Let's talk about ghosts for a minute.
There are a whole lot of people who believe in ghosts. Personally, I think that the Bible teaches that there's two options when we die, Heaven or Hell, and nobody gets to stick around after death and make their own decision (Philippians 1:21-23; Luke 16:22-23); however, for the sake of the point we're going to leave that question as an assumed "unanswerable."
Essentially what we have now are two types of people - the kind who believe in ghosts and the kind who don't. The people who believe in ghosts feel very strongly that ghosts exist and can (and do) interact with our world in a tangible way. They will go to great lengths to prove their belief, also, taking countless pictures and videos, exploring strange places, investigating abnormal circumstances, and trying to convince people that these ghosts are real and really do matter to us. However, in many situations, they keep quiet about their beliefs, because there's a lot of people who think that ghosts are made up, and who wants to be thought of as the crazy guy who believes in ghosts?
Those on the other side, the people who do not believe in ghosts, are equally as confident in their decision not to believe. They may have seen something that was difficult to explain, but hey, there's a lot of things they don't know, so surely there will be some sort of valid explanation for these things once we learn more. For now, they'll just attribute it to swamp gas, or electromagnetic fields, or hallucinations, or something more standard, and work with that. No amount of video footage, blurry camera photos, and strange readings on funky machines is going to convince them that something that they can't see is relevant.
Sound fair enough?
This is a big issue with Christianity today. It's an issue about God, too, but that's not the point I'm making.
Christianity today is a ghost.
As Christians, we go around spouting our proof every here and there, wherever it seems relevant. We surround ourselves with sermons, music, anything that can reaffirm our beliefs that we're doing the right thing by believing in Jesus. Sometimes, if people around us seem receptive to the idea of this Jesus fellow, we'll go into great detail about how there's so much in favor of Christianity and how we're always supposed to love everyone and turn the other cheek and so on, but generally, we keep our thoughts and opinions to ourselves, because who wants to be thought of as the crazy person who believes in that Christianity stuff?
The non-Christians, whether they're atheist, agnostic, wiccan, hindu, or whoever, just laugh. They see Christians mocking or assaulting homosexuals, spreading racist and backwards political beliefs, indulging in everything that non-Christians indulge in, picketing funerals, driving like bats out of hell in traffic, and the like, and they think to themselves, "If people who follow an all-loving God can do all this in His name, He must be a fake." Occasionally, they'll hear of miracles occurring, people dying due to their willingness to go to terrible places to preach the gospel, and astounding transformations in lives, but it's a simple matter to just say, "Well, sometimes medical things happen that we can't explain, people do crazy things for just about anything, and some people just reach a point of personal enlightenment. There's nothing special here." They are not shown the true form of Christianity, and so they dismiss it as pointless, unscientific, and the like.
True Christianity is a ghost.
Fortunately, there is a way to bring it back.
If you were a ghost-believer, and you had to convince your closest friend in the whole world that ghosts really did exist, it would help to be able to quote exact reasons why - personal narratives, various facts regarding ghosts, and so on - but the absolute best, most effective way to prove to them that ghosts existed would be to show them one. It is easy to rationalize away written occurrences, but who could keep believing that ghosts didn't exist after they directly saw one do something spectacular?
I'm not trying to claim that Christians should drag non-Christians to remote places, point out something awesome and God-done, and exclaim, "Look, I believe the right thing and I proved it, now convert!" This is inappropriate and will probably get you arrested or committed to a mental facility. Rather, we should live each moment of our lives entirely committed to glorifying God and manifesting Christ in our actions (Ephesians 5:1-2).
What better way can we convince people that there is a God who loves everyone unconditionally than by being living examples of this love (1 John 4:7-17)? It is incredibly clear in the Bible that the entire purpose of our new Christian lives is to love everyone with Christ's love (John 15:12), and therefore, this should be the primary focus of Christianity today.
Unfortunately, this can be very difficult. As humans, we are prone to judge everyone that we meet by their physical appearance, and to make immediate assumptions about them based solely on what we can physically see (1 Samuel 16:6-7). Sadly enough, this is even true in many of today's churches, where many of the fashions of the youth today are visibly and loudly frowned upon by active churchgoers.
The true form of Christianity cannot be shown to the world if we are not even showing it to our fellow Christians.
It's depressing when I hear about people who have been so harmed by Christians, whether directly or indirectly, that they refuse to give Christianity a chance. I get upset when I'm talking to people and they feel the need to preface their statements with "Please don't hate me for this but...." The attitude of the ghost of Christianity is one that has lost the true spirit of Christ, and rather than producing fruit, is actively scaring the fruit away from the vine!
When we begin judging people wrongfully (1 Corinthians 5:12) and treating people based on our human judgment instead of God's holy and all-knowing wisdom, we lose our ability as a faith to grow (John 15:1-8). The reason that the early church spread so rapidly, even despite its persecution, is that their members were an entire group of people who, even when they didn't even want to be alive, continued to live as Jesus lived (2 Corinthians 1:3-12).
Living this way is difficult, but rewarding beyond anything that we can imagine (John 15:9-14).
The analogy continues, at least in part.
People who don’t believe in ghosts (in terms of this analogy) will cite countless logical, scientific reasons why it’s just not possible for ghosts to be real, and will cling to them unceasingly. They are absolutely staunch in their belief and reasoning for not-believing, and will undoubtedly always have facts on hand to prove why ghosts don’t exist.
Opponents of Christianity, as well, will do the same thing. Whether it’s impossibly complex logical arguments as to why God simply can’t exist to rhetoric about why He isn’t needed, we are constantly bombarded by the illogical nature of believing in an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving Creator. The idea is dismissed as primeval or irrelevant, and Christians are dismissed as simple-minded fools.
In a sense, we are, or we should be, crazy to this world. The basic truth of Christianity – that God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die in our place so that we could remain with Him forever (John 3:16) is ridiculous when people fail to accept the idea that anything supernatural exists. However, since God created everything that exists and is not bound by the laws of nature that we can interact with, His strength and glory are utterly confusing to anyone who is not saved (or getting there) (1 Corinthians 1:18-20).
Christianity is intended to be somewhat contrary to the ways of this world. Our society encourages selfishness and a single-minded relentless pursuit of our own desires at the expense of everyone else if needed, while true Christianity (not its ghost) is selfless, kind, and involves a true sense of compassion for all people (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). This seems impossible to those who view true Christianity from the outside – but that’s a good thing! If people are looking at you, as a Christian, and are absolutely perplexed as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, then you can be sure that you’re somewhere close to the right track (1 Corinthians 8:23-25).
