These issues are "old." The wrestling is not. As I continue to wrestle, I re-post this blog originally written in August 2010 as a response to some "current events" taking place at that time. Upon re-reading, I found that I feel more strongly about everything I wrote in this post than I did even at the time I wrote it. One of the pastors at my church [Brooklyn Tabernacle] that I work very closely with said that one of his goals this year is to help non-Christians view Christians differently. I'm down with that. Read below and you'll see why.
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AUGUST 2010
One of my biggest pet peeves is so-called “churchianity.” I’m sure that
many people have their own definition of this term, but I take it to
mean religiosity without heart. Christian clichés without compassion.
Catch-phrases that are thrown around without a thought as to whether or
not they’re even biblical. Knowing how to orchestrate a conversation,
or a prayer, or a service or a song in a way that might elicit an
emotional reaction but falls short of any real transaction with God.
And if you think that this note is going to be some rant blasting
“fakers” in the church – please. The reason why this is such a pet
peeve of mine is because, more often than not, the offending party is
myself. I’m constantly catching myself falling into the trap of
churchianity – and I at least thank God that He’s helping me to
extricate myself as quickly as possible when I become aware of it. And
it’s because I’m so sensitive to my own hypocrisy that I find myself
being aware when it manifests in those around me and even society in
general. I personally believe that it is one of the most destructive
forces [if not the most destructive] that exist in the Christian world
today – and one of the primary factors that hinder the spread of the
Good News. Brennan Manning once said this:
“The greatest single
cause of atheism in the world today is Christians – who acknowledge
Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their
lifestyle. THAT is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
Now,
I’m not an advanced apologist or theologian, nor am I well-versed in
the current trends of Christianity in America today. But from my
limited amount of knowledge and the people that I’ve had conversations
with – Christianity in American today has a horrible reputation. It
just does. And the two most common objections that I’ve heard said as
to why people have no interest in becoming Christians are: “Christians
are narrow-minded, judgmental, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-this,
anti-that”…. or…. “it all just seems really fake to me.” Notice that
these objections have nothing to do with Jesus. The objections to
Christianity are focused on Christians.
This morning, I saw four
different posts that set off a wrestling match inside of me about my own
Christian walk as it pertains to this issue. I feel compelled to share
two of them with you [with the other two to come as part of another
note at another time] – not as a means of eliciting guilt or being
confrontational – but as a means of allowing you to wrestle along with
me and maybe even open up a dialogue of what we can do about it.
FACEBOOK POST #1: Anne Rice Quits Being a Christian
http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/08/05/father-raymond-j-de-souza-anne-rice-wants-christ-without-the-christianity/
Superquick Background:
Anne Rice used to write vampire novels. She decided around ten years
ago to return to the Catholic faith of her childhood. Last week, she
made this statement: ““Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I
remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to
being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to
this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous
group.”
After giving her props for the use of “disputatious,”
my immediate first thought was defensive. I mentally gave her a
thumbs-down on her theology – after all, one cannot base one’s
theological viewpoint on the appearance of others who “claim” to be
following that same theology. There are just too many confounding
variables that refute that logic – a high percentage of those
individuals used as a reference are [statistically speaking] probably
not “really” Christians – the fact that Christians still sin all the
time as we’re all in different stages of our sanctification process,
etc. My second thought was anger and frustration at “those Christians”
who were the cause of Ms. Rice deciding to slap the “quarrelsome,
hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous” label on followers of
Christ worldwide.
But then my third thought set off some
squirming, as God quickly turned my mental finger-pointing back to where
it belonged – myself. My walk. My community. Sure, I might not be
picketing with “God hates gays” signs or blowing up abortion clinics in
the name of Christianity… but what am I doing? If Christian means
“follower of Christ,” can I wear that label with any kind of life-proved
authority? Am I known more for what I’m against than what I’m for? Am
I more concerned with accomplishing tasks than loving people? And if I
am… then I’m just as responsible for validating Anne Rice’s decision
than those who overtly smear Christ’s name. Don’t get me wrong – her
decision is her own and obviously was made for deeper reasons than
simply not liking the choices of a few Christians that she knows. She
is solely responsible for her own choices and decisions. But it’s just
like I tell my REMIXers when we’ve talked about purity. I tell the
girls – “look, guys are solely responsible for guarding their eyes and
heart against lust. But if you go walking down Fulton Street with 80%
of your skin showing – are you making it easy or hard for them to do
that?” Same way here – people are solely responsible for their
decisions for or against Christ. But as Christians, are our own actions
paving the way for someone to come to know God – or are we actually
standing in the way of it?
