Christians Against Christians

Thank you for writing this! I get so mad at how one type of Christian has become not only representative of us all, but also bullies about what anyone who follows Christ MUST believe. It drives me mad, and I so would have bought, like, a hundred of your “Christians Against Christians” shirts.

And at the same time your insight and conviction is right, our God cherishes unity and somehow being kind and compassionate WILL work even though in my head it doesn’t make a lick of sense how.

I appreciate your references to unity and humility. I think we are always in a learning process of what it means to be a disciple of Christ and we always want to think that we have these virtues and no one else does. That antagonism divides us more than it unites us, whatever our larger beliefs on other issues. Thanks for your thoughts today.

Thanks for this post. After studying Romans, especially chapters 14 and 15, I’ve been convicted to do what benefits and builds up fellow believers. If I’m not building up someone, even with a carefully worded and loving critique, then I’m most likely justifying myself and my own point of view.

Whatever you decide to call it I hope that you’ll continue to comment on things that other Christians do that you don’t agree with, or that you don’t believe represents “all” Christians. Although it seems obvious that all the people of a faith wouldn’t have homogeneous beliefs, the truth is that for me, a non-observant Jewish New Yorker, your point of view is a new and refreshing one. I remember back to the election – I was very unsure about what your political beliefs might be – and I was surprised to learn (from your tweets, of course) that we stand on the same side of many issues. I suppose that I knew that the very vocal “Christian perspective” that many of us hear in the political arena wasn’t the only one, but it wasn’t a conversation I’d ever had. For me, your discussion of these issues is incredibly eye opening. I can’t claim to always relate to what you’re writing about when it comes to your faith, but I certainly do welcome being pushed to think about things in a different way and want to embrace our differences as well as our similarities.

I think you are really on target even though it proves very difficult in practice not to turn people (especially those who disavow me in my attempts to be authentically faithful to Jesus’ calling) into “its” in my planning and “0′s” in my equations. Jesus was/is incredible at seeing everyone as a real person. We who claim him are tragically poor at following that example. As you, and others who are commenting say, it does not mean avoiding honestly stating differences, it means remembering we are dealing with real people who God loves which puts us both inside a pretty important circle. Thanks for the reminder. I wish what you are challenging us to do and be was even “halfway to normal.” Maybe it is “all the way to normal,” just not even half way to average.

Before I start responding to individuals, I thought I should clarify that this T-shirt doesn’t actually exist (as far as I know). My husband just went to a website that lets you design your own T-shirts, and this is the sample image of what it would look like.

Mikela, you’ve summed up why I write (and I’m sure why most writers write): to put into words not just what *I* feel, but more importantly what others out there might feel but not be able to articulate. Thanks for letting me know and making my day. :)

Marie, clearly we are of one mind in this conundrum! I’m glad that you pointed out the “bullying”—that’s essentially what is going on in the two examples I shared from other blogs. But in the end, you nailed all that matters: “…our God cherishes unity, and somehow being kind and compassionate WILL work even though in my head it doesn’t make a lick of sense how.”

Joan, as someone who has often doubted my faith but has still had it for as long as I can remember, I always appreciate your perspective—someone knows what it’s like to be on the outside of faith looking in, as well as on the inside looking around. A very loud Amen to this: “Now if people could have wildly different viewpoints about their faith and address those conflicts with love, respect and unity in the face of it—that would be a model of human interaction that might have appeared different and, possibly, compelling.”

TJ, thanks for commenting, and for sticking with me as I process my thoughts, even though I know we don’t always agree. You’ve summed up our state quite nicely here: “I think we are always in a learning process of what it means to be a disciple of Christ and we always want to think that we have these virtues and no one else does.”

