Effortless Effervescence

Read my pre-review warm-up here.

I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon. What I leaned upon was the truth of my experience, the exhilaration and devastation that go hand-in-hand when you live a life of faith. I refused to let anyone to tell me what to believe; I’d been led astray once, with disastrous consequences, and I’d rather be wrong of my own accord than follow someone else’s dogma.

Until this past summer, when I became online friends with someone who asked me some frank questions about my faith, and who responded with indignation when I made an offhand comment mocking the Christian scriptures. Not only was I embarrassed and horrified that I’d offended someone by speaking without thinking (something I do All Too Often, though I think I’m getting better with age), but for the first time in a long time, I realized that I needed to think critically about who Jesus was to me. As I did, I realized that my so-called beliefs were thin and weak, based more on suspicion and long-held grudges than on objective reasoning about right and wrong. I decided that I needed to figure out Where I Stood, if for no other reason than to be able to answer intelligently when someone asked me, “What do you believe?”

Reading The Case for Christ was part of that quest, one of many books that I’ve picked up and read in whole or in part to get an idea of where I fall in the broad spectrum of spirituality. I had something of a panic attack early in my research, while reading Strobel’s equally compelling book, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, which addressed the cognitive dissonance that keeps so many people from putting their faith in Jesus - or having any faith at all. “If God is love, why is there so much suffering in the world?” is the first question Strobel tackles in Faith, and as I read his arguments - which were not perfect, but more than satisfactory - I began to freak out. “I know this is right. I believe God is real. But I can’t become a Christian again. I can’t be that unkind again. I can’t be that vulnerable again. I just CAN’T.”

You see, my experience over many years has taught me that God is real and good, but that human beings are capable of doing just as much evil in his name as good. My studies over the past six months have taught me that the evil people do doesn’t change the reality of God - and it doesn’t relieve me of the very difficult choice I have to make in response to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?”

This is why I bought a used copy of The Case for Christ, and reviewed the “Reasons to Believe” that I’d learned more than a decade ago. Strobel’s book is effective and interesting, and usually has the effect of blowing a first-time seeker’s mind wide open. But it’s not the last word on the subject; a Google search of “review case for christ” yielded this site as the top result, which answers Strobel’s arguments more than adequately. This confirmed what I’ve known for a very long time: many brilliant minds have believed in Christ, and have offered good reasons for their beliefs. And many brilliant minds have NOT believed in Christ, and offered equally good reasons for their unbelief.

So here is the source of my conflict: my visceral fear of becoming once again enslaved to a man’s idea of God was - and is - at war with my heart’s longing for Jesus. And intellectual arguments only buffer me back and forth over the line: Yes, I believe. Wait! No, I don’t. As a good friend of mine said recently, “proving Jesus’s existence may be a matter of science and history, but proving his divinity is a matter of faith.” And faith is not something we can manufacture all on our own. So I don’t recommend The Case for Christ as a definitive answer to all of your questions about this person named Jesus. I don’t have all of my questions answered - I’m not even sure what all of my questions are! - but I’ll keep you posted.