The Irrelevance of Validity

When I was growing up, as a Christian I took on all the core beliefs and values of Christianity. But although my faith and passion for God, the Bible, and all things Christian was strong, that faith had no foundation. I did not understand what I believed in, or know why I believed in it– I simply believed. I accepted it as my own– in all truth, blindly.

So when I began my journey of self-analysis, one of the first things that I realized was the lack of reason I had for being a Christian. Because I had no reason to hold on to such beliefs, I discarded them, and proceeded to find my own truth. I built up my own belief system, so that I could believe in things that I had valid reasons to– reasons that, at least in my own eyes, could be justified.

Having developed a unique belief system, I could now look for eyes unclouded, seeing Christianity in an unbiased fashian– see it for what it really was. That’s when I began to be disgusted with fundamentalists, who reminded me of the weak person that I used to be– closed-minded, naive, blindly passionate, inconsiderate. But just as expressed in the lyrics of Linkin Park’s “Figure.09″, I’d let the fundamentalism that I hated become a part of me.

In doing so, I had completely missed the point, letting my passion lead me on a wild goose chase. In my search for a stronger faith, I tried to deduce a rational validity which, “In the End” turned out to be irrelevant.

As I began realizing this, it became more and more clear that these obstacles I had defined were nothing but mere excuses– rationalizations based in petter semantics, and trivial “values”.

One such “obstacle”- The Apostles Creed:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.

6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,

9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,

10. the forgiveness of sins,

11. the resurrection of the body,

12. and the life everlasting.

Amen.

In-and-of-itself, I do not believe in much of this creed- which is (more-or-less) considered to be the standard for universally accepted Christian core beliefs. On that premis, I decided that I was incapable of being a Christian, since my beliefs were irreconcilable.

But that is exactly how I missed the point. As I first recognized in “Habits”, the validity of one’s beliefs is ultimately irrelevant. Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. Saying having incompatible beliefs disqualifies me? That’s like saying “true friends only recognize reach others’ good parts” or “a true citizen thinks their country is superior in all ways to other countries”. That’s a fundamentalist mindset right there.

As the above examples are a bit extreme, it’s obvious that such assertions are clearly false. A relationship is after all dependent on one’s interpretation of it, and in inherently fragile and superficial. God wouldn’t want me to neglect getting to know him just because I’m insecure about the validity of that knowledge– nor would he want me to ignore him because of my fears that he is unknowable.

When it comes down do it, our ’so-called’ knowledge of God, and the validity thereof– these things are not about him, but about ourselves [reflected through him]– our own Ego. Our perception of who God is won’t change who he actually is, nor will it change his purpose for us.

More importantly, as long as our hearts are true and our will is good, what we believe in will not prevent or stifle our ability to accomplish his will. As we are his creations, he knows our hearts. In comparison to our desire to put God’s righteousness above all else, what we believe in, and the validity of those beliefs, is irrelevant.