According to studies, the higher a population’s level of education, the lower the percentage of those who believe in God. A Gallup poll, for instance, shows that while 70% of people who have finished primary school say they are religious, only 52% of college graduates could admit the same thing.
Such statistics are sometimes used to support the idea that individuals who believe more think less. Unfortunately, this conclusion, with an obvious discriminatory and superficial tone, drives Christians to take a defensive position. The frustrations of embittered Christianity are, like any other frustration, a source of dissatisfaction, weakness, and insomnia. The inner struggle with the mocking grin of the sceptics added to the shadows of their own doubts could partly explain the lividity of modern Christianity. I say “partly”, because the fundamental problem is different.
The success of the strategy meant to intimidate Christianity through ad hominem arguments proves the existence of a sensitive chord within the Christian ego. Even if hit with a stone, stable Christianity should have no reason to react as if it were holding a piece of enriched uranium. The need to remember Incarnate Christianity now becomes evident. With a lucidity that testified to His high self-awareness, Jesus Christ never took a defensive stance. He remained exclusively concerned with the mission He had, hence the universal impact of His life and the dignified nobility that accompanied Him, in an undisputed manner, as an unparalleled representative of meaningful spirituality.
Returning to the present day, we encounter a demagnetized Christianity, which has lost much of its admiration for the biblical model of life and, implicitly, its identity and relevance.
This is the cause of Christian sensitivity and vulnerability to challenges and attacks. Moreover, due to a misperception of what Christianity is and what it must remain, there are some who believe that the Church would attract more people if it showed a little more class. It is the expression of a way of thinking that desires a respectable and impressive Christianity through the accumulation of intelligence, intellectuality, and education. Not by appealing to Christian simplicity, but by the arguments of human excellence. The Judas Iscariot syndrome refers to a person’s inability to understand Jesus Christ’s philosophy of simplicity.
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I too have seen, among other things, magazine covers depicting Jesus being mocked in every possible way. But one thing is certain—it’s not the images that matter, it’s the sensibilities they trigger. A revitalized, remagnetized, and relevant Christianity in society would certainly lead to the self-mockery of blasphemous initiatives. Mockery is an autoimmune disease. If it cannot feed on the suffering of the ridiculed, it turns against itself.