The Adoption & Barriers to Entry

The Adoption

                There comes a turning point in the life of every child born into a Christian family which I like to call “the adoption”.  I intend for this post to be an engaging and encouraging account to those adolescence within that stage of their life.

                First, what is this turning point which I call “the adoption”?  What is the nature of it?  Speaking from experience, I know that the actual state of being a Christian can become very autonomous if you have been living in a Christian home all of your life.  Such is true about nearly everything when you are maturing.  It is only natural.  But when it comes to Christianity especially, this fluctuation of mind and attitude, this inevitable sense of autonomy, results in a crossroads between two excruciatingly crucial decisions: am I all in or all out?  Am I going to really continue being a Christian, or is the day I leave my family the day I leave my faith?  What I call “the adoption” is when one makes the choice to really continue being a Christian.  In essence, the adolescent who does this becomes their own Christian, and Christianity becomes theirs rather than their family’s.  This sense of ownership is why I refer to the choice as an “adoption”.  This adoption is by no means easy.  There are certain, highly specific things that discourage one from going through with it.  I refer to such discouraging circumstances here as “barriers to entry”.

Barriers to Entry

                We know that a barrier to entry is something that discourages one from “adopting” Christianity.  But what precisely is the nature of this barrier?  Essentially, it is a personal standard set by the potential adopter of the faith.  Christianity must measure up to this personal standard; or more accurately, the potential adopter must be convinced that Christianity measures up in order for him/her to be comfortable enough to go through with the adoption.  Until then, Christianity remains irrational or unacceptable, among other things, depending on what sort of barriers to entry a particular person has.   After prolonged reflection regarding these “barriers to entry”, I have centralized the bulk of these barriers into two broad, inclusive categories.  If there are other sorts of barriers to entry that do not fall into these two categories, I regret to announce that I do not know of them.  And obviously there are infinitely more barriers to entry when it comes to an outsider becoming a Christian.  But I am referring here to barriers against the adoption of the Christian faith and those only.  I engage those who have been with Christianity all their life and at this point don’t see it as much more than a “tradition”.

                I’d first like to address intellectual barriers to entry.  In this, before adopting Christianity, the person must be brought to believe that Christianity is true, or at least logical, rational, etc.  This potential adopter needs their reasons to be a Christian; “Just because,” or, “Because I say so,” will not suffice and may even alienate the adopter from the faith.  Until they are convinced, Christianity remains to them irrational, deceptive, impractical, etc.

                Cultish and overly emotional church services are the bane of intellectuals.  “Cultish” practices will likely only be cultish by their estimation, whereas others in the church participate quite comfortably.  Something as simple as closing one’s eyes and lifting one’s arm to the heavens during worship may look to an intellectual to be highly impractical.  Emotions are not to be trusted; so if an emotional rush is all Christianity has going for it, then the intellectual’s barrier against Christianity remains (probably even thicker than before).  Conversely, apologetics, for intellectuals, are as valuable as the Holy Grail.  They are often more than willing to accept a genuine presentation of logic, reason, and common sense in favor of just about anything, including Christianity.  The key word here is presentation.  What they despise is dictation (“You must believe this!” “It’s true because the Bible says so!” etc.).  They must be presented with unbiased information so as to make an unbiased conclusion.  Dictatorial church services will be bland or even offensive to intellectuals.  Seminars and lectures that engage the audience as if they were outside Christianity (as opposed to church services, which tend to assume that everyone there is a Christian) are particularly appealing to intellectuals, even if said intellectual has already accepted and adopted Christianity. 

