always have answers for.
Most importantly (still under the premise that the Bible is 100% inspired), is God only the God of past inspirations? I hope the readers answer with an EMPHATIC NO! At this point, there will be some that respond with, “I learn something new while reading Bible every day,” to say that the relationship is “new.” Well, the same is true with any other books! We all will learn something new while reading a 1000+ pages book (Bible) every day, but we can also learn something new from reading 300 pages book every day just as well. The point is that the Bible, no matter how many pages it has and no matter how many words it has, still has a finite number of pages and a finite number of words because it is a finished product. That said, how big is finite as compared to the infinite possibilities of now (unfinished and ever unpredictable)? Not very big. Why will a forever living God only resort to a finite worded book of the past to converse with us when he has the infinite possibilities of now? He doesn’t. Even if God was the God of the past, why would he only express himself to us through a book? He didn’t.
God expressed himself to us through all of his creations and God is still doing that. He didn’t stop. He expresses himself to us through the laws governing nature (Physics – gravity, light, sound; Biological – smell, touch, thought; and all the studies relating to the respective laws such as chemistry, math, and other sciences), through actions of ourselves and others, through the passivity of ourselves and others, through death, through life, through anger, through patience, through discipline, through pain, through justice, through compassion, through love, and most importantly, God expresses himself to us through other human beings, regardless of whether they are good or evil and regardless of whether they know God or not, because, “… he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Mathew 5:45). What does this scripture mean? It means that God inspires not just the good, but the evil also. However, a more correct saying is, “God allows inspiration to happen, not just to the good, but, also, to the evil. Why? Because inspirations are all around us (because that is the divine law availing to the good as well as the bad), and it’s the prepared minds that have the receptacles to receive them.
So, when we have been enlightened into a certain understanding by reading some book written by some Joe Shemo, we have a sense of knowing within our hearts that God had willed it to happen. It is at those moments that we should realize the universality of God’s will and where we belong in that God-sized network.
Then what does this all mean for us? “Draw near to God and he will draw near to us”(James 4:8). When we earnestly search for God, he draws near to us for us to find him, through any and all sources of medium. We don’t have to go to the Bible all the time to find God. Sometimes, all we have to do is, simply, open the eyes of our hearts, and we realize that he has always been with us. We just didn’t have the right lens to realize that fact!
So, going back to the topic of “Christianity: religion or relationship?” If we base our relationship on the past and past sayings of God instead of fostering the current relationship with the LIVING God, how can we say that Christianity is a relationship rather than a religion? Even though everything in life is a matter of perspective (such as glass half full vs half empty), my personal perspective is that the majority of Christians are religious, rather than relationship-seeking!
What about you? Are you stuck “with” the past, or are you pursuing the relationship of now!?
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