Jason, what you say here is very true, and a perspective I want to embrace more actively in my life: “I think it’s so much more powerful and productive to define yourself by inclusion and supporting what you do believe in rather than by what you don’t agree with.” I can see why the UU church is appealing for this reason, but I also think other denominations and churches can definitely accomplish this inclusiveness more, too. We all have much to learn from each other.

ed, now I’m going to have to read Romans again—it’s been awhile! You make a really important point here: “If I’m not building up someone, even with a carefully worded and loving critique, then I’m most likely justifying myself and my own point of view.”

lisa, I’m glad you like the post and that it inspired thoughts for your blog. I love how bloggers can be doing what they do and sharing/feeding one another in the process.

karen/daisy17, your perspective is always very eye-opening to me, just as mine is to you. I love it when you jump into the discussion! And I totally hear you—within my broader circle of believers, calling it Christians Against Christians might be having destructive effects, but for others, it’s still important that I keep sharing my perspective. “Not all Christians are like that” seems to be a pretty constructive way to approach it. It’s about dissembling stereotypes, right? Not fanning the flames of disagreement. (I’m so glad you embrace our differences as well as what we share in common!)

Meredith, I think I have someone very much like you (and daisy17) in my mind when I write many of these posts. Just like you said, I also meet people and read other blogs that give me so much hope for the state of Christianity. Hearing someone say something like this gives me lots of hope, too: “But walking (or running) away isn’t really a solution. It doesn’t help find new approaches or work to change the dialogue.”

Ron, all I can say is YES: “Jesus was/is incredible at seeing everyone as a real person. We who claim him are tragically poor at following that example.” Sometimes I pat myself on the back because I see all of the marginalized people in our society as very real people that Jesus loves, but then I turn around with anger toward Christians who think and act differently. It’s a different brand of hypocrisy, but it’s still hypocrisy and I need to do something about it.

Elaine, yep. I ignored the pricker because I just wanted the slogan to be clever and thought-provoking. Thankfully, I was reading Ephesians 4 when I was reading those blog posts that upset me so much. Thankfully, God is patient with me.

It’s so hard. It’s even harder to read that non-believers hold our tiffs and infighting (which spills outside the church conversation) against us, but why wouldn’t we? If we can’t love our brother or sister we don’t agree with, then how can we logically love others?

I’m glad that the thought of Christians Against Christians is giving you pause. While it’s completely ridiculous, the thought of Christians protesting a Christian gathering…seriously. I wish we could be more focused on feeding the hungry than worried about each other’s doctrinal failings. But it’s so easy to get caught up in feeling superior (myself included) and rejecting anything that reeks of conservative Christianity. I really do have to trust that these people are doing the best they can, and that Jesus loves them, too. Still, it is satisfying to poke fun, now and then…

Kristin, I am reading some Madeleine L’Engle (A Stone for a Pillow) and here’s the most perfect quote: “There are times where I may have had it with Christians, but I do not want the kingdom to fall.” Says everything I wanted to say!

at my cousin’s bar mitzvah (i have a pretty diverse family) part of the ceremony is that the torah scroll was handed to him from his grandparents, to his parents and then to him. reformed jews understand that the torah is meant to inhabit different cultures at different times and that the words themselves are never to be placed in the same absolute nature as the G-D to whom they speak.

this is very different from the islamic belief in the absolute nature of the qu’ran. the qu’ran is the very word of allah that is never changing. the real distortion in many forms of biblical literalism in christianity is the belief that the bible is the absolute word of god as muslims view the qu’ran. this is not true at all. the unchanging and perfect word of god is christ alone for whom the scriptures are only a witness. this means that the scriptures are not perfect (as any biblical scholar should tell you if he or she is honest), nor should we devise fancy speculative doctrines to assert they are. biblical infallibility is merely a parallel authority to papal infallibility and both are distortions of the function of scripture as something god-breathed, not verbally given.

once you embrace the limited and flawed nature of scripture as it has inhabited culture after culture only to serve the purpose of being a witness to god alone, you have permission to go deeper into it and understand god more closely. but if you limit yourself to a culturally mediated literalism, you by nature distort the words for the purpose they are to serve. the words in scripture have become your god in this instance, not the god for whom they are a witness. that is at it root idolatry and i am a christian who hacks at this poisonous root often and intentionally.

peace.

You know how there are those bibles that have all of Jesus’ quotes in red. It’d be interesting to review all those quotes and count how many times He says “Do this” versus how many times He says, “Don’t do this”.

So much more action can be accomplished with “Do This” rather than with the “Don’t” (and trying to figure out what needs to actually be done so that you can accomplish the “Don’t” activity).

So much easier to be For-Something, rather than to be Against-Something.

Looking forward to the “People for __________” T-Shirt (I’ll take an XL).

Bravo, Kristen. Pursue unity.