That's right, two posts in only one night, because I am hardcore like that!

Some of you were no doubt worried that this series (or Metro Like Me, or What A Cage Fighter Does, etc., etc.) might have ended with merely an introduction each, given the radio silence of the last week.  Rest assured they are *all* continuing!  In fact, I thought about combining them all into one entry this weekend that talked about How to Be A Metrosexual Cage Fighting Christian but I was worried about it diluting the message.  Nonetheless to throw a bone to those people who were hoping to hear how cage fighting relates to Christianity I have attached an image from "The Lord's Gym" promotional T-shirts which are
a) designed to promote and evangelize the Word at gyms everywhere
b) TOTALLY AWESOME.

Two weeks ago we began this series by revealing that I, Justice Gray, am a Christian.  This turned out to be a controversial statement in itself as you can see from the comments thread that erupted, debating everything from my intelligence to who shared Rod Stewart lyrics with who to my proper use of the English language!  Today we will continue on our quest to offend 99% of the readership of this blog by discussing two major misconceptions about what Christianity is and getting them out of the way before we go onto deeper topics in the weeks to come.  That is right - I am going to define Christianity for anyone reading.   Actually, I am not going to be defining anything and instead the Bible will define it for us.  

I'm going to start my first point by telling you about several statements in life that make me cringe involuntarily because they are just plain wrong.  This includes examples like:

• ".NETrosexual"
• "Thanks for coming, here's your free INETA T-shirt"
• "automated build scripts are a waste of time"
• "Sorry, but we're going to have reroute this flight to Winnipeg"

but none of these cause me to clench as much as the statement "Yeah, I'm a Christian, I believe in a lot of different religions, they all lead to God in the end".   I know that this news will be very disappointing to those of you who like to profess to be Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Kabbalahian, and Pastafarian all at the same time but it is because I care that I am providing this religious reality check.  The very nature of Christianity actually precludes one from being able to be a Christian and simultaneously be a follower of another religion.  I'm not talking about the old-school old testament "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" stuff either, I mean this straight from Jesus' mouth himself in John 14:6.

"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.""

I have sincerely sat with people who have told me straight-faced that they are a Christian just like me because they believe every religion is correct, and then look like they are about to punch me when I gently ask them how they reconcile John 4:16 with that statement.  On a related note, I think I have *also* sincerely sat with people who apparently believe in every religion out there without reading any of the fundamental text corresponding to the faith they profess to have.

I want to clarify this statement a bit.

First of all, for those people who believe in everything - the only way to include Christianity into a mix of the 18 other faiths you profess to follow is to pretty much ignore both Jesus and Paul in numerous statements throughout the Bible, not to mention that Hinduism considers Jesus just another God while Muslims only consider Jesus an honored prophet - it's pretty tough to reconcile these all together without ignoring something in the Bible.  This is something we'll also get into later which I've heard termed as "salad-bar Christianity", where you pick and choose the pieces of faith you like and leave out the pieces you're just not as comfortable with.

Now, for those of you who are Christians but feel I might be casting judgment on you if you haven't read your Bible cover to cover 17 times in the last week, I am definitely not.  I do believe regular reading and studying the Bible is very important to your life as a believer.  I'll save this discussion for a later post.  For right now, I would like to reiterate from last week that your faith is serious business and a serious choice.  If you profess to be a Christian, I pray that your decision to follow Christ is based on more than a superficial skim of Matthew, Mark, and Luke one time 10 years ago, a desire for a "get out of hell free" card, and the fact that following Christ was the cool thing to do.  I'm not saying this because I am condemning you - I am saying this because I don't want you to shortchange yourself on the wonderful depth and breadth of Christianity.  Like everything I've said today, this is turning into another major sidebar that I'll save for later when we talk about some of the aspects of the life of a Christian.  

The meaning of Christianity is an overloaded one even without this kind of multiple religion confusion.  Some people think that Christianity is merely a guide to how you live your life.  Others think that it's just a list of things you don't do, check off the list and you're A-OK.   This is incorrect; if Christianity was as simple as merely abstaining from sex outside of marriage, 90% of the software development industry would be Christian by default.  The dictionary lists 6 different definitions for the word "Christian"; in some cases "Christian" is said to mean "decent" or "humane".  Yes, being decent and humane is part of being a Christian but you are not a Christian just because you are decent and humane.

Now, Christianity is, at its base level:

• a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, he died on the cross for our sins, and that God rose him from the dead three days after his crucifixion.  [Romans 10:9 - "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."]
• being sorrowful over our sins and confessing them to Christ [2 Corinthians 7:9-10 - "yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."]
• the pursuing of an active relationship with Jesus, putting him at the center of our lives and the forefront of what we do.

I'm going to leave it at this for this week - next week as my pastor says, we'll "unpack" what it actually means to have Jesus at the center of our lives by

1. talking about the Biblical basis for that statement (though if you're enterprising with Google you won't have much trouble)
2. stealing from *another* sermon I heard years ago and talking about the difference between "cat theology" and "dog theology".  With some luck I'll be able to find the guy's name who first coined these terms to give him some credit (presuming he even wants to be associated with this blog at all, which is probably a bit of a stretch at this point!  ;) )

Yours as always in Christ,
-Justice