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Goats in Sheeps’ Clothing

People don’t know who Christians are, and I think that’s largely because people don’t know what it actually means to be a Christian. As a result, a lot of people think that they represent Christianity, when they … just don’t. Nonchristians see the disparity between people who are actually Christian and people who claim Christianity, and confusion ensues.

For an example, one person I know (and respect, actually) claims that he was raised as a Christian, but when given a chance, is free to condemn Christianity… while never praising Christ. There’s nothing wrong with the former, honestly; Christianity isn’t perfect by any measure that I can see. (Our righteousness – such that it is – comes from Christ, not the church itself.)

There’s nothing wrong with saying that Christianity isn’t perfect – but there’s a lot wrong with not showing Christ in how you live.

Another person proclaimed that Christians – sorry, “Christians” – he knew had told him that he’d be a great Christian despite his atheism, because of his attitude toward the poor and disenfranchised. I suppose that he – and they – thought that a liberal outlook makes one a Christian worthy of the label. This same person said that Christians didn’t bother him – but evangelicals did.

I’m horrified by both people. (Well, not by the people, but by their attitudes towards Christianity.) I can’t judge the former person’s life – they say they’re Christian because they were “raised Christian,” but I can’t say that they don’t have a relationship with Christ. They just don’t show it much. (And obviously the atheist would claim otherwise in any event.)

The first fellow is someone who thinks he’s a Christian because he’s been told he’s a Christian – he’s been labeled, and he accepts that label because it fits into the narrative of his life. Rejecting that label would become a rejection of his own past, so he doesn’t evaluate whether the label was applied properly or not – and since he doesn’t actually care about Christianity, he does no investigation to understand whether the label was justified.

The latter person is one whom I struggle to understand, and honestly, that’s an aspect where Christianity has truly failed: this is an intelligent person who misunderstands the simple axioms that make Christianity what it is. Christianity has failed this person on a grand scale, by not being clear about itself. (See? I have no problem criticizing Christianity! What a Christian I am!)

Here’s the thing. Christianity is not:

  • Feeding the hungry.
  • Housing the poor.
  • Healing the sick.
  • Teaching the uneducated.
  • Sheltering the homeless.

Christianity is:

  • Having an individual relationship with Christ such that you believe He died for your sins.

If you are a Christian, then it follows that you might feed the hungry, or house the poor, or heal the sick, or teach the uneducated, or shelter the homeless – because those are the things that flow from the love of Christ reflected through you. But people who say that they’re Christian because they do those things – who make the relationship with Christ optional – aren’t really espousing the love of Christ.

They’re acting Christian, not being Christian.

A Christian can be a Christian while doing none of those things – but a Christian also lives for Christ, such that others might see Christ in them. And Christ loved everyone, enough to die for them… and loving someone means feeding them when they’re hungry, or housing them, or … helping them, showing them the love of Christ actively.

That’s how they’ll come to Christ, through that act of worship. Just helping someone, with no motivation of Christ, is better than doing nothing, I suppose, but the motive of a Christian should always be the display of the love of Christ.

And I don’t mean forcing it down someone’s throat, either. Loving someone through Christ means showing them the love of Christ, not telling someone about it, especially if there are contextual reasons they might not accept the words – imagine helping someone who’s been victimized by the church, for example.

My prayer is that people would understand Christianity for themselves, and then live it.

savage
July 4, 2016
Lifestyle
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Repentance

If you tell someone else that they need to repent, you are usually missing something important: the meaning of “repentance.”

I was reading “Christians Must Repent for Devaluing L.G.B.T. People” from the New York Times this morning, and the tone was really sad.

It said that Christians created a world in which LGBT people are worth less than… straight people, I suppose, and bear guilt for that corporately, and should repent.

The author is right, in a lot of ways; Christianity should value all sinners, regardless of their sin, be it murder, robbery, adultery, or any other sin. The Bride of Christ is made of sinners, after all, every last bit of it. None of us are in a good position to judge, except to admonish and exhort in love.

After all, don’t we use “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” as a common refrain? Of course we do – even non-Christians use it, even though they seem to think that it means “the one who wants to throw a stone is a sinner, and the target is innocent.”

But here’s the thing: the target in that story (and in every story) is not innocent. Forgiven, perhaps, but not “innocent.” And Jesus didn’t tell us to ignore the speck in our neighbor’s eye – He told us to remove the log in our own first (implying that after we’ve acknowledged our own flaws, we might be in a place to help address others’ weaknesses).

It’s true that you, dear reader, need to repent… of something, I suppose. (Statistically speaking, it’s quite the safe bet that you’re not perfect in every way.) But for me to tell you that you need to repent, and of what… that’s me judging you negatively, and it demeans both of us.

savage
June 16, 2016
Lifestyle
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Christians, please don’t vote for Trump.

I’m an American citizen. I vote. I’m also a Christian who votes.

I know a distressing number of fellow Christians who have voted for, or are willing to vote for, Donald Trump as President of the United States.

