We live in an age of half-beliefs. Many people profess Christianity on Sundays while living as practical atheists Monday through Saturday. Others treat the Bible as a kind of spiritual self-help manual, cherry-picking passages that comfort them while discarding those that challenge. Still others have abandoned Christianity altogether, often because they were taught a watered-down version that couldn't withstand serious intellectual scrutiny. Charles Murray, in Taking Religion Seriously, makes a case that deserves attention: if you're going to be Christian at all, you should take it seriously. And that means taking it literally.
This isn't a call to mindless fundamentalism or rejection of reason. Rather, it's a recognition that Christianity makes specific claims about reality that are either true or false. Either Christ rose from the dead, or He didn't. Either God exists and acts in history, or He doesn't. Either Scripture contains divine revelation, or it contains merely human wisdom. We cannot coherently believe in a Christianity stripped of these literal claims and still possess anything worth calling Christianity.
The modern tendency toward metaphorical Christianity emerged from a particular anxiety: fear that literal faith would be intellectually embarrassing. Educated people, we were told, understand that the miraculous elements of Christianity, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the feeding of the five thousand, are really just "spiritual truths" we shouldn't take literally. The Gospels become myth-making, Scripture becomes poetry, and doctrine becomes preference.
But this move solves nothing. It merely trades one set of problems for another. If the resurrection is merely metaphorical, then why did the disciples stake their lives on it? Frightened people don't die for poetic interpretations. If the incarnation is just symbolic, then why did early Christians face persecution rather than simply explaining that they meant something else? The historical facts point toward a religious tradition that understood itself as making literal claims about what actually happened.
Moreover, the metaphorical approach creates logical tangles. If we interpret the resurrection metaphorically, on what grounds do we interpret Christ's moral teachings literally? If "Jesus rose from the dead" is mere symbol, why isn't "love your enemies" also just metaphor? The moment you abandon literalism, you lose any principled way to distinguish between doctrine and decoration, between what matters and what doesn't. You're left with private judgment, which is to say, you're left with whatever comforts you personally.
This is precisely where contemporary Christianity has landed. We've become a religion of individual interpretation, where every believer is his own pope. The result is Christianity so domesticated, so thoroughly accommodated to modern sensibilities, that it demands nothing and offers nothing but warm feelings. It's not surprising that fewer people believe it.
Many educated people assume that literalist Christianity requires intellectual suicide. This assumption is simply false. The case for literal Christianity doesn't depend on rejecting reason or evidence. It depends on recognizing that the historical evidence, properly examined, supports Christian claims.
Consider the resurrection. The apostles didn't invent the resurrection because they needed a metaphor for spiritual hope. The resurrection wasn't the conclusion of their theological reflection, it was the shock that demanded explanation. Every account we have indicates the disciples were devastated, terrified, hiding behind locked doors. Nothing in their worldview prepared them for what they claimed to have experienced. A fabricated story would have looked different. It would have been gentler, more edifying, more obviously designed to persuade. Instead, we have reports of doubt, confusion, and radical transformation that required the most extraordinary explanation: that something genuinely unprecedented had occurred.
This pattern repeats throughout early Christian history. Christians didn't adopt bizarre doctrines because they were gullible. They adopted them because the alternative, denying what they claimed to have witnessed, was impossible. They were willing to die, lose property, face family separation, all because they were convinced something literally happened that changed everything.
The virgin birth, the miracles, the ascension, these weren't invented to make Christianity more appealing. If anything, they made it harder to believe. A more marketable ancient religion would have followed the pattern of other mystery cults: a wise teacher whose spiritual insights live on, whose followers carry forward his teaching. Christianity instead made the wildly implausible claim that this man was God incarnate, that He rose from the dead, that He ascended to heaven. These claims are scandalous precisely because they're literal.
Literalist Christianity takes seriously what it means that these things actually happened. This is where doctrine enters. If Christ literally rose from the dead, that means something specific about God's power, God's plan, and human destiny. It's not enough to say "I'm spiritual but not religious" or "I just try to follow Jesus's teachings." A literal resurrection has implications. It means Christ actually conquered death. It means what He said about Himself actually matters. It means the Gospel accounts are not just inspirational but historical testimony.
Similarly, if God literally created the world, if Christ literally died for our sins, if the Holy Spirit literally indwells believers, these aren't poetic flourishes. They're claims about how reality actually works. They have consequences for how we live, what we prioritise, who we become.
This is where many modern people balk. They want the ethical teachings of Christianity, love your neighbour, care for the poor, forgive your enemies, without the supernatural framework. But this is incoherent. The reason Christ's ethical teaching carries weight is precisely because it's grounded in literal truth about who God is and what He's done. Remove the literal foundation, and you're left with nice ideas, but no compelling reason to restructure your life around them.
Literalist Christianity, by contrast, offers something that actually transforms. It makes demands because it makes claims. It says: this happened, therefore you must change. Not because it would be nice if you changed, not because self-improvement is pleasant, but because you've encountered the God who made you, who died for you, and who calls you to follow Him.
What does literalist Christianity look like in practice? It means taking seriously that God exists and acts in the world. Prayer isn't wish-fulfillment or journaling; it's speaking to Someone who actually hears and responds. It means understanding that sin is real, not mere psychological dysfunction or social conditioning, but genuine rebellion against God that damages us and requires forgiveness. It means accepting that grace is real, that we cannot save ourselves, but that God offers rescue we don't deserve.
It means living differently because we believe these things are true. We don't give to the poor because it makes us feel virtuous; we do it because we serve a God who identifies with the suffering. We don't forgive our enemies because forgiveness is psychologically healthy; we do it because we've been forgiven through Christ's death. We don't restrain sexual desire because society tells us to; we do it because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
This isn't easy. Literalist Christianity makes serious demands. It requires submission to something outside ourselves, acceptance of truths we might prefer were false, obedience even when we disagree. This is precisely why it's not more popular. People prefer religions, or quasi-religions, that affirm them as they are, that demand nothing uncomfortable, that bless their existing desires.
But difficulty isn't a sign of falsehood. A religion that demanded nothing would deserve nothing. A Christianity that perfectly suited modern sensibilities would be all too likely a human invention rather than divine truth. The very scandal of Christian claims, their implausibility, their demands, their refusal to be domesticated, may be evidence of their authenticity.
Charles Murray's argument is ultimately simple: if Christianity is true, we should believe it literally and live it seriously. If it's false, we should say so and stop pretending. What we cannot reasonably do is treat it as a pleasant metaphor while organising our lives around other priorities. That's not faith; it's aesthetic appreciation of a religious tradition we don't actually believe.
The choice before us is stark. We can have a Christianity that makes real claims about what actually happened, that demands real change, that offers real hope grounded in real events. Or we can have a comfortable spirituality that asks nothing, promises nothing, and changes nothing, which is to say, that offers nothing at all.
For those willing to examine the evidence honestly, to follow the arguments where they lead, to accept that the universe might be stranger and more wonderful than materialism allows, literalist Christianity remains intellectually defensible. More than that: it remains the only version worth believing in. Because a faith that doesn't stake its claim on reality cannot stake any claim at all.
Take Christianity seriously. Either it's true, or it isn't. If it is, live like you believe it. If it isn't, have the honesty to say so. But don't settle for half-belief and quarter-faith.Jesus deserves better than that. And so do you.