Christian jerks.
- SHE. “Ugh, religious people are the worst.”
- ME. “Hey. I’m a religious person. How am I ‘the worst’?”
- SHE. “Oh, you’re not that religous.”
- ME. “I beg to differ. I’m extremely religious. If I weren’t, I’d be even more of a jerk. Now explain how I’m ‘the worst’.”
The gist of
Which is a fair comment. Plenty of us Christians are totally bigoted, narrow-minded, and judgmental. I certainly used to be. I try not to be; I’m trying to overcome
And plenty of my fellow Christians also try to overcome such fleshly behavior. Like I said, it’s
So it’s not “religious people” who are the problem. It’s irreligious people, who are using Christianity as an excuse to be jerks. It’s unkind people,
“So you’re the real Christians, and they aren’t?” she half-seriously said.
Kinda. Some of ’em do have an actual saving relationship with Christ Jesus, so they are Christians too. Some of ’em don’t: Their utter lack of fruit means
In both cases—unlike our Lord, who came to save the world instead of condemn it
And when we’re
And when I call ’em out on their bad behavior, they turn on me. ’Cause they’re convinced I should be on their side, joining their campaign, taking up the anti-sin banner… and hammer. If I don’t, “he who’s not for us is against us,”
Besides, I preach a Christ they’re wholly unfamiliar with. He’s too kind, forgiving, gracious, and compassionate. Probably doesn’t want anybody to go to hell.
…Yeah, there’s a really good case to be made for the idea they’re not real Christians. But then again, Christ Jesus is forgiving and gracious. Even to them.
Grace or consequences?
Pick your least favorite sin. Why’s it your least favorite? Could be all sorts of reasons.
Let’s say it’s adultery. Why might you hate adultery?
- Your spouse cheated on you. Or, someone you love was cheated on.
- One of your parents cheated on the other. The damaged relationship, whether it ended up in divorce or not, wrecked your childhood. Family functions are still a big mess.
- You’ve seen the havoc adultery wreaks on your friends’ lives.
- Cheating of any sort offends your sense of honor.
- You equate it with promiscuity, ’cause certain promiscuous people put such a low priority on fidelity. And promiscuous people are just plain creepy. Note how they treat everyone as a potential sexual conquest, including you. Eww. (Because
I grew up Fundamentalist, I was also raised to think of such people as riddled withSTD s, whether they truly are or not. Adds to the yuck factor.) - You’re kinda tempted to cheat on your spouse. So to help strengthen your convictions, you preach all the more against it. (Gotta warn you though: This doesn’t help as much as you imagine in does.
Confession and accountability works way better.) - You already do cheat on your spouse. The anti-adultery persona
is an act so nobody suspects you.
Regardless your reasons, there are two ways you can deal with any least-favorite sin: Fight it any way you can, or preach Christ Jesus forgives it.
The reason Christians assume their first duty is to denounce sin, is because it’s the path of least resistance. They already hate sin. Doesn’t matter how much they claim people secretly love to sin (
In the case of judgmental Christians, they hate sin. But they love hating sin. And people,
When other Christians won’t hop on their bandwagon of hate, they’ll quickly accuse us of not taking sin seriously. Not as seriously as they do. Not as seriously as they figure God does. We’re even accused of believing these things aren’t sin.
True, there are those Christians who figure sin
It’s not that sin isn’t sin anymore. Of course it’s sin. But we emphasize grace. We dwell on what’s good,
Adultery is sin.
Religion’s not our excuse to be jerks.
The only reason any so-called “Christian” rejects and denounces sinners instead of sharing God’s grace with them, has nothing to do with Jesus or religion. It has to do with our hangups.
Let’s say I have an acquaintance—we’ll call him Ennis—who’s an utter slut. Ennis cheats on his girlfriend with anyone who’s willing. Nothing but sex on the brain.
Let’s say I told Ennis, “I’m sorry. I can’t be your friend or have anything to do with you. Y’see, my mom doesn’t approve of your lifestyle. She says it’s wicked and you’re going to hell. So I can’t be around you anymore.”
Two conclusions he’s gonna reasonably come to:
- “Your mom doesn’t approve of me? What, you gotta do whatever your mommy tells you? Where’s your backbone? Why can’t you make up your own mind?”
- “This ‘my mom doesn’t approve’ deal: It’s crap. You’re the one with the problem. You’re the one who thinks I’m wicked and going to hell. Don’t put this on your mom; she’s probably a lovely woman. You decided to be this way.”
Both conclusions are absolutely correct.
Obviously this is an analogy. Go ahead and replace “mom” with God now.
And the conclusions are still true. We should be able to make up our own minds as to whether we’re gonna follow God or not; and if we’ve decided to reject people because “God says so,” it’s actually not because God says so, but because we have a problem with ’em.
We’re the ones who condemned ’em. Not God.
Now some sinners, thanks to awful Christian behavior, do actually believe God is as awful as they describe; that he is bigoted, narrow-minded, and judgmental, just like they are. Hence they figure religious people, and their God, are just the worst. He’s not good news; he’s bad. He’s not the light of the world;
Wrong gospel. It’s why we’re not so sure about their Christianity.
Either we choose to deny ourselves and follow Jesus,
Don’t do that. Jesus hung out with sinners.
Christianism.
