Why the World Needs Christianity

There seems to be a misconception about Christians running rampant these days. The modern notion of Christians is that they are no different from anyone else. Even the Bible admits it—“we all make mistakes” (James 3:2) “for all have sinned” (Romans 3:23)—and it’s pretty obvious in everyday life, too. Christians eat and sleep and judge and sneer like everyone else.

They gossip, they hate, and they get things wrong as often as they get them right. Even the good ones aren’t very good. Why, even I—mistake-ridden I! you say—manage as well as Joe Christian I see at school, at work, carrying his Bible on the bus. So, there is little point in Christianity. It offers no visible benefits and seems to do rather a lot of harm, so we might as well chuck it.

That is the modern outlook on religion: the world is pretty screwed up right now and Christianity (especially) has done little, if any good, towards the greater humanity.

This, I believe, is because Christianity is not about the greater humanity. And neither, quite honestly, are you. We all love to ask, “Why is there pain?” “Why suffering?” “Why evil?” “Why is the world so screwed up and why does humanity have such big, impossible problems?”

If God exists, why?

But although these are valid questions, the answers are not what make our hearts beat and our breath catch. The real question we want answered isn’t about the greater humanity at all. The real question is “Why am I hurt?” “Why do I suffer and, in turn, cause suffering?” “Why do I chose the wrong things, say the wrong things, do the wrong things?” because we don’t call them “evil” things when we do them, but “wrong” or maybe “unhealthy.” “Why is my life screwed up when I intend so well?”

Asking the right questions—or rather, admitting what the right questions really are—is the first step. The second step is naming things truly. “Christianity” is a tame way to say “God” which is an obscured way of saying “Truth, Justice, Peace, and Love Wrapped into One.” But then, language can fail us, can’t it? A name important enough takes an entire book to explain, and even then we fail to grasp it.

But most of the time, it’s not the language’s fault, but our cowardly hearts. We are quick to recognize Good, but we love the idea of “humanity” too much to point out Evil. If something evil, name it! Treating someone like dirt—whether they deserve it or whether you’ve had a bad day or whether whatever—is evil. Talking badly about someone—even that one time, only once, even if that person is yourself—is evil. Hating ourselves is evil. Its opposite—self-absorption—is evil enough to destroy relationships, mutilate love, and burn up the few good things we’ve managed to scrap together by our own, tired wills.

You—the things you do every day—and I—with every breath I take!—are evil. If only we could own up to it. If only we could accept it, confess it, and denounce it.

And that is why Christianity—a mere title of the gateway to the only one who is truly Good, truly Merciful, truly Whole—is different. Yes, God gives commands, but ultimately they are intended to help us find what we have always been looking for: rest. God commands us not to lie; he commands us not to cheat and steal and judge people. He commands it, and he commands you to rest and to trust. He commands all these things for our betterment.

Do right by everybody, he says, but at the end of the day, find rest in Me alone. Live your life for the good of others, but when you fail—and you will, of course you will, haven’t you already failed so many times?—know that I Am, anyway. Try, search, ask, seek, and I promise you will find the many gifts I’ve given you. But don’t do it on your own.

When you come back to your apartment, when you brush your teeth and you turn off the lights, when you are the only one inside your skull and though your heart might beat faster for something else that yourself, it is your heart, beating in your chest and you are you alone, looking into the void of the things you’ve done and not done and the things that you hope you can someday do—that is when you can sigh with relief and sink into the comfort that you aren’t at the center of the universe.

There is more than the void, God says. You can turn off the lights knowing that there is Stability in this world, that there is Good and that it is not nameless, formless and far away from you. It is living. I am living. And if you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you.

You can crawl into bed angry or discontent or frustrated, but pull the covers up around your shoulders. Rest your head on the pillow and let. it. go. When you are a little part of a magnificent whole, this, too, really shall pass. When you see the great and beautiful machinery of the World rising up around you, that little spot of rust on you, the widget, can be forgiven.

He stretches out the heavens. He spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Why do you complain, "My way is hidden from the Lord.
My cause is disregarded by my God."

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the Everlasting God! The Creator of the Ends of the Earth!

He does not grow tired or weary and His understanding no one can fathom. Even youths grow tired and weary. Even
young men stumble and fall - but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. Walk and not be faint.

An Attempt at Maturity (Failed)

Sometimes it’s really difficult not to think of Koreans as children.

Even though my students seem so young. It would be better if I could blame it on the make-up the girls wear or the boyish style popular for men right now. Surely that plays a part—that and their healthy diet of kimchi making their skin positively glow with youthfulness.

I wish I were judging on appearances because it’s easy to know how wrong that is. Instead I often judge on social norms:

Girls scream in the hallways, giggle in the classroom, shuffle around cute boys like they’ve never yet conceived the idea of talking to them like human beings instead of shrieking at or hitting them as a form of flirtation. Boys whine and skulk and rarely make friends with girls.

No one has a car; most still live with their parents. Students seem to have no long-range processing abilities, taking very little initiative in their education or future. They can’t problem-solve and only a very few understand why that might be useful. Students tend to have a flat, naïve view of alcohol and smoking and their views on politics are usually centered on what everyone else thinks. Everyone is scared to raise their hand, think for themselves, or act alone. Pimples are the devil.

In short, Korea is horribly reminiscent of American middle school. Koreans bear a harsh resemblance to the hesitant, wariness I remember marked the lives of my classmates and I ten years ago.

