Why are you a Christian?

[AureateDawn]

Based on the "Why are you Orthodox?" thread, I have another question. I post it for merely selfish reasons. But I want to know why everyone here didn't specifically choose Orthodoxy, but why you all chose Christianity and Christ as opposed to any other faith/religion/spirituality/nothing?

 

[jckstraw72]

only Christ saves us from death and makes us like God while preserving and fulfilling our personal existence. we don't just follow a bunch of rules like Judaism and Islam, and we don't slip into nothingness like Buddhism and Hinduism. only Christianity actually makes any sense considering our personal existences and our fear of death.

 

[Dorothea]

Not really sure. Think I've always been one. Was baptized at one years old and the baptism was what brought me through much in my early life, even if I didn't realize it and didn't know what the Trinity was or never heard of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was working in me. I did have a relationship with God the Father early on...I can remember from my grade school years....a Fatherly figure of God. It was all I knew at the time, but I felt His presence at times in my life, even if I didn't grow up going to Church or being taught anything really about Christ and nothing from the NT.

 

[rusmeister]

If you are serious about wanting to know and want rational adult thinking, read "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis and then "Orthodoxy" and "The Everlasting Man" by GK Chesterton.

It's a huge question. A few posts don't cut it as serious and deep answers. You've got work cut out for you.

Unless the question is not that important...

 

[Cappadocious]

I find the monad repulsive; Krishna too distant; the manifold spirits slaves of fate; the self lonely; and the Way in Christ.

 

[E.C.]

Once I realized that there is only one God it was downhill from there.

And because Christianity brings life and calls for loving one's neighbor especially when they are not good neighbors. You can tell the most of a religion by how the people are too tray those outside of it.

 

[Crandaddy]

Because only in Christianity does the Most High God show His Love for us by condescending to our lowly humanity as one of us--being born not in a magnificent palace, but in a stable; not to powerful royalty, but to a peasant girl; not so that He might rule over throngs of loyal servants and be worshiped and adored by them, but so that He might be a servant to His own creation, who He knew from all eternity would respond by mocking and spitting upon Him and then subjecting Him to a cruel execution upon a Roman cross.

Or, in other words, because only in Christianity does the Lord and God of the world, the universe, and all of creation not just teach us with words, but actually demonstrate before our very eyes Who He is, and who He created us to be.

That's why I'm a Christian.

 

[Joseph Hazen]

It's the only religion that has answered every question and makes sense doing so, to me (a religious studies major).

 

[michaeldimmickjr]

In every other religion, man reaches up towards god, in Christianity, God reaches down to man. That's a beautiful thing and sets my heart ablaze.

 

[Faithful Skeptic]

Because my heart knows things that my brain cannot begin to figure out.

 

[InnerPhyre]

Jesus is God incarnate, so I would follow Him based solely on that. But even if He weren't God, I would still follow Him because He is the perfect man. His teachings are perfect. Love. Just love nomatter what happens. Even if people spit at you and try to hurt you, love them. Love strangers. Love your brothers. Love your murderers. This is the perfect doctrine. All the problems in the world can be traced to a lack of love or a fear of loving. What will happen to me if I love someone who hates me? They might hurt me! I should kill them instead! This is a lack of love that stems from fear. Jesus destroyed fear by dying and rising. He showed us there is no longer an excuse not to love, because death is no barrier to the ineffable love of God.

 

[xenia]

I find the God-man described in the Gospels to be irresistible.

 

[Lukaris]

This world is a tragedy & many try to do some good for it (thanks be to God) but tragedy will utimately prevail in it. Many people have notions of something better & of consequences for our actions but in our fallen state we cannot sort it out. Only our Lord Jesus Christ by His love & condescension to our humanity saves & redeems us to be received in a world where the sting of death does not exist. May we pray & hope for our own & our neighbors' salvation & always fear the judgement.

 

[inconsequential]

Because Christ gives me hope that I can become something other than this thing that I am. Hope that I can become something with value and purpose.

 

[ArmyMatt]

for one, because I know Christ. but I would add that most other religions offer some teachings on how to live a divinely inspired moral life, but only in Christianity does God come to change the heart of man, and heal him.

 

[Wesley1982]

Because its what I know in my daily life ... Inspiration to be a Christian comes from Jesus and the Church.