The Christian Conundrum

I was raised in the Christian faith; Roman Catholic to be precise, although what I'm about to say would still apply had I been raised as a Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist or any other of Christianity's many branches.  The thing is, even having been indoctrinated in the Christian teachings for most of my life, I still don't "get" Christianity.

The Christian faith centers around the person of Jesus of Nazareth whom Christians believe was the Christ or the son of God. My first problem with Christianity is that I'm not convinced that Jesus was the Christ, or that there is even such a thing as a Christ.  But that's not what I don't "get" about Christianity.  That's just my own personal crisis of faith.  I understand that.

What I don't "get" about Christianity is that its central tenet makes no logical sense to me at all.  The central tenet of Christianity is that Jesus, being the Christ, accepted suffering and death at the hands of ordinary men in order to atone for the sins of mankind.  Mankind had sinned against God through the ages, over and over again, and that opened up a rift between God and mankind.  In order for mankind to be reconciled with God and brought back into His good graces, an atonement was necessary.  Somebody had to pay the price for all that sinning.  So God made His only Son incarnate, one of us, and He took it upon Himself to pay the price that God exacted for our sins, and so redeemed us.  And not just up to that point, but forever thereafter.  I mean, sadly, people haven't stopped sinning since Jesus allegedly rose from the dead but apparently all those sins committed since then, and forever on into the future, are still forgiven as well, thanks to Jesus.

I imagine that any Christian, having read this far, is probably scratching their head thinking "That's exactly right!  So what don't you get (aside from doubting Jesus' divinity and that snarky use of the word 'allegedly' with regard to His resurrection?)"

Okay, let's take God out of the picture for a moment and let's look at a similar scenario in human terms.  Imagine that a couple of guys break into your house, take all your most valued belongings and vandalize the place, not to mention scaring the bejeebers out of your wife and kids.  They have sinned against you.  They've done you wrong and, if brought to justice, the law would surely demand some kind of atonement from them.

Now let's say that you find out who they are but, rather than call the police, you send your only son to talk to them, open their eyes, teach them the error of their ways and maybe inspire a little remorse..  Well, not only do they not listen to him nor show any remorse, but they call the police themselves and report him for trespassing.  The police arrive, arrest your son, and put him in jail.

There.  All good now, right?  Their debt has been paid and their sins are forgiven.  Not just the break and enter perpetrated in the past but, should they do it again, that's forgiven too.

No, it's not all good of course.  How does punishing your blameless son for the wrongs perpetrated against you make anything right?  I simply cannot reconcile that logic in my own mind.

Ironically, it would make more sense to me if we discarded the notion of Jesus' divinity.  If he were just an ordinary (or make that extraordinary) man, but not any kind of deity, then he becomes one of us and he accepts the punishment exacted by God on everyone else's behalf.  Now, that's noble and that begins to make some sense.  Maybe in so doing he shows God that not all men are evil and restores His faith in His own creation, thus reconciling God and man.  I understand that devout Christians will still have a huge problem with this kind of thinking, but at least it begins to make some sense to us not-so-devout people.

Islam vs. the West

We live in strange times.  Since Al-Qaeada managed to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City back in 2001, tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims have gradually escalated.  Although Al-Qaeada still exists, a seemingly even more radical collection of Islamic fanatics who call themselves ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), also known as ISIS (presumably because adopting an acronym that sounds like the Egyptian goddess of health, marriage and wisdom sounds cooler) seems for the time being to have eclipsed even the aforementioned terrorist organization in terms of notoriety.  Though Al-Qaeada doubtless still holds the lead in terms of innocents murdered (after all, roughly 3,000 casualties from the World Trade Center attack alone gave them a good head-start), the broadcast be-headings and live imolations recently carried out by ISIS, while smaller in number, just seem more personal and brutal somehow, though I will grant that this is probably largely a matter of perception.

The danger, in my humble opinion, is in overreaction by the West.  Suddenly every radical nut-case who walks about shooting innocent bystanders, such as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who shot Canadian Corporal Nathan Cirillo, is seen as a representative of a terrorist organization and an entire religious community is held responsible for his crime.  When western governments then retaliate against Muslim nations or western citizens harass anyone of the Muslim faith, including those who have never harmed anyone, it only makes them look like the aggressors and generates sympathy for the radical jihadists that they profess to oppose.

Provoking Islamic enmity by mocking their Prophet is likewise counter-productive.  While I certainly don't agree that the cartoons poking fun at the Prophet merited the recent deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, I do agree with Pope Francis, when he proclaimed that freedom of speech does not include the right to insult the deeply-held beliefs of others.  Those Christians who have trouble understanding the rage that certain Muslims felt over the affair should ask themselves how they might feel if other faiths were to publicly mock Jesus.  The western media's incensed response after Sinéad O'Connor tore up Pope John Paul II's picture on Saturday Night Live back in 1992 shows that Muslims aren't alone in being sensitive about their faith.

I exchange "joke" e-mails on a regular basis with a group of friends and acquaintances.  Sometimes, I receive jokes that stereotype Muslims as terrorists or make fun of their faith.  I usually make it a point not to forward joke e-mails of this type, not because I believe in political correctness but because I choose not to perpetuate these stereotypes nor to contribute to the deepening of the rift between Muslims and other faiths.  Still, I did receive a joke e-mail once that presented the following picture of a talking Muslim doll:

It went on to say that nobody knew what she says, because nobody had ever had the guts to pull her cord.

I chuckled in spite of myself.  I admit it.  I'm prone to human foibles, just like everybody else, and the essence of humor is that it provokes a gut reaction over which we have little control.  But wouldn't it be ironic if someone finally did get up the courage to pull the doll's cord and all she said was "The peace of Allah be with you, my brother"?