What is Christianity?

I can understand the cynicism of people who do not lay claim to any religion, when they look at all the competing faiths and think, “They can’t all be right!”  or, “If it’s right for them – OK.  But as for me, I’ll carry on as I am.”  If that attitude to religion describes you, can I ask you please to bear with me for just a moment, and consider what I have to say.
A problem we all face is that we have within us a sense of a god.  It is not a hangover from a more primitive time, and you may set it aside and ignore it, but it is innate in the human psyche.  Religions through human history have attempted to deal with that and to find an answer to the question which follows – “How can I relate to and gain some sense of being accepted by that god?”  The natural human answer to that is that there must be something we have to do to gain favour and acceptance.  A diagram illustrates this: (fig.1)

If we think of all reality as illustrated by a circle.  God is there, human beings too, and the rest of everything can be called “the universe”.  The human answer is that man must do something to reach for a god (illustrated by an upward ladder).  What might we do?  Various religious answers have been proposed – go through some rituals … live by a good moral code … get reincarnated … sacrifice your life … undertake special devotional actions … go on a pilgrimage … etc.  All of these (and others) are ways for human beings to reach towards a god, and are promoted by various religious movements in the world today.

There is, however one religious faith that is different from that – Christianity; and people make a great error if they think that Christians believe that the way to acceptance by God is by being very good (obeying the Ten Commandments and so on).  Another diagram illustrates this:(fig.2)

This diagram is different in that it illustrates a break between humanity and God – a barrier that cannot be penetrated by human efforts, no matter how strict or religious.  (There is no upward ladder). 

That barrier occurred because human beings have chosen to go their own way and to reject God.  So since we could never make ourselves right with God (no way up), God, out of love for us, has reached down.  That is illustrated by the downward arrow and the cross, because it is through God entering into our reality by Jesus Christ that it all occurred.

I can’t possibly give a comprehensive course on Christianity in a short space, nor can I answer all possible questions.  I have outlined the basics, and I ask you to investigate further.  If your car tyre was punctured and you did not know how to change the wheel, you would go out of your way to find out – because it was important to you.  Why not do the same for Christianity.  We don’t, in fact we are unable to force belief on you.  Please just see if you can get informed as to what it is about.  We are happy to help you with that quest if you want it.

John Langbridge