I have to fight not to treat my students like the age they act. I can’t condescend, because their actions—the giggling, the interdependence, the lack of originality—are not indicators of immaturity. Maturity is a completely different matter here than in the states. Individual responsibility and ingenuity are not prized—why would my students try to attain Western ideals when their culture breathes their antithesis? Duty is important here, not creativity. Respect not pride. Concentration, not passion.

MoonSung, my tutee, said a middle school student recently asked her why he should study.

“What did you say?” I asked her.

“I said—” she pointed her finger imperiously. “You just do it. We say when you get to college, your agony will be ended.”

I did my best not to look horrified, but in my head I was doing a small tarantella of concern. Just do it? Mindlessly? Hopelessly? Without passion or enjoyment? With nothing but the intangible promise that someday the agony will be over—but, unless you are incredibly successful—a new agony, one of guilt and shame and disappointed dreams and, finally, resignation to a lower-level life, will begin? I see the shame that weighs around my students’ shoulders when they all explain why they entered Kosin University. “I messed up,” they say. “My tests were not good. I played too much when I was younger.” In short: “I enjoyed life too much, coveted freedom and did not do my duty.” These are the regrets of kids in their early twenties!

I’ve heard that this is the crux of all differences between Western and Eastern education. Westerners want students to start with passion—a love for their subject that will fuel them to perform well. Passion, we believe, will instill in us a blindness to hard work so much so that we don’t even notice the hours, days, and years of difficulty because to us, it isn’t a chore, but a blissful labor of love.

In the East, it’s flipped. Just do it, they say, and the passion will follow. Tiger Moms are mothers who force their children to study, practice, perfect a million different skills and subjects in order to drive their offspring to future glory. The world is terrified of Tiger Moms (many of whom are Asian) partly because they’re insane, but partly because they get shit done without any of that “enjoy your life” nonsense.

Do it, they tell their children. You don’t like it now—it’s hell to work hard while your friends aren’t—but when you’re older and you can speak three languages, play Gershwin and Tchaikovsky like a piano pro, and enter the top university in the country, you’ll love it. Tiger Moms are the hard-core image of all that Eastern education encourages.

Where Westerners say “Find your passion,” the Easterners declare, “Passion follows practice.” In the West we say, “When you’ve matured, we’ll listen to you,” and the Easterners laugh. “If you are younger, you will never be listened to.”

In the West we have millions of kids who, since their only passion is playing video games and even that isn’t much more than lack of apathy, don’t pursue anything at all. Or maybe they pursue something for a year or two, but when the passion fades, they divorce him or quit that or simply shrug and “follow their heart” for the next however long until their heart changes once again and they look around years later with nothing that lasts. On the other hand, the people that do find their passion, excel and become innovators, hard workers, and happy, functioning members of society.

In the East, millions of kids pursue exactly what their parents tell them to pursue, and after the rigors of high school and middle school, their childhood lost, they have also lost the ability to think for themselves and enjoy the interests they may have once had. Some commit suicide, but most resign themselves to lives of “quiet desperation” in which they could never identify the bitter longing for something they’ve never had. On the other hand, those that achieved everything their parents hoped they would attain honor and happiness and become rich and powerful functioning members of society.

Which is better? Or worse? Can they be melded together? How is it that I see the benefits of both, but despise the idea of the one I didn’t grow up with? How can my cultural inclinations be plasticized that I might truly seek after something great rather than something ingrained?

I find it almost impossible to see the benefits of what appears to be immaturity until I look at the Bible. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 18:3)

There are many aspects of Christianity I like to wrinkle my nose at—tradition, submission, and humility for instance—but I like this mandate perhaps least of all. God tells us to have faith like a child, to see the world simply. He asks us to believe in him, to know the world is beautiful and that we are safe and loved and that, ultimately, someone else is in charge and that is actually where our joy and the beauty of this world come from.

There are some things about Koreans that I love, but their ability to believe in authority and to unquestioningly carry the torch of traditional thought like children accepting everything their elders say is most definitely not one of them.

In Helplessness Blues, a song by one of my new favorite bands Fleet Foxes, it says, “I was raised up believing I was somehow unique. Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see.” I’m special and my individual thoughts and criticisms are important; they are what make me worthwhile, someone to listen to, a mature adult.

But maybe the Bible agrees more with the Korean way of humbly accepting the wisdom of those older, putting their heads down and doing as God has designed. “I was raised up believing,” Helplessness Blues says, “that I was somehow unique. Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking I’d say I’d rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.”

I think that’s what I’m supposed to want, but I’m not Korean and maybe—just like when I can’t speak the language or when I have to get my visa renewed or fight for my pension—that holds me back. It would be better, perhaps, if I reverted in some ways back to my middle school self, or even earlier. It would be better if I didn’t believe I was quite so important to the world. After all:

All people are like grass and

All their glory is like the flowers in the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall because

The breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely all people are like grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall

But the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40)

So where does that leave me? If Eastern culture is right in this instance (an if nearly impossible for me to accept), surely Western culture has some major facet going for it. Right?

Still I like my culture better. Sorry Asia, but America does a lot of things better. (Dessert, for instance. Also, driving. And feminism.) I like questioning authority, arguing, criticizing, analyzing. They are my strengths and they are so useful in today’s world of scientific improvement where logic wins at all costs. But in the moral sphere, in the type of growth that God calls us toward, I can’t really think of any inherent superiority the West has over the East. Discernment? Crafty as serpents? Anyone have any ideas?