10 Myths About Christianity
Myth # 4: Conversion and religious experience are the result of social conditioning.
There is much truth to this statement. No one decides or acts in total isolation. Many social factors influence our choices and our practice of religion. We are continually affected by our past upbringing and our present environment. Yet this sort of social conditioning does not preclude genuine freedom of choice in religion. We are never simply bound by our influences; we live in dynamic interaction with them.
There are many people, however, who hold to their religion (or irreligion) simply because they were brought up in it or because they have succumbed to the pressure of a peer group. Others come to a specific faith through manipulative, “mind-bending” techniques that violate personal integrity. But these factors do not account for all cases of conversion or religious experience.
There are also authentic religious choices. People often consciously and intelligently choose to go against their upbringing or peer group. Many are personally convinced of the truth of their own religion and have committed themselves wholeheartedly to it.
This is the Christian ideal. Authentic faith is as distinct from the passive acceptance of tradition as it is from grasping at passing fads. While it is often initially hesitant and full of doubts, it grows and matures into a sustained, reasoned trust in God, with life-changing results.
This last point is crucial. Without a transformed life, faith is useless. Religious experience without a growing change in behavior and character is simply not Christian experience. Jesus emphasized repentance, the radical turning from evil to good, the renunciation of falsehood and the embracing of truth. This is a stringent demand. By this criterion, many who call themselves Christian would be excluded. Social conditioning is not enough. Radical commitment is required.
But commitment cannot stand alone. In the final analysis Christianity is concerned with the issue of truth. And this is the test for every commitment. Is God there or is he not? Who is Jesus Christ? Does the Christian perspective on life’s meaning really make the best sense of our experience? And there are many other important questions that invite serious investigation.
The challenge to each of us, then, is not to passively acquiesce in our own social conditioning, but to actively seek to know the truth about the universe and act accordingly.
Myth # 5: Christians are other-worldly and irrelevant to life in the 21st century.
This accusation often rings true. But while some Christians may seem other-worldly, and even irrelevant, they do not reflect the main Biblical teachings. Biblical Christianity emphasizes the importance of this world.
First of all, the Bible claims that the entire universe is created by God and is therefore good and important. Far from negating and devaluing the world, the Bible teaches that God loves his creation and sustains its continued structure and existence.
But the importance of the world is supported also by the doctrine of the incarnation – that God became man in Jesus Christ. The authentic humanity of Jesus is affirmed by the Bible. He was not some spiritual manifestation or temporary avatar, but a real flesh and blood person.
This is the tremendous message of Christianity. Humanity has chosen evil in rebellion against its Creator, and the world is no longer totally good. Yet God has not given up on us. God loves us to the point of becoming a human being to free us from evil.
The salvation God offers constitutes the third way in which Biblical Christianity affirms the importance of this world. Though Christianity is often characterized as a pie-in-the-sky religion, concerned with a hereafter of disembodied existence in an ethereal heaven, this is a gross distortion of its message. The Bible describes theKingdom of Heaven in the most concrete terms. It promises the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the entire creation. Salvation is holistic. Christ came to restore the creation to what it was meant to be, and that includes every aspect of human (and non-human) life.
This means that there is an important sense in which Christians must be other-worldly. Precisely because they envision a world free of evil, both at the beginning and at the end of history, they cannot accept this world at face value. They are other-worldly in that they look beyond the distortions and pretensions of this world to the one which is to come. They know there is something better.
But that means that they are fundamentally this-worldly. Christians are called to oppose evil in all of its individual and socio-cultural manifestations. They work toward healing, love, and justice in this world. In the context of our 21st century civilization of violence, oppression, and narcissism, this call is neither other-worldly nor irrelevant.
Myth #6: Science is in conflict with Christian faith.
Top scientists do not make this claim, but ordinary people often do. For them, science deals with facts, Christianity with values and emotions. Science can be proved, they say, Christianity cannot. Science is progressive. Christianity has often opposed progress. The scientific method is logical. Christianity involves the leap of faith. Science deals with the laws of nature. Christianity, apparently, thrives on miracle. The contrasts are immense. But they are myths all the same.
Both science and Christianity deal with evidence. Science deals with the evidence about our world, which is presented by what we can see, touch, measure and calculate. Christianity deals with what we can infer about our world from the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is very much open to examination – by the science of history.
Both science and Christianity involve value judgments, both involve the agent as well as the object. Both have a subjective as well as an objective side. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact. Even emotions are common to both “scientists” and “Christian believers.” Both are human beings. Both are reluctant to accept evidence that goes against what they have always believed.
Then is it true that science can be proved and Christianity cannot? Again, no. Science cannot be “proved.” To prove a thing with certainty, you have to show that it follows inexorably from something already known. Only deductive knowledge is certain. Of course, for all practical purposes, we accept the reliability of “laws” discovered by the sciences. But they are not proved.
Equally, you cannot prove Christianity. You cannot show there is someone greater than God from whom he can with certainty be deducted. That would be a contradiction in terms, for “God” is the name we give to the ultimate being. You cannot prove the historicity and teaching of Jesus Christ. You can’t do it with Julius Caesar either. Historical events are not “proved.” They are accepted or not on the ground of competent, credible, and preferably contemporary testimony. That is the ground on which Christians ask acceptance of Jesus.
Is science progressive, then, while Christianity opposes progress? There is some truth to that. But only some. Christianity has been opposed to progress at times in its history. But often Christianity has spearheaded progress in education, medicine, the liberation of the oppressed, of prisoners, slaves, and women, even progress in science.
Remember, too, the dark side of science. Think of nuclear fission – neutral in itself but opening the door to the destruction of the planet. Think of the terrifying possibilities opening up through biological engineering and chemical warfare. You might call these things “progress” in terms of strict academic science. But do they represent advance and progress for humanity itself?
Well then, is the scientific method logical, while Christianity involves a leap of faith? That is another myth. Both depend, in the long run, on faith. Faith is self-commitment on the basis of evidence. In the case of science, you must commit yourself to the assumption that the world we see and touch is real and to belief in the uniformity of nature and the prevalence of cause and effect. Without these prior “leaps of faith,” reasonable though they are, you cannot begin science.
So, too, real Christianity involves commitment. Commitment to the assumption that there is a living God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Commitment in faith to Jesus himself. Without that faith, that self-commitment on good evidence, there can be no Christianity. Contrary to popular opinion, by far the greater number of those who are converted to Christianity in the universities are scientists. It is not all that surprising. The approach is so similar: self-commitment on evidence – or faith.
And finally, what about miracle? If your theories are bounded by a closed physical universe with fixed and unalterable laws, you will find the concept of miracle, which involves the local and temporary suspension of those laws, intolerable. But that is a nineteenth view of science, and you would find few scientists of stature supporting it. The whole scene is much more fluid since the discovery of quantum physics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. But the important thing to remember is that the “laws of nature” are not prescriptive but descriptive. They do not determine what may happen; they describe what normally does happen. Science can say that miracles do not usually occur in the ordinary course of nature. But it cannot legitimately claim they are impossible. Such a claim lies outside the limits of science. And if God has really come to this world in Jesus Christ, is it so surprising that he performed miracles, as the gospels report?
Science is not in conflict with the Christian faith. To be sure, some scientists are. Other scientists are passionately committed Christians, just like people in any other walks of life. The reasons for such decisions must be sought elsewhere than in science.
