The Dark Side of Christianity

Many people hate to speak of the dark sides of things. This is even more so when it’s something they believe in with all of their hearts. Christianity has been known to be one of the oldest religions in the world that billions of people practice. The basic idea behind Christianity is simple. There is a God. Jesus is our Savior. And if you believe in HIM (Christ) you shall have everlasting life. This is the bright side of things. But like so many other things in the world there is a dark side of Christianity.

The Dark Side of Christianity: Prayer

Anyone who is familiar with religion knows that one of the primary ways of sustaining faith is achieved through prayer. Under this context, the more you pray the better off you should be and the closer you will get to God. It all sounds good, rather easy, though somewhat airy fairy as well. But there’s something to be said when I trace back my histories and one thing becomes unquestionably clear. During difficult times, most of the people who helped me get through life were those who appeared further from God. And here’s where some Christians may already start feeling uneasy and, likewise, some atheists may start feeling to rejoice.

Here’s the thing. Most of the societal problems in the world likely come from people not taking sufficient time to listen to one another. I use my own experiences in this case to make my point because I know them to be true. And I know exactly how I felt at one point. Imagine the closest person to you in the world is sick and you mention it to someone you trust. And their first and only response is, “Just pray”. Just pray? What should the uninformed person even pray about? Or to whom? The truth is that words like these often can’t help someone in their time of need. It’s easy to tell someone to go pray when you’re “too close to God”. But someone “further away” usually has a much better perspective on the situation.

Christianity puts heads in the clouds

Something struck me over the years: a revolting truth. It was that the closer someone is to something the further away they may be from it. The reason the average Christian person tends to be ineffective in times of need isn’t because their beliefs may be wrong. It’s because their minds are often in such a distant place that they have lost touch with compassion and humanity.

They’ve become so focused on feeling that everything needs to tie back to God or Jesus or whatever they believe that they miss what’s more important at the time. What if the person who shares their problems with you was sent to you by God? What if you’re actually supposed to take the time to do something to actually help that person?

Prayer may be good but it’s rather easy (and lazy) to tell everyone “just pray” whenever they need help. When you look at things this way it becomes easy to see why so many people frown upon Christianity. The same could be said about many other religions. Surely, God may be in control at all times. But Christianity is also about HELPING people in their time of need. It isn’t always about sending them off to deal with their problems alone because God would take care of them. Because in their weakest moments sometimes Satan may just find them first.

Christianity does not solve problems

To add to the above, Christianity on its own does not solve problems. The actions that Christians take do. This means that you can go to church a million times; and say you are a Christian a million times and it would change nothing. As the Bible says, (James 2:14-26 to be exact), faith without works is dead.

If you’re a Christian and all you ever do is direct people to HIM, consider that you may be creating more problems than solving. There is already enough doubt about Christianity (or religion) as a whole. But the solution is simple. Stop being a lazy Christian (or whatever you may be) and actually make more of an effort to help fix some of the problems in the world. The world will respect you and your religion more for it. And God may even bless you more for helping, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Light at the end of Darkness

Not everyone would agree with your style of doing things. But when you’re a Christian everyone is not who you need to please. I am always in total support of any cause that exists to make the world a more positive and productive place; but more people also need to start taking responsibility for their beliefs and the pain and grief they sometimes bring.

Don’t be a hypocrite. No system or attempt to sustain a chain of beliefs may always be perfect. As a Christian, it is your duty to accept the pros and cons of whatever you believe. You must also own up to it. Share both the bright and the dark sides of your beliefs with the world. Let people judge for themselves. Don’t try to cover up the truths or to refrain from getting your hands dirty once it’s for a greater good by HIS standards.

We already have enough bible toting, church going and all-knowing “Christians” walking about the place. And many of them seem to live only to condemn people to hell. These are the sort of people who cannot truly help you in times of need. These are not real Christians; they are hypocrites. But it is not our duty to judge them. For when the true light shines, even they may see it too. In the meantime I, like many others, will continue to make an effort to help others in their times of need and I may also pray that that they get through the dark times on top of that. Because I am a Christian … and that’s what real Christians do.