One important thing which an intellectual must be brought to believe before really adopting Christianity is that the Bible is reliable.  If the very cornerstone of the faith is unreliable to them, there is hardly any hope of them becoming good Christians, since the most important things about Christianity are in the Bible.  One you manage to convince him otherwise, though, it’s not very hard for him to accept the Bible as authoritative, since all things sensible and reliable tend to carry authority for him in the first place.  In addition, it is fatal to shelter intellectuals from other religions.  An intellectual is almost certain to see religions in general as competing for truth value.  If an intellectual is not permitted to test the legitimacy of other philosophies and religions against Christianity, they will likely be tempted to suppose either that no religion is true or that every religion is true.  Something, in their world, must be assigned ultimate truth value, and if they are not presented with reason enough to decide one thing to be true and the other to be false, they deal with it by denying that the “true-false” question ever had to be asked in the first place.  This hurts far more than their adoption of Christianity.  Risky as it might seem, it is imperative that intellectuals be given the tools they need to honestly engage the question of religion on a true/false level; in the end, it will make him/her much more comfortable with adopting Christianity.

I’d like to address teachers who teach youth specifically.  If you are instructing a single person or a group with intellectual barriers to entry you should, above all, keep in your mind one key word: bias.  Your sermons, lessons, etc. ought to be free of bias as much as is possible and appropriate to the setting (i.e. for a church service, you would not make the sermon so unbiased that it loses its necessary “churchiness”).  Instead of saying, “This doctrine is clearly true because it is in the Bible.  Now let me break down what it means…” you should start a square or two back.  Start with, “Reason suggests that the Bible is quite right to lay down this rule,” give them the reasons for which they are so thirsty, then you can go on with, “Now that I’ve got you quite convinced that this doctrine is true, let me break down what it means…”  The proverb “give an inch, gain a mile” could not be truer when it comes to overcoming the skepticism of intellectuals.  Always consider putting your starting line further back than you think you should.  Consider starting at the assumption, “This is not true,” in regards to the topic of your lecture.  From there, use reasoning and rhetoric to work your way up to the assumption, “This might be true,” then work up to, “This is true,” then conclude with, “How does this truth apply to me?”  Doing this, as opposed to jumping the gun and starting at the assumption, “This is true,” will get most intellectuals eating out of the palm of your hand.  What’s in your favor is that most intellectuals who have grown up in a Christian home, regardless of how skeptical they seem, genuinely want to adopt Christianity.  They want to believe that Christianity is rational, the way they want to believe that just about everything they do is rational.  I believe, perhaps more than anyone (having had this type of barrier at one time myself), that Christianity can offer precisely what they want from it.  All you have to do is show it to them.

I speak now to intellectuals specifically.  In regards to the current cultural atmosphere, you live in a time of history that is in one way greatly in favor of your adoption and in another quite the opposite.  It is no secret that Christianity has been taking a lot of challenges in the last 50-or-so years.  The public would like you to think that Christianity has nothing to say in response to these challenges.  But the evidence suggests otherwise.  Indeed, I’d contest that Christianity itself is none the wiser because of these challenges.  Recent years have a seen a re-surge in Christian apologetics as Christians seek to answer the challenges against them honestly and boldly.  This is how the current culture is both in favor and against your adoption.  While the challenges against Christianity are growing, so is the Christian response.  For those with this type of barrier to entry, apologetic classics such as “Mere Christianity”, “The Case for Christ”, and “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” may be just your cup of tea.  Practical sections of the Bible, particularly the epistles of Paul, might prove to be great resources as well.  My advice?  Try to remember, above all, that one does not have to commit intellectual suicide to be a Christian.  Of course Christianity seems irrational.  To base one’s entire life on something you can’t even see gives the immediate impression of complete lunacy.  But first of all, don’t we do this quite often?  People base their lives on the unseen all the time: love, right conduct, enjoyment, etc.  There is evidence that these things exist (i.e. chemical reactions in the brain), but the things themselves are still ultimately unseen.  Second, we are supposing here that the very meaning of life ought to seem rational to us, which is of course ridiculous.  Christianity’s contention that life itself has meaning implies that meaning is overarching; it stretches its influence far over and above us.  And if that is true, how can we ever hope to fully understand it?  I suppose that you could simply state that the world has no meaning.  But I find this to be oversimplification.  In the words of C.S. Lewis, “If the world had no meaning, we would not have decided that it had no meaning.”  For instance, if all humanity could not see, we would not have decided that we could not see.  We would be incapable of understanding that we could not see because we would have no idea what sight was in the first place.  In the same way, there had to have been meaning in the first place for us to have decided otherwise. 

