Six Major Reasons For Why People Become Christians

According to Episcopalian theologian and minister Diogenes Allen, “people begin their journey and become Christians for at least six major reasons, all of which are combined in various ways.” Of these reasons, which one best characterizes your journey?

First, some people’s lives have become unworkable. This may be because of alcohol, major illness, a great loss, family breakup, and the like. They turn to Christianity seeking to have their broken lives healed. Many of them – when they find a significant degree of restoration to a more normal life and access to a life more significant than they had known before – may have little interest in learning more about Christian doctrines. They respond primarily to what they find helpful for dealing with their deep personal needs and problems. There may be little theoretical interest because their personal lives are so pressing. Understandably and rightly, they are primarily concerned with what can help them deal with their broken and ensnared lives.

The second reason people are attracted to Christianity is the beauty of its ideals. Love between people, service to others, the desire for a wholesome and noble life, and admirable aspirations for purity and goodness – all draw them to Christianity. Jesus and great Christian lives, both past and present, inspire and elevate their outlook and behavior. They respond mostly to inspirational stories, music, and pictures.

The third motive that draws people to Christianity is closely related to high and noble aspirations: failure and the guilt that accompanies failure. People with high standards and aspirations are particularly vulnerable to failure and severe remorse for failure, but many people of ordinary decency also often feel the discomfort of guilt over their failures. It is quite appealing to grasp the portrayal of God’s love, mercy, and unconditional forgiveness for those who repent of their failures and who desire to lead a better life. The relief as the gospel lifts the burden of guilt for the past, and a promise of help, support, encouragement, and guidance for the future – all give such people spiritual nourishment.

A fourth reason to be attracted to religious faith is an awareness of a hunger and a lack in all that is earthly to satisfy this hunger. This is typified in Augustine’s famous remark, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee [God],” on the opening page of his Confessions. Yet a sense of dissatisfaction is recognized by Plato seven hundred years before Augustine. In his Gorgias (493b), Plato likens a human being “to a leaky jar, because it can never be filled.” Some people today refer to this lack we sense as “the God-hole” within us, as does Francis S. Collins, the director of the government’s genome project, in his account of why he became a Christian.

The fifth reason is an unusual, powerful spiritual religious experience or experiences. They vary greatly, as can be seen from the collection of religious experiences by William James in his classic Varieties of Religious Experience. This approach seems to be quite common today with the loss of confidence in the power of reason to settle ultimate questions, and a corresponding reliance on personal experience . . . .

Sixth, and finally, some are attracted to Christianity primarily because they are looking for an understanding of their world and their life within that world. This is especially common among those who are highly educated, even if . . . they are unable to gain a sufficient understanding to satisfy themselves. The drive for understanding is well described by Austin Farrer, an Oxford theologian who wrote in the middle of the last century. He spoke of it as the need “to spread the area of recognition,” so that whatever the mind examined, it would seek to relate to God all that it knew and experienced . . . .

This kind of person has a critical mind: even though committed to the Christian faith, they are able at times to step back and consider objections to Christianity, and consider new or different interpretations of Christian teachings. Such persons are willing to develop a new understanding of Christianity from an engagement with various fields of inquiry, and they are aware of the incompleteness of our theological understanding and of unresolved difficulties in our Christian beliefs. A critical person is not a skeptical person, who raises or looks for difficulties in order to undermine Christianity and to avoid personal commitment. Critical persons have faith and are seeking to understand what they believe. To one who lives only in a pious mode, a person who at times is in a critical mode of speaking may appear threatening and even a skeptic. Some skeptics, on the other hand, take all believers to be merely pious people, without critical faculties, and they mistakenly identify faith with irrationality.

Just as a person can be both pious and critical, so too several of the six motives for being a Christian can be operative in a person at the same time. They can also change in their degree of importance over time. At one time a person’s struggle with guilt may be more important than gaining understanding, but at a later time the relative importance of the two motives may be reversed. People may also change as they grow older, beginning their journey because of a powerful religious experience, but then later becoming more concerned with service to others.

From Theology for a Troubled Believer: An Introduction to the Christian Faith