Why Christianity?

Why are Hindus Hindus? Why are Muslims Muslims? Why are Jews Jews? Why are Christians Christians?

One answer is simply that we tend to cling onto the beliefs that we grew up with. We don’t want to be told that we’ve been wrong all our lives about our faith in what we’ve believed to be the only true religious way.

Another reason that we tend to cling to the religion of our parents is because parents often disown children who develop religious beliefs different from theirs. They train their other children to participate in the act of “cutting off” the dissident one, the rebel, the “black sheep.” That holds true no matter what religion you’re talking about. And let’s not play a game with semantics here: Christianity is a religion.

Suppose England had been invaded by a Muslim army back when the Byzantine Empire took control over the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. And suppose that Muslim invaders had long ago forced the English to accept Islam as their religion, or else be put to the sword.

Then suppose generations later that Muslim Englishmen were the vast majority of settlers in what is now the United States of America. Would America be a Christian nation, or a Muslim nation?

I would like to think that the strong tendency for Americans to rebel against any religion being forced upon us would hold true no matter what. And that we would stand up for our freedom to choose for ourselves what religion to believe in. And that if our ancestors had been overcome and forced to accept any religion, that we would now be strong enough to throw off that which had once been forced upon us so that we could now choose for ourselves how to serve our God.

I thank God that the Byzantine Muslims didn’t take control of the Western half of the Roman Empire. And thank God that Jesus Christ never forced anyone to choose between following him, or being put to death. With Jesus, it was the other way around.

He doesn’t force us to accept him or die: he offered up his life to die for us so that we can have true life, with true freedom. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). If Christian salvation was never forced upon our ancestors, and never forced upon us, then how does one become a born again, saved Christian?

The salvation experience itself is uniquely a little bit different in how it reaches every individual. However, “Repentance Unto Salvation” has certain factors which are common to most Christians. So next letter, lets look at what steps you likely went through while getting saved, or getting born again. Or if you’re not a born again Christian, let’s look at the process most of us go through in becoming one.