When I say that Christianity seems irrational, am I saying that it actually is irrational?  Of course not.  I’m only saying that it seems irrational.  Allow me to explain.  In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “Once we’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”  People in general tend to oversimplify in this realm also; they suppose that something improbable is irrational.  But is it not irrational to deny the truth in any case, regardless of the apparent improbability of it being true?  If someone really does get a full house during a game of poker, is it rational to deny it simply because of the wild improbability of that happening?  As a general rule, and given the evidence, I contest that Christianity ought to be given an equal chance in your selection of a worldview.

                The second barrier to entry, dichotomous to the first, is the emotional barrier to entry.  This sort of person, before fully adopting Christianity, must be brought to believe that Christianity is valuable, or in some sense useful (not in the practical sense of application, but in the emotional sense of psychological healing and completion), and, perhaps most especially, humane.  The difficult part is that each feeler (“feeler”, here, denotes one with an emotional barrier to entry) has their own personal definition of “valuable”, whereas the definition of “reasonable”, while slightly variant from person to person, is largely universal.  Regardless of the wide variation, until a feeler can be brought to believe that Christianity is valuable by their own standards, it remains for them unacceptable, inhumane, and/or negligibly important.

                Apologetics are only useful to a feeler insofar as they already find Christianity to be valuable, in which case they no longer possess an emotional barrier to entry.  A feeler cares little for the true/false value of Christianity.  For them, the competition is between acceptability/unacceptability, as outlined by their own personal values.  If they want it to be true, they need very little reason to think that it is true.  If they don’t want it to be true, they care little for the amount of logic and evidence in favor of the conclusion that Christianity is true (This makes feelers sound like highly irrational people.  In reality, they are champions of faith for its own sake and tend to be proficient in dealing with other people on a personal level).  Hypocrisy and depravity in the Church is the bane of this type.  If Christianity is not potent enough to liberate people from their sins, then really how valuable is it?  Hypocrisy is even worse.  If Christianity adds nothing to the world but judgmental “Pharisee” types (of which surely the world has enough), then why be a Christian?  You can understand, then, this type’s tendency to ignore apologetics while Christianity remains inhumane to them.  If a nation of hypocrites came to you and said, “Join us because we’re right,” surely you would not feel the least bit inclined to join them!

                It is important that, very early on, a feeler understands the separation of doctrine and deed.  They ought to learn to detach the Christian from his actions; otherwise, every action of a Christian will itself be considered the Christian thing to do.  This mentality is damaging to anyone who holds it; but most especially the feeler who, in order to adopt Christianity, must find the doctrine of Christianity to be acceptable even when the actions of Christians are flat-out unacceptable.  It is also important that feelers be assisted in their acceptance of hard-headed teachings in the Bible.  They should not be kept ignorant of these teachings, but such teachings should be taught tactfully.  The semi-genocidal actions of Israel in the Old Testament might be taught with an emphasis on the depravity of their enemies, or the danger it posed to Israel’s morality to keep them as slaves.  The doctrine of Heaven and Hell could be taught with an emphasis on man’s choice between the two.  This seems deceptive.  But there is no need to take affront to it if this tact in no way jeopardizes the truth value of the doctrine.  There also tends to be a tension in the feeler’s mind regarding religion which ought to be addressed properly.  Feelers generally value other people and, by definition, respect other people’s values.  Since other people value their religions, this poses a problem for the feeler.  The combination of the Christian doctrines, “No other religion is true,” and, “Heaven and Hell,” collide viciously with a feeler’s need to affirm everyone’s values.  The collision could be quite softened if the feeler learned these doctrines in a perceptive way.  First, there is no need for a feeler to suppose that every religion is a complete U-turn in the opposite direction of Christianity.  It is far more accurate to say that some other religions come very nearer to the truth than others, but none as close as Christianity.  This softening permits a feeler to value Christianity without disrespecting the values of others.  Second, the statement, “Be a Christian or go to hell,” need not be in a feeler’s list of beliefs; or at least, it need not be worded like that.  A feeler need only think, “Everyone is better off a Christian,” which makes it easier for them to conclude that, “No one is well off without Christ.”  And at this point the feeler basically believes in hell, only in a far less intense sense.  Hell is likely to be the end-all be-all for a feeler.  A good healthy reading of C.S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce” might be just what they need to get a satisfying perspective on the matter.   

