RE: i'm a Christian. Ask me why!

yeah. you're right. no one really stops and asks themselves why they believe in Jesus. either they're living the faith day by day, or they don't care, day by day. either way, they get through, until someone asks them to think about it all over again. and then there's a pause, a slight dry-mouthed hesitation, and then it's called a crisis. haha.

it's not that believers don't know why they're believers, or find it difficult to remember why they believe or when they first started. it's just that belief is an intangible thing, it exists beyond explanation, substantiation or evidential description, because these by definition can cause belief in the sound and reasonable mind of any person. now if you tried to pass on your personal beliefs to someone else in much the same way as you'd pass a piece of knowledge, you'd certainly try to do so by explaining in terms of derivatives and principles, or by experiment and analysis. logic can certainly be convincing if applied reasonably and epistemologically. however, it is impossible to do so for things that aren't based on rules, laws or undeniable facts. personal and self-convinced, as belief, faith and spiritual truths are, they exist beyond logic and sensibility, and hence also the subsequent acts of elucidation and explanatory enunciation.

and hence you're essentially trying to reach out and circumscribe a slippery and elusive mental image, in terms of being able to do so in a manner that can coax a similar belief in someone who's listening to such an explanation.

that's why we're called believers, not know-ers, even though we're obviously the latter.

saying, "i'm a Christian. Ask me why!" has the metaphysical equivalence of saying, " I'm a post-modernist! Ask me why!" try answering that. "well, i'm a po-mo because i think that the act of defining something gives it restrictions. for example, calling a person a woman confines her to... only the female things in the world." haha! can you imagine laughing in the face of someone like that? in the same way, religion, taken objectively, is akin to a rather more 'sacred' preference of things, whether in terms of lifestyle, beliefs, values, hopes, views, etc.

perhaps we should have the mentality in our heads that although we know exactly what we hold on to, and what we want to share to someone else (all of kb's points here, in your personal favourite blend), to actually physically pass them on is somewhat of a fallacy.

1st Corinthians 1:18, 22-24: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."; "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

so in effect, we open ourselves to derision and scorn, we make ourselves vulnerable and assailable, by exposing and disclosing our closest held and most treasured beliefs, remembering how it was written that this is exactly what is supposed to happen.

2nd Corinthians 12:9b: "Therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

so, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us be all the more encouraged to share, personal testimonies notwithstanding. i remember Pastor Dave saying that personal testimony is all the more powerful because it is irrefutable. well, technically speaking, we know that it is, but we certainly won't be swayed. haha.

honker (but please, call me ian. it's freaky to be called honker)