I’ve had an epic week
so far. I’m doing a year volunteering at Warwick Uni helping the Christian
Union there to give students a chance to think through the big questions of
life and meaning and God – and this week the international students have arrived.
I have met so many fascinating and friendly people from literally all over the
world – France, Italy, Spain, Russia, South Korea, Malaysia, Tanzania, Ecuador –
and because my answer to “So what are you studying then?” is such a weird one,
I’ve had some fascinating conversations about their personal takes on the
meaning of life, the universe and everything!
One thing that’s
particularly interesting about the encounters I’ve had this week, is how
drastically different people’s responses to the idea of Jesus and Christianity
are – and the way that relates to their cultural background.
I met a guy from India
today who explained to me that he wasn’t a Christian himself but he had always
been fascinated by the stories of Jesus – he had had a Christian teacher at
school who had told the class these stories – and when I offered him a copy of
John’s biography of Jesus he said he had already picked one up and put it in
his bag! For him, as far as I could pick up from our little conversation,
religious identity was something that was set – inherited from one’s parents
and community – but the stories of Jesus himself were a source of genuine
interest; surprising, even captivating.
At the same table I
met another postgrad, this guy from mainland China. He said he had never known
anything about Christianity before – although once we started talking the very
barest of bones started coming back to him – and he was very keen to discover
what it was all about! He wanted to learn everything about British culture, and
that included religion. It was hard to tell if his interest was purely
anthropological or whether there was a deeper curiosity involved.
Moments before I met
two guys from Malaysia. One of them said his Dad had been a Buddhist, but
started following Jesus two years ago. This guy himself was still a Taoist – or
at least I think that’s what he said to his friend as he gestured to a bracelet
he was wearing – but he went to church with his Dad when he was with him, and
was going to find the Christian society at university because his Dad had asked
him to!
Just before that I met
two Japanese guys. When I asked if most people in Japan were atheist, they said
that most people in Japan are not religious at all. The difference seemed very
significant to me. In our conversation it seemed that personal engagement with
any kind of religion wasn’t really a live option for them – it was something
that friends might do, but however much it seemed to have made an impact on one
particular friend, the thought that it might be for them as well had never
crossed their mind. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me – the powerful
assumption was that religion was a very much optional and rather eccentric
extra.
Two nights earlier I had
been round for enchiladas and drinks with some European postgrads – which was
great fun and very interesting. Emerging from largely post-Catholic or
semi-Catholic cultures, these guys had more ideas about Jesus – both helpful
and misleading! For some, discussion about Jesus would always be intermingled
with discussion about politics – because the politics of religion was so
prominent in the recent history of their country. For others, the question of
God was obviously not appealing as a topic of conversation – a polite nod and face
that clearly communicated that religion was a private thing in their opinion.
One guy though, an
Italian, starting asking some really interesting questions. “Why do you have a
desire to convince other people to share your faith?” was enough to get a
properly deep interaction started! “Why can’t people just be unselfish and have
solidarity without Jesus?” “What is this ‘evidence’ you’re talking about that
Jesus came back from the dead?” “How do you think about other religions?” “What’s
it like to be a Christian in the 21st Century, because it’s in
decline isn’t it?” “What do you do when – like Job – you’re trying to do what
God wants and then s*@t happens?!” Genuine questions – each profound enough to
elicit much more than a blog of their own!
Just now I was reading
a book which mentioned the Christian belief – my Christian conviction – that just
like Jesus was resurrected, those who are united to him by trust will be
resurrected too, when God renews the whole of creation (often slightly
simplistically referred to as ‘heaven’). As I read it, my brain thought,
‘Do you really believe this? Can you actually
conceive that this is what will happen either when you die or when Jesus comes
back? Or do you just agree intellectually but deep down reckon we’ll all just die
and rot?’
And I realised that it’s
very hard for my actual imagination, the shape of my brain at a deeper level
than it’s fully stated beliefs and ideas, to genuinely acknowledge that there
is a reality beyond the merely visible, measurable stuff of matter, and that
God really will bring about a life later on which is far more real than my
current experience. I think it’s a difficulty pretty common to all white
Western 21st Century Generation Xers. (Or are we Y now?) But my
conversations with all these brilliant people from different contexts reminded
me of something important: just because a
certain way of seeing the world is automatic for white Western members of
Generation X, doesn’t mean it’s the way reality actually is.
400 years ago in this
country, it must have taken serious mental audacity and tenacity to push
against the grain of the ‘social imaginary’ (Charles Taylor, A Secular Age) and conceive of a world
utterly devoid of anything beyond the measurable. An atheist in that context
must have found themselves asking, ‘Do I really believe that reality could at
root be without any mystery, purely matter plus time plus chance? Do I really
believe that life originated of its own accord, and that when we die we simply
cease? Is it even possible for my consciousness to be aware of itself while
believing itself to be nothing beyond the natural?’ No doubt I phrase these
doubts and difficulties in a horribly anachronistic way, but something like
that must have been there – nagging away, making it hard to unbelieve. It will
be the same today in large parts of South America, of Africa, certain areas of
Asia. But I don’t think the difficulty of being an atheist in Britain 400 years
ago is a good reason to believe in God – it was an awful reason. And in the
same way the ‘normalness’ of a secular, materialist way of seeing reality is
not a good reason to disregard the idea of God, or the evidence for Jesus. It’s
an awful reason. At best, it’s a form of intellectual laziness; at worst it’s
an ugly cultural arrogance, the usually only half-formed sense that we white Westerners
are ‘more advanced’ than other societies, we have made ourselves richer and
built more spectacular machines and so we must have a better grasp on the
nature of reality.
Instead, I think the
only humble, reasonable response to a world and a world history full of so many
different assumptions, convictions, conceptions of reality, is the approach of
my Italian friend: to ask good questions. It’s to refuse intellectual laziness
and make the effort to really think, really discuss, really investigate
arguments and evidence. All people are equal and of equal worth. All arguments
and ideas are not. (If you’re not sure you agree, think about for a few
minutes, with concrete examples, the claim that all ideas and arguments are
equally valid. If you’re still not sure try eugenics.) So we have to actually
evaluate different beliefs about reality, and different reasons for beliefs
about reality. We have to listen, and ask, and listen, and talk, and think, and
repeat. And in time, we will reach a working hypothesis. And on the way, we
will have begun to acquire true understanding, true respect, and maybe even
true wisdom.
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