I was originally supposed to write a Book of the Month for The Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight. Before I was able to get it finished, I listened to Jesus Wants to Save the Christians and read Torn. (Two books in less than a week, that’s impressive for me.) The thing that hit me like a truck, and a central theme within the latter books, was how Christianity is failing. These two, combined with the ideas presented within The Jesus Creed compelled me to combine them into one post. So, without further ado, American Christians Have Failed.
We’ll start with a discussion of The Jesus Creed. I had to read this book before my freshman year at Cornerstone. As part of that assignment, we were required to respond to the book. While others spent about 5 pages responding to the material, in my traditional overachiever form, I wrote over ten. The paper basically explains the book, the parts that stood out most to me, and how I can apply it to my life. Four years later, after hours of reading various other theology books, discussing theology in classes, and doing personal studies, I came back to the book. This time I read it for fun. I was surprised by two very different things.
First I was surprised by how much I felt the exact same whilst reading the book. You would think that after four years my mindset would change; my views would be different; I would read the book in an entirely different way. That wasn’t the case. Reading the book felt like I was reading it the first time, completely agreeing with nearly everything McKnight was saying. This book was the beginning of my rule of life: people first, everything else second; God above all. That’s what this book is about. It’s about how to live a life of love- love for God and love for others. It’s about living like Jesus by loving.
The second thing that surprised me was how much differently I viewed the book. (Ironic, isn’t it?) The first time I read the book all of my classmates complained that it was far too long. I disagreed with them. This time, I would agree. He could have said everything he had to say in about half as many pages (292 was too much for this book). I found myself reading it and saying to myself, “You said that in the last sentence. You don’t need to repeat yourself so much.” Another thing that changed were the parts of the book that stood out to me the most. In my response to the book, I noted that Peter was my favorite story from the book.
I mean, who doesn’t like Peter’s story? He fails Jesus time and time again, and yet Jesus still comes back to him; Jesus still allows him to do His work. We can all relate to that. We know we’ve failed. We know we’ll never be perfect. Yet we also know that Jesus will continue to come back to us, continue to choose us, to do His work. It’s inspiring and relatable. While I still relate to Peter’s story, I found myself more drawn to a different story. McKnight calls it, “The Story of Compassion” (Peter’s was “The Story of Conversion”). This story focuses on the women in Jesus’ time. How he treated them. Essentially through examining these stories, McKnight portrays an image of the Jesus Creed that is compassionate to all, especially those who we (and society) may see as beneath us, and even more so those who society has wronged, shunned, or hurt in any way.
Compassion is a funny word, though. I remember in eighth grade Social Studies class we had a test (yes, we had more than one test. But this one stands out in my memory). On that test, we had to read an article about the Manifest Destiny. In the article was the word “compassion”. To test our comprehension of the article, one of the test questions was “what does the word compassion mean?” Only three answers remain in my mind: pity, love, and understanding.Only one of the four options even made sense, and that was understanding. We say that God has love and compassion, so it couldn’t be love. Pity is typically a negative word, and can hardly be used in the same sentence as love and have love mean anything. So the answer must have been understanding. Unfortunately, my teacher disagreed and I got the question wrong. It turned into a debate throughout the rest of the year with students on both sides arguing their case. Those of us who argued for understanding never won, but ultimately, we were right.I tell this story not simply because it’s a nice anecdote, but because it shows a serious problem within our culture about what compassion really is, but we’ll get back to that later.
Another thing that was different this time reading it was that I resonated more with the ideas of Christians being a society for justice rather than a society of mustard seeds. Yes, I still affirm that we must be like mustard seeds. I touched on Justice a little in my response the first time, but the idea is so much more prevalent in my life now than it was before. Justice, to Jesus, isn’t about giving people what they deserve, like it means in our society today. When we think about justice we think about someone being punished for their crime or rewarded for their accomplishment. That’s not the type of justice Jesus wants, nor should it be the type of justice Christians seek. Justice is about treating people right; about treating them the way they deserve to be treated (no matter what they’ve done). Justice shows them that they still matter; God still loves them. True justice brings them back to God after having been lost for so long. Justice is about making sure their needs are met, and they are treated with dignity and respect because they are, after all, God’s beautiful creation and He loves them. That’s the type of justice God desires of us.
Which brings me to the next book: Torn by Justin Lee. In this autobiographical book, Lee recollects on his life-his upbringing, his revelation that he was gay, his struggle reconciling that with his commitment to Christ and everything that happened thereafter. (Note: I’m not going to use this post to discuss whether or not homosexuality is sinful. That’s addressed in the book; however, that is not the purpose of this post. Perhaps I will post something discussing that later on.) The book is a heartbreaking journey of fear, self-loathing, confusion, depression, and so much more. No matter what you feel about homosexuality, I advise you read this book.
The points of the book I would like to highlight are those that caused that book to be written in the first place. The tagline of the book reads, “Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs-Christians Debate.” I found myself live-tweeting while reading this book because it had so many simple truths that we overlook on a daily basis. Much of my discussion about this book will revolve around these principles.
