Will Christianity EVER be "trendy"?

There are so many religions in existence, especially in such a multi-cultural country as Australia. Each and every religion is generally known to be a particular thing to the majority, though in many cases is not true at all.

Islam is a religion based on violence. Sihk's are actually Muslim because only Muslim's wear turbans and other head-gear. Christian's are just sheep, blindly following a book of lies. Buddhist's are funky and the preferred choice if you wish to be in the "kool klub". I could go on, but I won't. I believe you get the point... also, they are not my views, thoughts and opinions, but what the vast majority believe.

Amongst the young in Western Society, many "follow" Buddhism, without actually knowing much about it, or Buddha (Siddartha Gautama) himself for that matter. In order to be one (a Buddhist), you must be a vegetarian (although vegan is preffered), vote for the Green Party, only shop at op-shops and basically that's it... wrong! Much more to it than that, and much more to Buddha than that... he was a wealthy Prince who renounced his wealth and aristocratic family in order to humble himself and find the meaning of life.

Muslim's are all either terrorists, totally hot-headed and violent, or in some cases, simply deeply religious people. Again, another false view on yet another religion. I could go on, but I don't want this to be too lengthy, so I will cut to the point of this blog entry: Will Christianity EVER be "trendy"?

Last year in Australia was a very important landmark year as it was not only the first visit from Pope Benedict XVI, but Sydney hosted the week-long celebrations for World Youth Day. As a result, many Catholic Churches have seen an increase in young people attending their local church and reconnecting with their faith, religion and God.

This year a new advertising campaign has been released, thanking God for whatever... Thank-you God for chips. Thank-you God for humour. Et-cetera. The campaign is "Jesus All About Life" or "JAAL" for short. It is not run by any one denomination but a group of denominations, including the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.

Still, as it appears to me, Christianity will still remain the archaic, boring, genetic religion - according to atheists anyways. Sure it has had its trends, for instance you quite often see people wearing a necklace with a cross or crucifix on it, or the same thing as ear-rings; many of these people being your garden-variety atheist or even half-arsed Buddhist. There are the alternative sub-cultures - goth, punk etc; - who will wear Rosary Beads as a necklace all in the name of fashion; something that the Church condemns as they are a Holy item, used for prayer and meditation. I have been guilty of wearing mine as a fashion, but there isn't any condemnation towards me because I also use them for their actual purpose... though many people would see them on me and just think they are there for fashion reasons unfortunately.

I have even had people call names or attempt to tease me for being a Christian when I have my days where I am OBVIOUSLY a Christian - wearing either a World Youth Day 2008 shirt, a shirt with "I heart Jesus" and "I heart the Pope" - however I say "attempt" to tease me because I have no shame in being Christian.

So what is my point to all this? I really don't know, other than the fact that sadly, Christianity is so misunderstood and almost got to the point where non-believers don't want a bar of it to hear what it's really about. The young can't see that loving God, Jesus, Mary and The Church can also be trendy. They can't see that we too do actually sin, have our bad habits and so forth - we're not perfect, nor are we all goody-goody two-shoes. Christianity can be kool - that is not an opinion but a fact. The proof is in the streets of Sydney during World Youth Day.

So why won't the young people start looking into the religion that many were bought up as? Why must they all turn to other world-religions? There's no problem in looking into other religions and finding what is right for you, but when you follow a religion simply because it is trendy and kool, not even practicing the religion and knowing more about Christianity - why not go back to Christianity?

Hopefully the JAAL campaign will change peoples thoughts and ideas on Christianity and we gain some tolerance from the atheists/agnostics, or better yet, gain even more numbers for Jesus!