Why do Christians get so upset when people make fun of their beliefs?

    The other day at work I was having a discussion with some of my co-workers about recent goings on around the World Wide Web, when the issue of “Zombie Jesus” came up. Now, personally, I didn't really care one way or the other, since I hadn’t really seen or heard anything about the “Undead Lord” besides a link one of my former co-workers had shared on their Facebook page. But during the course of the conversation I soon learned that this meme had caused quite a stir among Christians; something my co-workers found to be annoying and/or irrational. One person in particular said, “It really annoys me that Christians get so upset whenever anyone makes fun of their beliefs.”

    So why is it that Christians get so upset when people make fun of our faith? 

    The best analogy I can give for what a Christian experiences when God is mocked would be having someone lie about and insult you, your family, and your best friend all at once.  

    No one likes being made fun of. But for those of us who have a relationship with Christ, it goes far deeper than simply mocking our beliefs. When Jesus is mocked, you are literally lying about and insulting our best friend. As the old adage goes: “Say what you will about me, but leave my friends out of this!”

    The Bible tells us that God is not an impersonal, “Old Man in the Sky.” He is a very personal being who knows every person He has created as an individual, and in turn wants to be known by each of us as an individual. (Isaiah 41:10, 13, 49:16a, Matthew 10:29-31, Romans 5:1-11, etc.) Furthermore, when a person accepts Christ, the Bible tells us that God’s spirit joins with our spirit, affirming that we have been adopted into God’s family. (Romans 8:16)
    It’s impossible for me to explain how it works, and even harder to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand. But God actually becomes a part of us. That's why Christians feel things so deeply when God is lied about and mocked. We know what is true, and we naturally want to correct what is being said. 

    I know for me personally, I usually don't feel offended. True, I do feel upset when people lie about my faith and my Lord. But I also feel sad for the people mocking my Savior and me because I know the truth, and I know that I could correct them if I wanted to. But I also know that unless God opens their eyes, everything I say will sound foolish—or worse, condescending. Which is not what I want at all. What I want is for people to know the truth about Jesus, so that the lies and myths can be dispelled. I want to educate them about what I believe and why I believe it so that they will in turn have a deeper understanding of Christianity, rather than merely following the crowd wherever popular opinion leads them. 

    So the next time you encounter someone mocking Jesus, or are tempted to make fun of Christians yourself, remember: how would you feel if someone was lying about and insulting you, your family, and your best friend? Even if you don't know Christ, you will probably agree with him when he said, “Do to others as you would like them to do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

What is Most Important

“I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.”

~ 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 New Living Translation (NLT)

      Have you ever felt that our faith in Christ gets more complicated the more people you talk to? I know I have. There are so many questions and what-ifs in the world today that it is easy for us to get distracted by things that really don't matter. Indeed, hardly a day goes by without someone bringing up an obscure peripheral theology or hypothetical quandary aimed at derailing our faith in Jesus. But all of these things are a bit pointless in the grand scheme of things.

     Don't get me wrong; I love discussing peripheral things. I find them fascinating. But that's all they are to me: fascinating topics of discussion. They don't change my faith in Christ. And they certainly aren't the foundation of my relationship with him. If my hope were built on anything other than the promises of God and what Jesus has done for me personally, then my hope would not have a very strong foundation. The same goes for anyone who believes. If Jesus is not the center of your faith, then you are on very shaky ground. He alone is the Rock of our salvation—the cornerstone of the Church. Anything else is unstable and will eventually fail.

     Furthermore, if we allow ourselves to be distracted by theoretical theology and what-if questions, we are effectively putting spiritual blinders on ourselves. We get “tunnel-vision” and can't see past whatever peripheral topic we've decided to fix our eyes on. When in reality, the only thing we should fix our eyes on is Jesus Christ. After all, how can we tell people what Jesus has done in our lives when we're focused on other things instead? 

    Jesus is what is most important—Jesus and our relationship with him.

    Do you believe that Jesus was God the Son, sent to die in your place on the cross? Do you believe that he was buried for three days and that he rose again in a physical body so that anyone who believes in him can have eternal life; and that he has promised to return for us some day?

    If your answer is yes, then that is all that really matters. You are a brother or sister in Christ. Everything else is peripheral and really isn't worth obsessing over or arguing about. 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne."

~ Hebrews 12:1-2 New Living Translation (NLT)