Dear Christians who are smarter, hipper, and more open-minded than I am,
I ran across this article in the Huffington Post a couple weeks ago, from a self proclaimed Christian telling other Christians to shut up and play nice with everyone else. I agreed with a couple of things he said, but found most of it really irritating. I hear this kind of thing from a growing number of voices, many of them are people that I genuinely like and consider my brothers and sisters. We can not deny that there is a growing divide between those of you who fancy yourselves open minded, progressive, or enlightened Christians (even though you'd never say it like that), and those who call themselves Biblical, evangelical, or "true " Christians (and they would say it that way). What worries me the most, and what prompted me to write this letter is the fear that many of your type of Jesus-followers actually feel they have more in common with progressive atheists and secular types than with other Jesus-followers who hold different political perspectives or different interpretations of the Bible.
I'm sorry the rest of us have been embarrassing you so much. That is not our intent. But we are a family, and everyone has family members they are embarrassed of. We love them anyway. I agree that a lot of Christians need to be a lot less vocal about a lot of things. It is so easy to get distracted about what the main thing is. Our job is not to influence public opinion or voting habits. It is not to create a "Christian nation" or a "moral majority." Our job is to proclaim the kingdom of God and work to see it come "on earth as it is in heaven." Our job is to serve without recognition and love without reward, to live like Jesus. That is what will change the world. Keep reminding us of that.
Now I'd like to respectfully offer some advice.
Let the people you disagree with have a voice. There is a difference between shoving something down peoples throats and humbly affirming a truth you hold. Despite our high ideal of free speech, society has a tendency to shut out voices that do not conform to the norms. Often, I feel like certain Christians want to shut out the voices of certain other Christians whom they feel are giving the word "Christian" a bad name. It happens on both sides of the divide. I don't think that is a healthy way to approach our differences. When we can no longer come together in respectful dialog, we just deepen the divide that separates us. We also prove that we do not have the love of the Father in us.
Respect faith, even if (and maybe especially if) you don't believe the same thing. I think you often misunderstand what faith is. Faith is believing in something that can not be proven or falsified. So ridiculing someone's faith because it can not be proven just shows your own ignorance. Now, a lot of Christian types put their faith in a lot of different things, not all of them are right or helpful. But please stop criticizing them for having faith. If, for example, someone believes that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, they are not giving a scientifically verifiable statement, they are sharing a tenant of their faith. There are reasons people hold this view derived both from the text of the Bible, and the history of its transmission. Agree or disagree, you can not deny that it's a tenable statement of someone's deeply held belief. Similar things could be said about other beliefs you don't agree with, such as: six day creation, substitutionary atonement, and eternal conscious torment in hell. Remember that there are those who would ridicule your faith as well, just because they don't get it. Faith is a difficult thing to keep a hold of. Give some props to those do.
Stop worrying about what is popular or trending. Right now it is becoming more and more popular to affirm homosexual marriage and deny homosexual acts as sin. Popular opinion should have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you support gay marriage. For too many it does. As followers of Jesus, our motivations should be how to best reflect God's holiness, goodness, and love in society and in our lives. If that motivation leads you to affirm gay marriage, then good for you. But don't talk about society changing and us needing to change with it. Don't talk about being progressive or open minded. Don't remind us that we are living in the 21st century. You are not winning any conservative types to your cause when you do. Talk about being Christ-like. That's an ideal we can agree on even if we disagree on some of the details about how we apply that today.
It's not all about love. I hear a lot of talk about love these days. I like to talk about love a lot myself. It's the part of the gospel that non-believers like to hear about. It sounds nice, at least until you try and live it out. In truth, the love we are taught by Jesus is so radically higher than anything we see or experience that we need to spend a huge amount of our time figuring out what it means and even more time trying to do it. However, reducing the whole of the Bible's teaching to "love" is like reducing the plot of "Inception" to "it's about dreams." The message of the Gospel is far too complex to reduce to a single unifying principle. I kind of like it that way. I reminds me that God is a lot bigger and more complex than we are. If God were easy to figure out, he wouldn't be God.
It is a lot about love. So let's work on loving each other. The love taught by Jesus is revolutionary. It brings together enemies. It breaks down the barriers of nationality, race, economic status, gender, and political ideology. I think the love of Jesus could break down the barriers between different kinds of Christians as well. Well, it's a long shot, but I think it's a really good place to start.
I love you. Let's be friends.