                I’d like to address teachers who teach youth specifically.  It can be difficult to properly teach a group or individual of this type, since each one has a distinct set of values.  One thing you can count on to be unilaterally valued by all feelers, at least to some degree, is humanity.  To each them, Christianity must be humane; it must encourage its following to treat every human like the human that he is, since feelers themselves try to do this in everything.  Since Christianity does encourage this, all you need to do is bring it to their attention.  The harder part, however, is keeping the humanity of Christianity intact when talking about things such as brutal Israelite history and Hell.  I have suggested a few ways to do this already.  As a general rule, when teaching about emotionally touchy subjects, try to tell the truth in such a way that its humanity, sensitivity, etc. is still intact (without, of course, jeopardizing the truth of the teaching).  Another thing which feelers thrive off of is Christian ideals.  A good sermon or lecture about the beauty of marriage, or the importance of wisdom, or the wonder of God’s providence tends to resonate, at least to some degree, with every feeler who hears them.  Each of these examples represent what the Bible says people should value.  Using a healthy dose of emotional appeal, an audience of feelers can easily be convinced to at minimum consider adding what the Bible says they ought to value to their own personal list of values.  In all things, emotional appeal is what you want in order to win a feeler’s approval.        

                I speak now to feelers specifically.  I can honestly say that I understand quite how you feel, regardless of my heavier inclination towards logic and reason.  For me personally, there are two things which violate my values for Christianity.  The first is hypocritical and judgmental followers (Who does not consider such things inhumane?).  People – indeed, entire churches – have been lost to this sort of sin.  They probably do these things because someone was first judgmental of them.  But why not use such an opportunity to be especially sensitive and kind?  Such would be far better for the advancement of Christianity.  The second is the issue of depravity.  I have not seen much of God’s supposed ultimate healing power; at least, not as much as I should like.  There are many I know who are involved in church yet who ultimately remain enslaved to sin.  Is God not powerful enough to heal their imperfections?  It has been emotionally trying for me to maintain that the answer to this question is “yes” in the wake of their ongoing sinfulness still to this day.  But when I start to think that the answer is “no”, I remember my family and one particular friend who I lead to Christ.  I remember how successfully God has saved them from their own sin.  Often times when one fails to value Christianity, it is merely because he fails to look at the whole picture, or else refuses to do so.  If we really acknowledged God’s every working, we might realize just how valuable He is, and just what faith in Christ is capable of.  Some good resources for you on your journey might include testimonial books such as “A Grief Observed” and “Choosing to See”, among others’ whose names I do not know.  Books in the Bible such as Job, Psalms, Song of Solomon, and the first and last chapters of Proverbs may help you get a clear picture of what others found valuable about God.

A Lengthy Conclusion

                I’d like to begin my closure with a final address to the teachers reading this who teach youth.  So far, I have disclosed various ways that you might engage one type or the other.  While the methods are useful, I find it insufficient simply to leave my address to you at that for a few reasons.  First, you will quite certainly never have the luxury of teaching a group that has only one type of barrier; you will almost certainly have to engage both with a single sermon.  Second, if you teach a particularly large youth group, you cannot well know which barrier has the majority reign, if either.  Third, as I mentioned offhand, these two barriers are largely dichotomous.  Given, everyone is quite certain to face both barriers at some time in their life.  But it is also certain that they will not experience each barrier at the same time or at the same intensity.  An intellectual with intellectual barriers, while entranced by logical appeal, conversely takes affront to emotional appeal, thinking the speaker to be deceptive and/or manipulative.  A feeler with emotional barriers to entry experiences just the opposite.  Logical appeal, to them, is bland and of negligible importance unless Christianity can present itself as valuable.  To cater to one is to automatically shut out the other.  To give to one, you must rob from the other.  This makes teaching advice specific to one type or the other hard to actually apply.

