God Insurance

My niece recently shared the following story about her baby: "A couple of weeks ago when we were going to have Teddy baptized, our younger nephew asked his mom and grandma, 'Why do we want to have him hypnotized?' They said not hypnotized, baptized. He asked what baptized means; his older brother told him it meant 'God insurance.' "

Kids certainly can be funny (and sometimes, painfully accurate) can't they? It brought to my mind a conversation I had this week about what the word "Christian" means. One friend commented that in American society, calling oneself a Christian is almost like trying to have a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and many of those who profess to be Christians "don't want to leave home without it."

These days, rather than Christian, I often prefer to call myself a follower of Jesus, a believer or disciple (student) of Christ. For one thing, Jesus did not call his followers Christians, they were first called that at Antioch (see Acts 11:26) a number of years after his crucifixion. Another reason is, even though those who call themselves Christians know what they mean when they use it in reference to themselves, the term, I'm afraid, has a negative connotation for many, who equate it with dogmatic formality, dreary inflexibility and misplaced zeal.

Jesus did not teach the importance of following traditions and practicing elaborate rituals; in fact, he spent a great deal of his time trying to free people from thinking God wants to be confined to earthly buildings and that one needs to follow a complicated set of rules and laws to please and obey him.

Baptism is one of the few "rituals" in which Jesus himself participated. One other I can think of is communion. I wouldn't consider doing either one to be simply an effort to feel "insured." These two things represent heartfelt love and obedience.

Whatever one chooses to do to express religious beliefs, it is not my intent to question anyone's sincerity or devotion. Each of us knows our own heart and no one else can, but I do want to challenge us, myself most of all, to think about and study why we do what we do in the name of Christianity. If it's only because "that's the way it's always been," or to fit into a specific mold made by society and not by Jesus, maybe we're merely paying our monthly premiums toward a "God insurance policy."