Reflective Records Essay

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Reminiscing on My Teens

I actually learned a great deal from reading the several books that were required for this course, and which include Dennis McCallum's Christianity: The Faith that Makes Sense, Francis Chan's Crazy Love, Josh and Sean McDowell's More Than a Carpenter, and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I found the vast majority of these works thought provoking and relevant to Christianity today and to my life in particular. At times, I found myself wondering if these books actually helped to provide me with more questions than they did answers. In either case, I still enjoyed reading and believe that they have helped me substantially in my own journey of living as a Christian.

The book that was most critical to my own life as a Christian was Chan's Crazy Love. This book challenged the reader in numerous ways to actually become a better Christian. The basic premise of Chan's work certainly helped to challenge some of my own views on Christianity. That premise was that Christians actually have to earn a right to go to heaven, and that doing so requires much more than just a passive belief. In fact, Chan passionately believes that Christians must actually take action to merit going to heaven and even to merit calling themselves Christians. I can honestly say that this particular message resonated with me because I had not truly encountered this stance before. I had always known that there were vague actions of good that people who were Christians were supposed to do -- such as works of charity or donating money to the poor. What Chan was discussing in his book was much more personal and even radical. Quite simply, I had never imagined engaging in the sort of action that he talked about and provided examples of in his book. Furthermore, to be quite honest, I am not sure how ready I am to devote my life to others before I have truly lived it for myself -- which is why I had always kind of believed in and practiced the sort of passive Christianity which he largely viewed as negative.

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Perhaps it is because of this tension in my own experience as a Christian -- I have yet to summon the passion of Chan and am still more of a passive Christian than anything else -- that certain parts of the works of the McDowell's solicited my attention as much as it did. The first chapter of this book was probably its most interesting for me, simply because it detailed the author's personal journey of Christianity. One of the things about this chapter that attracted my attention was the fact that the author detailed his experience as a Christian dating back to high school and college. In fact, his experience with this religion while he was in high school somewhat resembles mine. McDowell states that while he was in high school he would go to church and attempt to live as a Christian without knowing too much about the faith. He implies that he was more or less involved in these activities simply because that is what he was expected to do, and that many of his peers were doing the same thing. I can certainly relate to this perspective. Although I have always felt some sort of internal connection to God, I attended Christian institutions when I was in high school for many of the same reasons that McDowell did.

However, McDowell said that after a process of starting and stopping, his current enthusiasm for this religion began in earnest while he was in college. Again, I can relate to the passages in this chapter when he discusses the sort of temptations he succumbed to in terms of partying and not necessarily living a life that is embraced by most Christians. But what impacted me even more were the passages in which he talked about his conflicted feelings and questioning his professors after class about Christianity and his role in it. Some of the same questions he had I have asked myself while reading each of the aforementioned four books for this class. What is important about….....

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