Trying God's patience since 1958
Speaking as someone who, well, had the conversion experience 14
years ago that I recounted in "I, a Rabid Anti-Christian, Very
Suddenly Convert," we Christians too often fail in these ten
ways:
1) Too much
money. "Wealthy Christian" should be an oxymoron. In
Luke 12:33, Jesus says, "Sell your possessions and give to the
poor." In Matthew 19:21, he says, "If you want to be perfect, go,
sell your possessions and give to the poor." In Matthew 6:24, he
says, "You cannot serve God and Money." Christians are generally
pretty huge on cleaving to the word of God. I just don't see how
those particular words could be clearer. (For more on this, see my
post "Christians: No Fair Heeding Paul on Gays, But Not Jesus
on Wealth.")
2) Too confident God
thinks we're all that and a leather-bound gift
Bible. I'd like to humbly suggest that we spend a
little more time wondering how we displease God and a little less
time being confident that we do. (See my post "Certainty in Christ:
A Blessing and a Curse.")
3) Too quick to believe
that we know what God really means
by what he says in the Bible. The Bible is an
extremely complex, multi-leveled work. We're sometimes too quick to
assume that we grasp its every meaning. Take this passage, for
instance, from Luke 8: 9-10: "His disciples asked him [Jesus] what
this parable [of the sower] meant. He said, 'The knowledge of the
secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others
I speak in parables, so that, "though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand."'" Huh? And
that's Jesus "explaining" what is generally regarded as one of his
most readily understood parables! Are we really all that confident
that we always know exactly what Jesus meant by everything he said?
Wouldn't we do well to sometimes admit that the words attributed to
God manifested on earth are just a tad, well, Greek to us? (See my
post "The Bible's Two Big Problems.")
4) Too
action-oriented. We Christians could stand to spend
less time acting in the name of God, and more time reflecting on
the (ever subtle) majesty of God. We need more passivity, and less
activity. More meditation, less machination. More reflection, less
correction. More contemplation, less administration. More prayers,
less airs. More mysticism, less ... um ... cretinism. (See my post
"Doing Christianity vs. Being Christian.")
5) Too invasive of
others generally. It is my personal, humble opinion
that anyone seeking to mix church and state has failed to
understand the nature and role of either. Being founded upon the
principle that all men are created equal and deserving of equal
protection under the law is what makes the American system of
democracy such a gift to mankind. Attempting to mix the inherently
exclusionary imperatives of a particular religion into the
resolutely inclusive system of the American constitutional form of
government is to work against everything that America stands for.
Religion is a personal, subjective affair for the individual;
politics and public policy is an impersonal, objective affair for
everyone. (See my post "Does the Holy Spirit Vote Republican?")
6) Too invasive of
others personally. We Christians are too often too
eager to get up into the faces of others about their personal
religious beliefs. If you believe in the reality of hell, then
wanting to save non-Christians from going there is a worthy
sentiment, of course. But the bottom line is it's absolutely
impossible to talk someone who isn't a Christian into becoming one;
in fact, more than anything else it's likely to push the
non-Christian further from God. I believe we Christians would do
very well indeed to spend our time "just" living as Christians, and
let God worry about the non-Christians. (See my post "What
Non-Christians Want Christians to Hear.")
7) Too quick to abandon
logic. When talking to others about our faith, we
Christians too often resort to a language and line of reasoning
that leaves good ol' fashion logic sitting on the ground behind us,
waving a sad good-bye. "It's true because the Bible says it's true"
is, for instance, an assertion that can't help but leave the
non-Christian unimpressed, since it's so manifestly illogical.
"It's true because the Bible says it's true" is no more proof of
truth than is, "Apples are the best of the fruits, because I think
that's true." Christians need to more readily admit that the
religious experience -- no matter how riveting and real it is to
the person experiencing it -- remains asubjective phenomenon,
and talk about it that way. (See my "Let's Be Real: No One 'Walks'
and 'Talks' with Jesus.")
8) Too fixated on
homosexuality. Can we Christians stop already with
the gay and lesbian fixation? I know many of us understand our
stance on the matter to be unassailably Biblical. I know a great
many of us are deeply concerned about the "homosexual agenda." I
know. We all know.
Maybe Christians could just give that issue a rest for a while.
It's not like gay and lesbian people are going anywhere. They'll
all be there when we get back. Maybe -- for just a week, a day, a
month -- we could concern ourselves with something else, and let
them be. (See my post "Christians: When It Comes to Homosexuality,
Man Up.")
9) Too
insular. When I became a Christian, one of the things
that most amazed me about Christians is the degree to which they
tend to hang out only with other Christians. We should stop doing
that. How are we supposed to share Christ's love with
non-Christians (which we're forever saying we want to do) when we
barely know any
non-Christians? Time to widen that social base, I say. (Plus,
Christian or not, we still want to throw good, fun parties, don't
we? Well, let's face it: The heathen class has all the good music.
We might as well invite a few of them to our next party. Maybe
they'll bring their CD's!) (See my post, "My Answer to Christians
Denouncing R. Crumb's "Genesis Illustrated.")
10) Too uneducated about
Christianity. Generally speaking (which of course is
the most offensive way to speak about any group of people),
Christians tend to embarrass themselves by knowing so little about
either the Bible or the history of Christianity. Believing that the
Bible is the word of God, for instance, is one thing; knowing
nothing about the long process by which men decided which texts
would and wouldn't make it into the Bible is another. It's not that
all Christians should be full-on theologians or historians. But if
you're a Christian who doesn't know the Great
Schism from The Great Santini, or the Diet of
Worms from ... well, the diet of worms, then you've got
some homework to do.
(If you
liked The Restoration of Stephen Baldwin, you'll
love The Restoration of John Shore.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shore/10-ways-christians-tend-t_b_562583.html