Christianity VS Jesus

Sorry, everyone.  I know I'm probably beating this whole "Blue Like Jazz" thing into the dirt.  But this book is quite amazing and every time I read something that I think is amazing, I like to share it.


"In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity.  I told him that I couldn't do it, and moreover, that I didn't want to defend the term.  He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes.  "Then why don't you want to defend Christianity?" he asked, confused.  I told him I no longer knew what the term meant.  Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent.  To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend.  By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry.  I won't do it.  Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity, and they will give you ten different answers.  How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people?  I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me.  The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes.  When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together.  He told me how much he didn't like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God.


For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained.  Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me.  And I could not in good conscious tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me.  I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing.  And I wasn't experiencing Christianity.  It didn't do anything for me at all.  It felt like math, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn't mysterious; it wasn't God reaching out of heaven to do wonderful things in my life.  And if I would have shared Christianity with somebody, it would have felt mostly like I was trying to get somebody to agree with me rather than meet God.  I could no longer share anything about Christianity, but I loved talking about Jesus and the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with Him." (Blue Like Jazz p. 115-116)


How awesome is that?  How awesome would it be if Christians stopped talking about Christianity and religion and started talking about Jesus instead?  I do believe we could change the world.