“Why do you believe in Jesus?”
The question was posed by a girl in the front row of the small classroom, and about 20 other young, eager Cambodian faces looked at me and my group. We had just introduced ourselves and asked if anyone had any questions for us, and this was the first question we had. A few people in my group kind of laughed and made jokes about how the students were going straight to the harder questions. One of the other girls said, “Ok, Elizabeth. You got this one. Take it away.” And with that as my intro, I did my best to explain to the teenagers exactly why I believe what I believe.
Only a few days later, I found myself sitting on a stilted bamboo platform, at a little wooden house surrounded by rice fields, sitting across from a Buddhist priest and his wife. The sweet couple had been married for 75 years, were both nearing 100, and didn’t have a full set of teeth between them. The woman smiled at me and stroked my hand, and the man told us stories about his past and the things he had seen and experienced during the years of political unrest in Cambodia’s history. Their daughter served us coconut milk, and we just sat and listened to them talk for a while. Because I knew that this man was a priest, and that he had spent a large majority of his life worshiping Buddha, I decided to ask him a version of the same question the students had asked me – “Why do you believe in Buddha? Why do you believe what you believe?” I waited for something profound, something about what it meant in his life, maybe even something to try to convert me, but the summary of his response was little more than, “It’s cultural.”
“It’s cultural.”
I couldn’t believe it! What he said was entirely correct – 93% of the population here in Cambodia is Buddhist – but that was not what caught me off guard. My surprise came from the fact that it was his only real response.
When I return home in a few short weeks, I’ll be going home to Chattanooga, Tennessee, firmly planted in the Bible Belt. In my city, I think it would be fair to say that it is “cultural” to be a Christian. There are churches on almost every corner, you chose which one you want depending on size, color, music, and child care, and it is often looked at as a social gathering just as much as it is a place to worship God. Some people go to church a lot, others go only on holidays, but most people in the South claim it as their religious practice, if they claim one at all. In America, especially in the South, it is “cultural” to claim Christianity.
If I follow Christ my whole life, pray to Him, serve Him, and tell others about Him, and then I am asked that same question about why I believe, do I want my answer to be “It’s cultural.”? No, no, and NO! My answer is that I serve a LIVING God, who loves me so much that He died just so we could be together for all eternity. His love is unconditional, so no matter how much I fail and mess up, He’s willing to pick me up, dust me off, and continue walking beside me. Fear has no place in my life, because He’s with me and the Bible says that Perfect Love drives out fear, and my God is Perfect Love! His crazy, amazing love knows no bounds. And the best part is, His love is not limited to just me, but it’s open to whoever wants it – With news like that, how could you keep it to yourself?
So there is my answer.
Now, dear reader, whether you are Christian, Agnostic, Buddhist, Atheist, Humanistic, Universalist, or something else, I’m going to end by posing the same question to you:
Why Do You Believe What You Believe?