Too often in life we break it down to “us vs. Them” instead of realizing that it has always been, and always will be, only “we”
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 13, 2014
This isn’t isn’t necessarily addressed directly within the book, but I think it’s an important one nonetheless. Throughout the book, Lee posits that (according to both sides) you can either be gay or a Christian. This idea is reinforced by Christians who have started a war against gays. They so far as to attack them personally. They pressure them into conforming or risk being ostracized. To some, the Gays-VS-Christians debate was created and is continued primarily by Christians, with the other side simply responding to attacks lobbied at them continuously. Throughout the Bible, though, God is telling us there is no “them”. We’re all His children; He created us all. He loves us all. When will we wake up, realize the war we started by separating out segments of society and do something to fix it?
This war can’t be all bad, though, can it? I mean, it shows we’re standing up for what we believe, and that’s what Christ wants us to do, right? Well, not necessarily.
People respected Jesus so much they came to him to hear his teaching. The church and Christians today are scaring people. #whathappened
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 13, 2014
There’s no doubt that the church, and Christians as a whole, are viewed negatively in society. We see it in movies and TV shows; we hear our friends talking about it. People don’t like the church, and they fear Christians. They see how Christians act, and they want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, this gives them a negative view of God and Jesus. As Christians, we claim to be Christ’s representation in the world. When we are doing things that push people away, we are doing a poor job of representing Him to the world. Again, you may find yourself arguing that all we’re doing is standing up for what God says is right. But let’s take a moment to look at the example Jesus left for us on how to interact with others, specifically those who may be doing things that are sinful.
Jesus never looked down on anyone (though he certainly had the right to)He met them as friends. Why do we refuse to do the same?
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 13, 2014
The woman at the well; the woman caught in adultery; tax collectors. (note that two of these are women, hence why McKnight’s story of compassion in The Jesus Creed focuses on women) He met each one of them where they were. As Son of God, a perfect man who had never sinned, he had every right to condemn them. He could have said, “You’re living in sin. Until you change, I will not do anything for you, or with you.” I don’t know how to emphasize enough the right Jesus had to do this as one without sin. God Himself sat with these sinners and what did he do? He loved them. They felt welcomed by him. Let’s focus solely on the woman at the well for a moment. She had multiple husbands previously (which indicated many divorces) and was not living with another man, whom she was not currently married to. This means she was guilty not only of divorce but of adultery, each multiple times. Jesus doesn’t condemn her once. While not Biblical, I can’t help but feel like this spoken word is a perfect representation of what was going on in the woman’s mind at the time. Here was this man who just met her and knew about her life, yet did not judge her for it. How often is that experienced with Christians today? We’d rather tell you everything you’re doing wrong in your life (even if we hardly know you. I kid you not, a girl I used to work with had a pastor give her a tract and say, “you look like you need Jesus.”) than spend a moment to get to know you, simply because you’re you. That’s what Jesus did.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Jesus never condemned people. But let’s take a moment to look at those whom he did condemn. It wasn’t the woman at the well, nor the woman caught in adultery (probably a form of prostitution), nor was it the tax collectors. Jesus condemned the religious leaders- the Pharisees. The gospels are filled with constant controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees. He condemned those who turned the temple into basically a mini-mall. It wasn’t sinners; it wasn’t “them”. Jesus had it out for the religious people; the “us”. Why did he have it out for them? Because their piety had caused them to fail to follow God.
The entirety of the Bible is a guide on how to be human and the basic principle is love. Love of God and love of others above all else.
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 13, 2014
The Pharisees had the Old Testament scriptures. And they used them to justify their works. They claimed they were following the law, and in doing so, were righteous before God. Unfortunately, they were following the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. This is something Jesus nails them on time and time. When they try to condemn him for doing work on the Sabbath multiple times he counters showing that it’s rightful to do good things even on the Sabbath because man wasn’t made for the law. We were created to do a list of things; we were created to love. The law was a guide on how to love, but it wasn’t the end-all-be-all. The whole premise of The Jesus Creed is that Jesus sums up the law in two ideas: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; love your neighbor as yourself. According to Jesus, it’s all about love.
We modern American Christians we have more in common with the Pharisees of Jesus’ time than we’d like to admit.
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 13, 2014
Like the Pharisees, we’re failing Jesus. We’re not following his example. We’re not living in a loving way. We are so quick to point out the sin and problems in others lives. Christ tells us to fix our own first, but we ignore that. We ignore his example of just being with those who were sinning without ever once looking down on them, telling them they’re wrong or arguing with them about their lives. We ignore His command to love others as we love ourselves. “Well, we love the sinner hate the sin. And if I love them, I have to show them they’re sinning because that’s love.” That’s the response most of you are going to be thinking at this point. First, I will point you again to Jesus’ example. Only a fool would say Jesus didn’t also hate the sin. And yet he still met them as they were, not expecting them to change in order to come to him; not continuously badgering them about their lives; not degrading them in any way. He simply loved them.