FACEBOOK POST #2: Proposition 8
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/us/05prop.html
Superquick Background:
In 2008, California passed [with 52% of the vote] Proposition 8, a
constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage, declaring that
“only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in
California.” Last week, a federal judge in California [Vaughn R.
Walker] overturned Prop 8 citing that it was unconstitutional because it
discriminates against gay men and women. Appeals are now in progress.
First
of all, everyone relax. For whatever reason, I’ve found that bringing
up the issue of homosexuality in a Christian setting often elicits the
same reaction as someone saying “bomb” on an airplane – but I don’t
intend to have a theological discussion on this issue at present. What
got me wrestling this morning wasn’t so much the theological
implications of Prop 8, but rather how the Christian community is
reacting to Prop 8. A number of my Facebook friends – both gay and
straight, Christian and non-Christian – posted different articles,
thoughts, statuses [stati?] regarding this issue – and I applaud that. I
applaud discussing, sharing, voicing opinions over difficult issues
rather than burying our heads in the sand and pretending they don’t
exist. I looked specifically through the posts by my Christian
friends, and noticed that some of them were well-written and thoughtful,
while others were, honestly, downright offensive. And the thought
came to me – if I were LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] and I
read some of these FB postings… would they point me to Christ or make me
want to have nothing to do with Him?
Now, before any uproar
ensues and the can of worms explodes all over our computer screens, let
me make a couple of statements. First, as stated before, I’m wrestling
with these issues. I don’t know all the answers – I’m simply being
honest enough to ask the questions. And my question really is: how
should we, as the Christian community, be reacting to this latest
political development in a way that would honor and glorify God?
Well…
let’s think Biblically here. When asked what the greatest commandment
of all was, Jesus replied as follows: “Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the
first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your
neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments” [Matthew 22:37-40]. And elsewhere in Scripture [John
14:15], Jesus says that a sign that shows that we love Him is our
obedience to His commands. So in EVERYTHING that we do, we have two
commands – to love God [and one way we do that is through upholding His
law], and love other people.
So what does that mean? Well…
1) If we uphold God’s law, but neglect loving other people as we do it – we’re wrong.
2) If we love other people but neglect to keep the commands that God’s given us – we’re wrong.
People
always used to use WWJD [What Would Jesus Do?] as one of those
Christian catch-phrases, and I would laugh because my answer to that
question was always “I have no idea.” Jesus was constantly doing things
that people would have found unpredictable – I mean, come on, an
adulterous woman is thrown down at his feet by a crowd bent on stoning
her… WWJD? Well, of course, He’d bend down and start writing on the
ground with a stick.
Yeah. That was gonna be my NEXT guess.
If I were going to redefine that phrase to make it a little easier to work with, I’d probably opt for “What WOULDN’T Jesus Do?” Adulterous woman example? What WOULDN’T
Jesus do? Well, He definitely wouldn’t pick up a stone and hurl it at
her. He definitely wouldn’t just gloss over her sin and tell her to
continue on doing whatever she felt like. See how much easier this is?
But,
as I close [lol], I’m trying to somehow apply this principle to this
current debate over Prop 8. What Would Jesus Do? I honestly don’t
know. But I’m pretty sure at least what He wouldn’t do – I don’t think
He’d be posting messages with slurs towards LGBTs. I’m pretty sure that
He wouldn’t dismiss any mention of human rights with “whatever, they’re
just sinners.” I also don’t think that He’d be applauding it – because
He cannot deny what His own Word says about marriage. But neither do I
think He’d be silent – the Jesus that I read about in my Bible was VERY
much an activist. The only thing that I do know is that He would
uphold truth with the utmost love. And, regardless of how we as
Christians choose to respond to this new development – if we want to
continue to CALL ourselves Christians – we had better be choosing to do
the same.