Your bro,
Zach
I ran across this article in the Huffington Post a couple weeks ago, from a self proclaimed Christian telling other Christians to shut up and play nice with everyone else. I agreed with a couple of things he said, but found most of it really irritating. I hear this kind of thing from a growing number of voices, many of them are people that I genuinely like and consider my brothers and sisters. We can not deny that there is a growing divide between those of you who fancy yourselves open minded, progressive, or enlightened Christians (even though you'd never say it like that), and those who call themselves Biblical, evangelical, or "true " Christians (and they would say it that way). What worries me the most, and what prompted me to write this letter is the fear that many of your type of Jesus-followers actually feel they have more in common with progressive atheists and secular types than with other Jesus-followers who hold different political perspectives or different interpretations of the Bible.
I'm sorry the rest of us have been embarrassing you so much. That is not our intent. But we are a family, and everyone has family members they are embarrassed of. We love them anyway. I agree that a lot of Christians need to be a lot less vocal about a lot of things. It is so easy to get distracted about what the main thing is. Our job is not to influence public opinion or voting habits. It is not to create a "Christian nation" or a "moral majority." Our job is to proclaim the kingdom of God and work to see it come "on earth as it is in heaven." Our job is to serve without recognition and love without reward, to live like Jesus. That is what will change the world. Keep reminding us of that.
Now I'd like to respectfully offer some advice.
Let the people you disagree with have a voice. There is a difference between shoving something down peoples throats and humbly affirming a truth you hold. Despite our high ideal of free speech, society has a tendency to shut out voices that do not conform to the norms. Often, I feel like certain Christians want to shut out the voices of certain other Christians whom they feel are giving the word "Christian" a bad name. It happens on both sides of the divide. I don't think that is a healthy way to approach our differences. When we can no longer come together in respectful dialog, we just deepen the divide that separates us. We also prove that we do not have the love of the Father in us.
Respect faith, even if (and maybe especially if) you don't believe the same thing. I think you often misunderstand what faith is. Faith is believing in something that can not be proven or falsified. So ridiculing someone's faith because it can not be proven just shows your own ignorance. Now, a lot of Christian types put their faith in a lot of different things, not all of them are right or helpful. But please stop criticizing them for having faith. If, for example, someone believes that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, they are not giving a scientifically verifiable statement, they are sharing a tenant of their faith. There are reasons people hold this view derived both from the text of the Bible, and the history of its transmission. Agree or disagree, you can not deny that it's a tenable statement of someone's deeply held belief. Similar things could be said about other beliefs you don't agree with, such as: six day creation, substitutionary atonement, and eternal conscious torment in hell. Remember that there are those who would ridicule your faith as well, just because they don't get it. Faith is a difficult thing to keep a hold of. Give some props to those do.
Stop worrying about what is popular or trending. Right now it is becoming more and more popular to affirm homosexual marriage and deny homosexual acts as sin. Popular opinion should have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you support gay marriage. For too many it does. As followers of Jesus, our motivations should be how to best reflect God's holiness, goodness, and love in society and in our lives. If that motivation leads you to affirm gay marriage, then good for you. But don't talk about society changing and us needing to change with it. Don't talk about being progressive or open minded. Don't remind us that we are living in the 21st century. You are not winning any conservative types to your cause when you do. Talk about being Christ-like. That's an ideal we can agree on even if we disagree on some of the details about how we apply that today.
It's not all about love. I hear a lot of talk about love these days. I like to talk about love a lot myself. It's the part of the gospel that non-believers like to hear about. It sounds nice, at least until you try and live it out. In truth, the love we are taught by Jesus is so radically higher than anything we see or experience that we need to spend a huge amount of our time figuring out what it means and even more time trying to do it. However, reducing the whole of the Bible's teaching to "love" is like reducing the plot of "Inception" to "it's about dreams." The message of the Gospel is far too complex to reduce to a single unifying principle. I kind of like it that way. I reminds me that God is a lot bigger and more complex than we are. If God were easy to figure out, he wouldn't be God.
It is a lot about love. So let's work on loving each other. The love taught by Jesus is revolutionary. It brings together enemies. It breaks down the barriers of nationality, race, economic status, gender, and political ideology. I think the love of Jesus could break down the barriers between different kinds of Christians as well. Well, it's a long shot, but I think it's a really good place to start.
I love you. Let's be friends.
Your bro,
Zach
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