I do not understand this; to me, something’s horribly broken in their reasoning.

It’s not that Trump is not a man in need of salvation just like any other – and from all appearances, he remains in need of salvation.

See Trump believes in God, but hasn’t sought forgiveness – accepting Christ as propitiation for our sin is a pretty fundamental part of being saved, and here we have Trump directly repudiating any guilt on his part. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” — emphasis mine.

His denial of his own sins before God means one of two things.

  1. He doesn’t think he has sinned. The Bible says that all have sinned; he’s either elevated himself to Jesus’ stature (and therefore blasphemes) or doesn’t recognize sin for what it is, and therefore has not accepted Jesus. Not a Christian in this case.
  2. He is lying to us about his state before God. In this case, he knows he’s sinned, and he’s accepted Christ, and he’s a Christian – but he’s also lying to people about it, and is ashamed of the Gospel somehow. Would be a Christian, by my understanding, but would also be unworthy as a candidate, since he’d be misrepresenting himself and the Gospel.

But the state of his soul is not what confuses me – I’ve voted for nonchristians before, because I felt that they were the best candidates. I could point to them and say “I think Candidate Smith has the best policy for education,” or what-have-you.

Being a Christian is important to me, as a voter, but it’s not the litmus test for my vote.

The thing is, I don’t know what the litmus test is for Christians who want to vote for Trump.

Is it ethics? It can’t be – almost every candidate offered during this election season has shown better ethics than Trump, with the sole possible exception of Hillary Clinton herself. When your campaign point is reduced to catcalls and exhortations of violence and mentions of “little Marco,” you don’t have ethics on your side.

Is it policy? It can’t be – Trump’s response to questions on policy almost invariably come down to vague answers about how he will have a policy, it’ll be great, it’ll be huge, we’re going to love it.

Is it business sense? It can’t be – he’s had businesses flame out that shouldn’t have done so, and he’s been happy to proclaim his manipulation of the system for his own benefit. You can’t say “This system is broken” and be happy to abuse the system, while expecting voters to think you’re willing to change the system.

More than anything else, it’s attention – I think people think Trump has name recognition, and that’s enough.

Name recognition is not enough. Stalin has name recognition – and nobody should be willing to consider voting for Stalin.

If you’re a Christian and you’re willing to vote for Trump, I’d love to see your explanation of “why.” I’d exhort you to reconsider prayerfully – and look at the Bible’s guidelines for leaders as well as your own personal morals. Would you want your sons acting like Trump? At all? Ever? Would you want your daughters to date such a man? Would you want to be like him at all?

If not, then please – reconsider your vote. Vote for anyone else – anyone else would be better.

savage
March 16, 2016
Lifestyle
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The end of the streak

I’d been riding a twenty-two day streak in my “five hundred words a day” challenge, including some days when I found it really hard to sit down to actually write. That streak is over, unfortunately, although it’s “sort of” and “not really” and “darn it, I was doing so well.”

It’s not really over, because I actually did write more than five hundred words yesterday, and published them, too; I just didn’t publish them here, and I didn’t record that I’d published them, either. I remembered too late; I record that I’ve written my five hundred words as part of the publishing process, and since I didn’t follow the publishing process here, I didn’t record that at least I’d written enough to fulfill the challenge.

So: the streak is dead, officially, even though I actually did fulfill my writing assignment for the day (and, at word one hundred and fifty or so in this post, I’ve actually exceeded my assignment by a lot for today, too.)

In a way, this is actually a good thing. I didn’t even think about having written at least five hundred words, because it’s been pretty normal for me over these last few weeks. Sure, I didn’t fulfill my own rules concerning the assignment (publish, publish here, no editing except for inline mistakes caused by poor/rapid typing, record the publication) but that’s okay.

I’m not a slave to the assignment, I hope.

And it’s nice to think that it’s become normal enough again that publishing isn’t much of an event. I used to publish three or four things a day – shorter things, I guess (averaging around two hundred words each), five days a week, fifty plus weeks a year (I occasionally took a week off or so), but over the last few years I’ve been in a sort of resting state.

I wish I could edit that last sentence! I’d rewrite it as “I’ve been in a resting state over the last few years, after publishing multiple pieces every workday for years, with only occasional breaks.” Wait, does this count as “editing?”

I guess I felt like I’d more or less done my bit for creating content for a while, and it wasn’t really important for me to be heard, or read, all that much. So publishing light content every few months was enough to satisfy any need I had to write for public consumption. (I still write a lot for my own enjoyment, but much of it’s for internal interest only.)

So the writing challenge – which continues, by the way, for at least another few days – has been very, very useful. It’s kickstarted me back into writing regularly, and even if the writing isn’t stellar or particularly topical, at least it’s writing – you don’t ride a horse like a master on day one, you have to ride every day.

And that’s what this has been, and what it remains. It’s a lot of fun.

savage
February 17, 2016
Lifestyle
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