Second, I would like to point out many problems with that phrase in the first place. “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” This is something Lee talks about in his book, and it really struck home, because that’s a phrase I’ve used in my past (as did he). For one, nobody wants to be blatantly called a sinner, especially by someone else. We’ll admit it about ourselves on occasion, but when someone else says it about is it hurts. Intentionally hurting someone by calling them such a thing is not love. Next, it perpetuates the idea of the divide. It’s almost as if saying you’re not one of us, but I’m going to love you anyway. With that, it gives the connotation that you’re only loving them out of duty as if it’s your new project. Nobody wants to be a project, and that’s certainly not real love. Real love, as evidenced through Jesus, meets them and welcomes them nonetheless. It doesn’t label them; it doesn’t announce to them that it hates a part of them; it doesn’t accuse them of being a lesser person (as this phrase does without intending to do so). Lastly, the phrase fails to recognize that the one saying it is a sinner as well. It gives the idea that you think you’re perfect and that’s why you have the authority to say what you do. You don’t. Only Jesus did (“let he who is without sin cast the first stone”) and yet even he didn’t do that. So why have we suddenly decided it’s okay for us to do so? We’re just like the Pharisees- doing what we think is right, but completely missing the point of everything Jesus taught us, and ignoring His example (and commands) on how to love and treat others.
Which brings me to the third book. Jesus Wants to Save Christians. This book, while not necessarily an attack on American Christianity, is basically an attack on American Christianity. The authors begin by tracking Israel through the old testament. How they were slaves, and then they were freed, and then they built a kingdom, and accumulated wealth and weapons, and traded those weapons, and had slaves. And then they were conquered and became oppressed again. After Jesus’ time, the Christians were oppressed. The reigning authorities condemned Christianity and those who believed it in, and what happened? Christianity flourished.
Then we have America today. Christianity is widespread. Nearly every (if not all) presidents have claimed to be Christian. The nation is, essentially, a Christian nation. We’re an arms dealer; we have amassed much wealth. Christianity in America is seen to have power, and we flex that muscle as much as possible. We donate money to causes that we want; we withhold our money from companies that do things we disagree with. We tell others they have to do certain things because it’s the way we want it and we are the majority, and we’re right, and we have the muscle to back ourselves up.
Is that Christianity? Or is that oppression by Christians? I tweeted a little whilst listening to this book as well.
Christianity works best when it’s the oppressed minority. As soon as it becomes the majority it loses all integrity.
— Nick (@scaryytino) January 12, 2014
Let that sink in for a second. Does it bother you? If it does it’s for one of two reasons: 1) you know it’s true and you don’t like it and/or don’t want to admit it. 2) you firmly believe it’s wrong. If you believe it’s wrong, let’s take a look at history for a moment. Early Christianity was oppressed, and it did great things, it thrived. Later, Christianity was the majority and it killed people who didn’t believe (the crusades). Fast forward and we have modern examples. American Christians are scaring and bullying people out of church, and away from Christianity. Chinese Christianity (where it’s oppressed) is growing at an exponential rate. But we think that Christianity being the majority and having the power is good. Is it?
We’ve already seen many of the ways we’ve turned from the Christianity Jesus displayed. The funny thing about it is that through it all we think we’re showing compassion. We’re helping those in need by donating; we’re loving them and hating their sin; we’re showing them how they’re living is wrong so they can change. That’s compassion right? Well, maybe if your meaning of compassion is “pity” like my teacher’s was. But that’s not the meaning God has. God doesn’t pity. God understands. When God has compassion for us, he understands what we’re going through. How can we understand what others are going through in the way we’re living?
How can we bring justice to the oppressed (as Jesus did constantly throughout His time on earth) if we aren’t showing true compassion? We’ve tried to show our pity form of compassion, and they see through that. They know it’s not real. And then we see Jesus’ understanding compassion. It’s loving. It’s nonjudgmental. It’s inviting. Instead of imitating it, we ignore it. We say, “Well He’s perfect, so we can’t be expected to be as good at it as he is” or, “But if I don’t tell them God disapproves then they’ll never know.” To both of which I call bologna. Yes, Jesus was perfect, but that doesn’t mean we should ever, for even a second, stop striving to follow His example. Furthermore, they will know that God disapproves when he reveals it to them through the holy spirit. It’s not our place to do that, it’s His.
So how do we show an understanding compassion in order to bring about justice, and show God’s love to others? It comes by being with them in their suffering. After Jesus’ baptism, He went into the wilderness and was tested. One of the reasons scholars posit that he did this was so that He can enter into our temptations with us. Having been tempted in every way as man, He know what it’s like. He’s able to fully understand what’s going on, and then help us through it. Short of completely entering into the world of the oppressed (I would not think it’s good for anyone to be homeless, even if it better understand those who are) we are able to still empathize with them. Show them we care, as Jesus did, by treating them first as people and friends, and doing something to help them, instead of passing by, pretending not to notice, or worse, attacking them personally for things that are not their fault.
That’s what Christianity is about. Showing love through understanding compassion, not pity compassion; showing love by bringing justice to those who are being wrong and oppressed. Hurting when others hurt. Crying when others cry. Every single one of us is called to do this because that’s what Jesus did. We cannot continue to ignore this call. When we do we fail Jesus, we fail ourselves, and we fail those around us who need more than anything for us to love them the way God does.