                There are some suggestions I’d like to put forth in order to help overcome this.  First, you might try making the sermon, lecture, etc. predominantly logical with a few flashes of emotion slipped in.  For instance, you might use reasoning and logic to lead up to a certain conclusion, engaging the intellectuals in the crowd and getting them on board with the conclusion, at which time you actually express the conclusion highly colored with emotional appeal and idealism to appeal to the feelers in your crowd.  The intellectuals won’t care how the conclusion is laid out since they will already be quite in agreement with it (if you’ve done the job right).  Conversely, the feelers in the crowd will be able to understand that the conclusion is valuable, even if they were bored for the past minute or two during which you laid out all the rationale and evidence behind it.  Another thing you could do is start a series based solely on one type of appeal and to make known, in advance, what sort of appeal the series will wield.  At the announcement of a new series, make known, in some way or other, what sort of appeal the series intends to use.  In this, the youth know what they are signing up for when they arrive at youth group.  It eliminates the surprise that supersedes a feeler’s sense of boredom or an intellectual’s sense of offense, lessening its intensity a bit.  If you take this route of “block scheduled appeal”, so to speak, make certain to switch it up regularly.  Make every other sermon intellectual; don’t make feelers or intellectuals wait too long for their sermon type.  The good news is that if you really hit your sermons home, a feeler will be quite willing to endure a month of practicality in exchange for the following month of idealism, and intellectuals will be quite willing to do just the opposite.

                Besides all of this, there is one method in particular which appeals to both types: testimonies.  Testimonies tend to possess more appeal to one type than the other type depending on the personality giving the testimony, but the good thing is that it does not shut either type out.  Even if a feeler testifies about the time that they overcame an emotional barrier to entry, intellectuals won’t take affront to it.  The feeler is not trying to convince them of anything using irrational, unreliable emotion.  He is merely telling his story, and there is no quarrel that the intellectual can raise about that.  Conversely, feelers will not be bored by the testimony of an intellectual.  In fact, they’ll probably remain quite engaged.  Testimonies appeal especially well to feelers, since in that, the testifier is largely disclosing their values, which feelers always respect in others.  The one weakness in a testimony is that it does little to actually move an intellectual closer to thinking that Christianity is true or a feeler to thinking it is acceptable.  The benefit, then, is that it keeps the possibility of adoption open.  The testimony of an intellectual about the time they found reasons be a Christian will keep intellectuals in the audience open to the possibility that they themselves could find reasons to be a Christian.  The testimony of a feeler about the time they found value in Christianity will keep feelers in the audience open to the possibility that they themselves could find value in Christianity.  Wherever they are in their journey, it keeps them from the conclusion which could end it all – Christianity cannot be reasonable or Christianity cannot be valuable – because someone just testified that it is reasonable/valuable to them.  If you find your youth group slipping – giving up on their adoptions – you might try scheduling a testimonial.  The days prior to and following the testimonial, work hard on a sermon that really hits one group or the other hard.  Try to target the group to whom the testimonial most appealed last week.  If an intellectual testimony, follow up next week with a powerful intellectual lecture, and vice-versa.  This “combination attack”, so to speak, effectively opens up the possibility and then strikes while the window is open.

                For an effective second and final half of my conclusion, I have decided to take my own advice and give my own testimony.  Considering the subject matter of this essay as a whole, I’ll testify only about the time that I adopted Christianity; leaving out the conventional topic of testimonies – coming to Christ.  It is almost certain that this testimony will contain much more allure for intellectuals, since it is the story of the day that I overcame my intellectual barrier to entry and adopted Christianity.

