Why Christianity is Not About Having a Personal Relationship With God

A few years ago, I saw a post on Facebook that asserted that what makes Christianity stand out from other religions is that Christian have a personal relationship with God. It irked me and I was ready to fire off a response but I stopped with my fingers hovering over the keyboard. There was no point in getting broiled in yet another fruitless Facebook dispute.

The idea that Christianity is not about having a personal relationship with God may seem controversial, but believe me, it’s not. It took me a real long time to figure this out, but when I did, it was liberating to find that Jesus was not my buddy.

Boyfriend Jesus

There are many perks, no doubt, to having a personal relationship with God, but none of them seem to necessarily follow from the fact that Jesus taught his disciples to address God as Father. It would be wonderful to turn toward Father at each moment in the day for advice on how to manage things or to expect from Father that harm doesn’t come our way. But what advice did you ever get or what harm were you kept from? Really shoddy work there on Father’s part!

True, it must be wonderful to receive guidance from the Lord so as to know which decisions to make. Since I grew up in a faith community that took that exact approach, I…