Here’s something my friends, and occasionally random strangers, say to me a lot.
“I really respect your religion.”
Now, I love these people. And they are being really nice, and I appreciate that they respect me. Recently though, it struck me: it’s nice, but it doesn’t really make any sense!
Most of the people who say this to me, have just told me that they don’t believe in God, or at least that they don’t believe that Jesus died and then came back from the dead. Several of them say they are agnostic, or indifferent – because we can never really know one way or the other. I think quite a lot of you would agree with one of these things.
But if you think that the God I worship doesn’t exist – why do you respect that?!
If God isn’t real, and Jesus didn’t come back to life, I am wasting my whole life. I am talking to someone who isn’t there every night. I am deluding myself into believing that sometimes it’s a two way conversation. I am refusing to worry about my life, because I am trusting in the non-existent plan of a non-existent God. If Jesus isn’t really “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” like he claimed to be, then I’m going in completely the wrong direction!
If Jesus wasn’t resurrected, my whole life is a lie.
If you saw your mate talking into a toy phone, thinking someone could actually hear them, you wouldn’t respect them for it, you would tell them that it wouldn’t work. And I think it should be the same with people who believe in God – I mean, surely a really good friend doesn’t just watch while someone wastes their whole life.
I’m not saying that I wish everyone was nastier to Christians. Or even that it’s wrong to respect our faith. What doesn’t make sense to me is when people ‘respect’ it but then completely ignore it.
If you’re pretty sure that God doesn’t exist, then the kindest thing to do is to politely try and show Christians that they are mistaken, so they won’t give their whole life to a delusion. But if you wouldn’t do that, because you’re not really that sure – if you respect Christians because what we believe in seems to make some sense – if you know people who believe in God and you don’t think they’re lying or delusional – then maybe it’s worth giving it some more thought. Jesus claimed to offer all of us (that’s not ‘us’ Christians that’s all of ‘us’ humans) – “life, and life in all its fullness”. And surely, even if there’s just a tiny possibility that he actually is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, then that’s probably worth looking into.
So I dare you, if you are one of the lovely people who respects your friends’ faith – talk to them about it! Ask them why they believe in Jesus. Because then you can really respect them, just by hearing them out. Try it.
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