                I could not tell you when this story started, for it started the day church and the Faith became for me an autonomous things that held little to no spiritual value.  Surely there exists no such day.  The process and my entry into autonomy was a gradual one.  The Devil plays his game that way; for if the Truth and the Lie were to compete head on the Lie would be thrust away without competition.  Rather, the Lie relies on stealth, sneaking in and chipping at the Truth as gradually as possible until, before you even realize it, nothing remains of the Truth and your mind is naught but a cavern of Lies.  I was by now thirteen, and I had become self-conscious enough of the autonomy that I openly complained about it.  “Another sermon about ‘Jesus saves’?!” “Yes, we know the story of Jonah,” “This is second-year Sunday school material.”  Regardless, I managed to hope against hope that one day I might attend a church which discussed the obscure stories and doctrines of Christianity and the Bible.  I had outgrown milk.  It was about time I started eating solid food.

                There were two things I could not have told you were happening within myself at the time which hindsight has supplied me with a clear perception of (Funny how much clarity hindsight affords!).  The first was that I was facing an intellectual barrier to entry.  I wanted Christianity to be true and reasonable and proper.  Lake Havasu City could not offer me this sort of Christianity.  Well… perhaps could not is severe.  I would not wager to say that the pastors and church leaders were intellectually deficient.  To the contrary, their audience was, and as such the leaders had to dumb themselves down to maintain proper appeal.  At least, that was their perception of the matter.  I’m not so certain whether or not that was true.  Because, even while the church leaders tried to maintain what they saw as “proper appeal”, their churches remained barren; full of not but “snow birds” (the Havasuvian term for elders who live in Lake Havasu City only for the winter and elsewhere during the summer).  I’m convinced, because of the fruit of some of my own work among the unbelievers in Havasu, that all the city really needs is some good old fashioned Christian apologetics.  All the church leaders I knew thought quite the opposite, of course, and as such I was the odd one out (indeed, my entire family was the odd one out).  I was one of the only ones in my age group who had some thirteen-or-so years of Sunday school under my belt.  I was the only one who wanted – nay, who needed – a lecture on systematic theology, or philosophy from a Christian perspective, or the ins and outs of a Christian worldview.  I was cruelly rejected this by leaders who did not know how to train their followers how to, or worse, who did not think their followers capable of loving God with all their minds.

                The second thing about myself I can only tell you in hindsight is that I was drifting away from Christianity.  Have you ever known that you were changing, and watched yourself changing, but you did not know if the change was for the better or how you might stop the change?  This was how it was for me.  Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my subconscious, I knew that I was drifting away.  But I had scarcely any idea that this was happening, let alone what I might do about it.  This, of course, never showed on the outside.  I looked to be one of the most zealous Christians on the block.  I think, regardless of this slow inner change, that I was (I do not presume to have been the “best” Christian, only one of the more “zealous”).  There resides within me a very deep sense of loyalty.  Since Christianity was my family’s faith, I very much wanted to stay loyal to it; and this loyalty was largely genuine.  There is a chink in my chain though; a single character trait that keeps me from being a pure loyalist.  There resides in me a sense of originality and imagination in the way I want things to be.  Had this been switched with a comparative contentment and desire to keep things just as they are, then I would be a pure loyalist.  My imagination remains the only thing standing between my personality and the personality of pure loyalist.  I am capable of great loyalty, but not for its own sake.

                I was drifting away from Christianity because there was no “sake”.  If I was to remain loyal to Christianity, it would have to be for the sake of loyalty itself, which I refused to do.  My barrier dictated that I would only be loyal for the sake of logic, reason, etc.  But this “sake” was not in Christianity’s favor; not as it had been presented to me thus far.  In fact, other religions and worldviews had plenty of “sakes”.  Of course Atheism looked quite reasonable and practical to me in comparison to Christianity, which managed to waste an hour and a half of my life every week (though I had not yet become complacent enough to consider it a waste at the time).  All worldviews must hold that they are the most logical and reasonable, else they would not succeed to convince any intellectuals.  The problem was that Christianity, as it was in Lake Havasu City, insisted only that it was valuable and acceptable and humane, almost completely ignoring the intellectual side.  And I wasn’t going to really join a religion where all it had going for it was an emotional rush and no more.

