Christians... why do you identify as Christian?

[RI]

I don't think Pascal's Wager really matters that much, or at least not for me. Framing faith in a game theoretic schema leaves a quite bitter taste in my mouth. I think being a Christian to be rewarded is a fairly terrible reason to be one, or at least not one that resonates with me. The more and more I learn about Christian theology, the more I long for it to be true, but paradoxically, the less I worry about whether it is or not. If it's not true, I don't really care, to be honest. I'm not a Christian because I want to escape death. Death doesn't scare me. The potential of non-existence doesn't scare me.

I suppose I'm a Christian because I find the Christian metanarrative easily the most beautiful and powerful of any religious or secular narrative. About the connectedness of the cosmic and the intimate, the eternal and the temporal, the marriage of heaven and earth, the intimacy of God becoming man, the romance of Christus Victor, the victory in sacrifice and suffering, the love that conquers all things. And all for my sake, for the sake of a sinful, bitter, selfish, hateful soul who stumbles every time he tries to stand.

It's a bit of a strange thing, but when I was baptized six years ago, I didn't really know what I was getting into. Not really. It's a bit like getting married or having a child; you can't really know what it's like, what it really feels like, until it happens. You can't see beyond your perceptual event horizon no matter how hard you try until you pass it. I don't feel now like I did then. Back then, it was all intellectual. It was solid. It was something you could hold in your hands. I became a Catholic because it made sense to me logically. As time passes, it's changed into something different. Something more. I've felt it building for years now, this great need in me bubbling up from inside. It mixes with everything else, but it eclipses them as well. I feel this calling, this longing, this drive to climb upward, toward some far off light. It compels me onward. I want to go deeper, further, higher. Like the giants in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, I want to journey ever deeper into the mountains. Ever nearer to God. In this light, the world seems heightened in a way; if God created everything, then everything tells of Him.

If we must frame things with Pascal's wager, I'd say this: If God doesn't exist, I'll die in hope none the wiser, a life lived in a world full of meaning and beauty. If some other vengeful god exists, then I'll probably suffer what my sins might rightfully earn me. If God exists, then I'll seek Him as long as I can. But I'll follow Him to whatever end, because the end doesn't matter-- in God, there is no end, not really-- only the journey matters. That journey forward, traveling from light into light.