It's interesting to note that many people arrive at Christ starting with the worldview of orthodox Christianity then to the person of Christ, while I 'discovered' Christ 1st than the rest of Christianity as an organized religion.
Ask around and many will tell you bout Christ this way: God created the world, Man rebel against him and therefore sin befels on all humanity, which is why Christ is reincarnate as a man to die for our sins on the cross for the salvation of humanity.
For me, I was (and still is) moved by the very person of Christ and his teaching first before I know all about Christianity as a religious movement. The way he's so uncannily confident of his then-unorthodox teachings, his wise and incredibly insightful parables, his passion and submission to God and the way he lives his life.
In a way, I sort of absorb Christ's teaching that is totally independent from interpretation of church theology or any form of biblical scholarships, which might explain why I'm not as attached to the church life as part of my Christian living as do my fellow brethens. It was Christ who changed me, not the Christian religion nor the Christian church.
I used to think that the lack of persecution to the Christian faith is something we should be thankful about, as this is seen as a blessing from God where we can practise our beliefs without any forms of suppression and censorship from the government and the society around us. Which explains my extreme hatred of the Communist party of China in the past when I think of the millions of Christian who are persecuted and hunted down for their faith. I was concerned that such relentless persecution from the government will prevent many individuals to find the purpose of their lives in Christ, as I rationalize that such acts of persecution will scare people away from getting themselves involve with the Christian religion.
Now I've come to realize that the intensity of such persecution does not put out the flame of people's faith, but strangely fuel up the believer's faith so much more (as I've read in the book The Heavenly Man), that I have to admit that I am ashamed for my own cowardness and lack of faith. These people have done what seemed to be the impossible: their faith is flourishing under an incredibly suppresive government, and here I am, living complacently even as I have the full freedom to believe what I wanted and live accordingly without any hindrance.
Could it be that persecution of our faith is one of the true mark of honest and sincere discipleship to Jesus' teachings? Could it be that the reason for our freedom of worship is not because of some lofty principles of individual liberty and tolerance, but is due to the fact that our beliefs have become so... acceptable to the world that we ceased to be a threat to its way of living? That we have become just a shade, just an extension of the world that Christ has warned us not to be a part of?
After all, did Jesus not say that the world will hate us on his account? So why is everyone coming to the church every Sunday, smiling and happy and greet the pastor warmly and exchange some sweet and polite gestures and commenting about the weather and stock exchange (as if we're all attending some sort of social events), when on other parts of the globe, people were arrested and tortured when they were caught worshiping underground?
Are we the ones that our persecuted brethens should be worried about after all, and not vice versa?
If the worldly life centers only around the self and no others (and God is definitely left out of the equation), is living a life which centers around God and away from oneself the only other alternative to a worldly life? To me, the Self is as important as God and the Eternal, for otherwise, what is my faith but a blind obediance to a higher power for fear of some form of divine punishment if I transgress his laws?
Which is why existential Christianity is the model that makes most sense to me in terms of how I should live my life. For what is the point for me to swallow in the entire package of 'Christian doctrines and theology' if I cannot even live as one? What's the use of boldly proclaiming my faith, serving in a church and engage in apologetics againt the theory of evolution when I can't learn to love one another and love God with everything that I am?
Think of a very long railway train – but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christendom is like this. Generation after generation has imperturbably continued to link the enormous train of the new generation to the previous one, solemnly saying: We will hold fast to the faith of the fathers. Thus Christendom has become the very opposite of what Christianity is. Christianity is restlessness, the restlessness of the eternal. Any comparison here is flat and tedious – to such a degree that the restlessness of the eternal is restless. Christendom is tranquillity. How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.
Yet another superb contrast between Christianity (Christ's teachings) and Christendom (the Christian church) by Soren Kierkegaard. Whatever has happened till we became so complacent with life and so completely unconcerned with our obligations to God, and yet we're still totally unaware about the grave situation we're in?
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