What does “Christ” mean to you?
Despite my family being non-religious and us never going to church, as a young child I had much love for God and Jesus. I didn’t intellectually analyze what or who God or Jesus were, they just were, I just felt felt love for them. I felt this love went both ways too. It was simple, and it was pure. I can’t remember who explained them to me, maybe it was Mum, or maybe it was religious instruction at primary school. But I remembet the feeling.
One Easter when it was way past my bedtime, Dad fell asleep on the couch and in glee I stayed up to watch T.V. Being Easter there was a movie on about Jesus (it was probably Jesus of Nazareth, I’m not sure). Anyway what started off as glee turned to horror as I watched what we did to him and how he suffered on the cross – up until then I knew ‘he died for our sins’ but I had no clue we tortured and murdered him. I was absolutely mortified and traumatized by it, I felt so much shame for the human race and what we had done. I cried about it for days, and I remember Mum’s frustration at Dad for being “irresponsible” and letting me see that movie when I should have been in bed.
As I grew up though, I slowly lost that loving feeling, and the word ‘Christ’ began to represent something to almost be ashamed of. It certainly wasn’t ‘cool’ to be Christian put it that way. All the Christians I came across were a very peculiar type of people – they would preach about sin and heaven and hell, yet they themselves were some of the most judgmental, unforgiving people I had ever met. Often they were extremely fanatical about their faith, even aggressive about it, and the term “Christian” became tainted for me.
I began to question the Orthodox view of God and Christ, things just didn’t add up. How is it fair that these individuals who called themselves ‘Christian’, who were such horrible people underneath their preaching, go to heaven because they went to church on Sundays to be forgiven ...
