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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Christianity: Not Only a Religion, but the Only Religion

According to an online dictionary, this is the definition of religion:
Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
Christianity is, by this definition, a religion. We believe in one supernatural, sovereign, creator God. And we revere and worship this God. In fact, Christianity is in this way not just basically a religion, but majorly a religion. We believe in Jesus Christ in the most powerful way: a way of faith that is living and supernatural, receiving grace for justification and sanctification from God Himself. Our belief is hard-core; it makes us in Christ. It creates a deep and organic union between us, the believers, and Christ, in whom we believe.
Moreover, we revere the supernatural in a most powerful way. God is the Ultimate of the supernatural. Not only is He beyond nature, but He is transcendent of nature because He Himself created nature of His own will and power. We revere the great Supernatural. And this reverence is no empty piety, or an attempt to by humble submission earn God's grace as in other belief systems, but it is a reverence of faith, trusting God in all ways and so living in accordance with His promises. We do not fear God's punishment and attempt to work our way out, but we appropriately stand in trembling awe as the terribly powerful and majestic transcendence that is God, who somehow has already set us right with Himself apart from works. Therefore Christianity has the ultimate reverence for God.
Christianity is, then, a religion, and it is the ultimate religion. In fact, I will go so far as to say that Christianity is the only religion which can be rightly called a religion. What do Muslims believe in? They think God, but actually a mere devil! What do Hindus revere? They honor cows, which are neither supernatural nor creator. All the other so-called "religions" believe in a non-entity and revere a figment of collective imagination. Only Christianity involves belief in and reverence for a real, living, sovereign God. So Christianity is not only a religion. Christianity is the only religion.