• 15 Dec, 2025 *

I found this transcript of a lecture form 1927 called "Why I Am Not a Christian." It’s a pretty interesting read - I want to understand what the world thinks Christians could be doing better. Obviously we know what God says we need to work on. But what are non-Christians actually seeing that doesn’t quite line up with what we say we believe / how we act? I know this is almost a hundred-year-old perspective, but some of what is said says still hits today.

Why I’m not a Christian - I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian, it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions.

I think that there are a good many points upon which I agree with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do. I do not know that I could go with Him all the way, but I could go with Him much further than most professing Christians can. You will remember that He said, “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” That is not a new precept or a new principle. It was used by Lao-tse and Buddha some 500 or 600 years before Christ, but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept. I have no doubt that the present prime minister [Stanley Baldwin], for instance, is a most sincere Christian, but I should not advise any of you to go and smite him on one cheek. I think you might find that he thought this text was intended in a figurative sense.

Then there is one other maxim of Christ which I think has a great deal in it, but I do not find that it is very popular among some of our Christian friends. He says, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor.” That is a very excellent maxim, but, as I say, it is not much practised. All these, I think, are good maxims, although they are a little difficult to live up to. I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then, after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian.

I just think it hits hard that he sees, for one, he doesn’t agree with what Christians believe, but for two, he’s seeing Christian people not even agree with what Christians believe. I feel like that’s something all of us need to be better at and work more towards, to be more like Christ, to show more fruits, to have more patience and kindness and gentleness and selflessness and self-control and goodness and love.

8:14 AM For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:11, NASB 2020)

Peace from within comes from discipline

Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14, NASB 2020)

Disciplining yourself creates peace with other people

2:32 PM “What gain is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness? (Psalm 30:9, NASB 2020)