                I remember quite distinctly a day when we – my siblings, my dad, and I – were in my dad’s office where he worked as the worship pastor at Lake Havasu Baptist.  I’m quite certain now that we were helping him organize it, since he had only recently been hired there and only recently had moved all of his things in.  My dad, while sorting through a box full of books (Christianity the theme of every last one) pulled one in particular out.  “You’d like this book, son,” he said something of the like, getting my attention, “Very intellectual.”  What he held in his hands was small, worn, and faded.  It was almost all white; not pure white but off-white, very probably the result of wear-and-tear.  There was a highly simplistic cover illustration: a circle divided into three horizontal rows, each with writing in them that was legible but only just.  The title?  “Mere Christianity”.

                The title was an initial surprise – in a very good way.  Had man been encouraged to judge books by their covers, this book would have, for me, been appraised rather highly.  The simplicity of the title, as accentuated by the simplicity of the cover art, was what really ensnared me.  This brought to mind not boring church services that unendingly recounted the same facts so that anything useful had to be gleaned after much mental processing, but what I had been wanting all along.  I’d had enough of peripheral facts crowding space in my mind and complicating everything.  I wanted, “Just the facts, ma’am,” and somehow the title and cover of the book convinced me that that was just what I was going to get.

                Surprisingly, upon bringing it home, I did not forget about the book.  At the time I was not much of a reader (Surprising, huh?  I conjecture that this was due to the fact that a book I had tried to read long ago was too difficult, or too descriptive.  I was never good at picturing things in my mind as books relayed the details, let alone keeping that picture in my mind every time the object was mentioned again.  To this day, only non-fiction or fiction books with short descriptions and more action are my cup of tea).  I picked up the book and began reading.  My original impressions were not let down.  Though at thirteen I barely understood the complexity of Mr. Lewis’s arguments, I understood enough to see Christianity in the light I had always wanted to see it; a doctrine of logic, reason, and sense.  I’d read a chapter.  I’d lie back on my bed and contemplate it.  I’d re-read a difficult section.  Though I self-resolved to read only a single chapter a day (for what reason I am not certain; possibly to give myself time to contemplate it or time to do other entertaining things), I couldn’t stop myself from going on.  I’d read some three or four sections a day, which was quite a bit to process for a thirteen-year-old.

                Just like I cannot tell you where this story starts, I cannot tell you where it ends either.  That is, I cannot tell you the precise day that I adopted Christianity.  This process, too, was gradual.  That is how I find God to work quite often as well.  Service to Him is no single act; it is an eternal discipline.  Christianity became less my family’s and more my own, yet still somehow remaining a family affair.  I became my own Christian; or perhaps more accurately, I am becoming my own Christian, since the adoption neither started nor does it ever seem to end.  Though I started it long after, it is no exaggeration to say that this book is what, at the root of it, inspired me to start the very blog you are now reading! 

                To this day, I am perplexed by my dad’s remark to me when he introduced me to the book; I am referring to when he said, “Very intellectual.”  He obviously said this because he knew that I was intellectual, and he figured that the book would resonate with me.  And it did, and he was right, of course.  But the perplexing part is that I do not recall, to any extent, being overtly intellectual in any way before thirteen.  Indeed, I did not start thinking of myself or admitting to myself that I was intellectual until after reading the book.  It was as if, after reading the book and being able to comfortably conclude that Christianity was reasonable, I was finally able to really be an intellectual.  Not until Christianity was intellectual could I be intellectual, for I was a Christian.  Before I could be defined as intellectual, the thing that defined me also had to be intellectual.  I found myself, my true, intellectual self, in Christ and the doctrine that is Him: Christianity.  It leaves me with a provocative question.  Did I adopt Christ?  Or did He adopt me?