He said to me: "I HATE CHRISTIANS"

"I hate Christians!"

That's how this conversation began while in a church celebrating a Christian institution. I knew where he was coming from, and I won't divulge any details as to why he felt this way, but if you knew the story and had half a heart you could see why he'd come to that conclusion.

The truth is I've spent the better part of my life hating Christians. It took getting to know Christ and, as a side effect, becoming one before I changed my tune. For those who are deeply wounded there are a few avenues’ we can go down in order to remedy the discrepancy between Christ and his followers.

We could say that the people that hurt us are not Christians. It certainly remedies the problem but it creates another. It places us on the seat of judge and jury in determining the condition of someone's heart other than our own.

I recently listened to a StoryCorpe presentation that was about a brother and sister whose relationship was estranged. The two had grown up in New York as secular Jews. The sister was a lesbian, the brother became a born again Christian. The sister did everything to engage her brother, even though he had done some hurtful things in the rejection of her lifestyle.

For example, while he was in a jam he moved in with his sister. After moving in, he demanded that her partner move out because it made him uncomfortable. Being the sister that she was, she met the demands that her brother was in no position to make.

The dialogue between the two was revealing. It was the first time I took a step back from my Christian persona and said to myself:

"You know, when it comes to how I interact with my family these days I can be a real dick."

 The sister said that it was like she lost her brother. She said she could still see her brother as you can still see light from a lamp behind a shade. She could see her brother’s silhouette through the shade, but the blind that was pulled down between them was Christianity.

My dear wounded friends; people are treating you poorly because they have a belief system that they feel justifies their poor behavior. Even though in their hearts they feel bad, it only serves to validate the fact that

"Being a Christian will be hard and the world does not know God and therefore does not know us and how we operate." 

They are a lamp, and the shade between them and the rest of the world is Christianity.We all have done this. We add Jesus to us, and the outcome can be a frightening one. The equation of our life is:

Me + Jesus=douche-bag

Isn't this what we're asking our children when we say:

"Do you have Jesus in your heart?"

It seems to me that the dominant metaphor in Pauline literature is that we are in Christ, not that he comes to live in me but we live in him. The equation should read:

Jes(us)us = the Church 

After this conversation, I could tell my friend felt a little better. I told him he should probably read my blog, and he said:

"Na, it'll probably make me bitter."

I laughed, and I could see why some would think that. If what I'm saying resonates with you, let me challenge you not to let the bitterness fester. I know it's not fair that you have to work at forgiveness even though you weren't the one with the problem.  But if you cannot be consoled by the love of Christ, it will soon be you who treat others the way you have been treated (sort of the antithetical golden rule).

If I have embittered anyone through this blog, I want to apologize. The church can be a hurtful place, and we are well known for devouring ourselves. The cycle ends when we rest assured in the love that is ours through Christ.

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

To My Fellow Disillusioned Evangelical Brothers and Sisters

Dear Disillusioned,

I know there are a lot of you out there; people who are frustrated yet cannot fully explain why, those who are in great tension between faithfulness to your God and faithful adherence to the culture of those who go by his name:

Perhaps I can be of service,

I've noticed something as of late, that when people find the courage to speak out against what is so frustrating to them, they wind up sounding like those with whom they are frustrated.

The reason is simple, those with whom you are frustrated are the same who taught you how to think, reason, argue, defend, propagate.

They have shaped your thinking by giving you "frameworks," "paradigms" "constructs" and "processes" for arriving at the desired predetermined conclusions.

Those predetermined conclusions thrive in like minded communities where they become empirical assumptions, and are therefore affirmed without challenge.

Challenge the outcome of the "framework", and you're likely to get into a theological debate that goes in circles. You know what I'm talking about, people get off on this kind of thing. Those sort of discussions remind me of a group of prepubescent boys playing Dungeons and Dragons, trying to figure out what would happen should a leprechaun mate with a fairy, and postulating whether or not their offspring would fart pixie dust.

You know what I mean, they are worthless arguments that only self affirm those whose positions collectively have negative implications not just for themselves and their immediate churches, but globally as well.


The reason you are thinking in circles and are unable to break the cycle is that the very process which you have inherited needs to be questioned, not simply the outcomes of that process.

Change comes from the fringe, not from those in the center and not from those in authority. If you want to be heard, acquire your prophetic voice in artistry, poetry, music. The pulpit has lost its validity, the assembly has lost its voice, and the institution is only putting out fruit that has already spoiled.

The Beginning of a Bromance: "Let Us Begin"

 
I had the awesome privilege of having sushi on Wednesday with a man I met at a Leadership Lancaster event a couple weeks ago. I instantly felt a sort of "bromance" beginning to form between the two of us. We first connected over a conversation about gentrification in Lancaster city. My new friend remarked that he was surprised that I knew what gentrification meant and that it was ironic I would mention it because he works for LHOP or Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership. From there, the bond was formed. 

By the end of the initial meeting, I began to tell Amanda that this was "one of the nicest people I have ever met." Amanda remarked: "That's impressive, because Ryan doesn't like people." A truer statement could not be made. Friendships do not come easy for me. 

We corresponded by email, and set up a time to get Sushi. We went to Mojo's, and man was that food good!

The conversation was great, and extremely challenging. Part of the challenge was the sheer intellect of my new friend; the other is that my friend was of the Jewish persuasion. It certainly isn't because I'm an anti-Semite that conversation was difficult, but rather there are many legacies of the Christian faith that I am ashamed of, first and foremost is anti-Semitism. 

For as much as I desire racial reconciliation, and as much as I advocate for diversity, I realized by the sheer magnitude of discomfort I felt at times that my circle of friends are entirely too "Ryanish". 

I hope there is more of this encounter that I can later draw on for discussion, but this is a question that was posed by my new friend that greatly challenged me. 

"Clearly Ryan, we have to get people to start working together, but how do we do it?"

It was a big question that had us both concluding that there is little hope of it ever becoming a realization. A quote from John F. Kennedy was given to sooth our heavy hearts:

"All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."- JFK Inaugural Address, 1961

Later in the conversation, I mentioned that I had worked as a pastor. I told him that I was frustrated because I was a good orator, explaining the tenants of my religion with clarity and efficiency, but I felt like a talking head. Somewhere along the way I explained, Protestant/Evangelicals have begun to champion how well one could articulate the faith over those who could live by it. In essence, my words meant very little by way of any true change. 

To this, my friend said:

"Perhaps that's it. Perhaps we need to convince people to do the things they say they believe." 

I thought that was interesting. Whereas I might believe that the way to true change is by proselytizing my neighbors to think, act, and look as I am, his solution was not to exchange one system for another, but rather to challenge people to true faithfulness of whatever belief system they might have.

 

This really seems revolutionary to me. If Christianity is just a system of belief, judging it externally tells us that it is virtually indistinguishable from any other belief system. If the scorecard for who's religion works best is based upon social and individual change, than Christianity is no better than the religions with which it competes.

With the wisdom of my friend, I challenge you reader, in true obedience to Christ, do not waste your days thinking that you are free from God because you can theologize about Him. Do not think that you are free from obligation to God because you think you can contain him in articulation, and therefore can bend him to your will. Do not be deceived into thinking that because you can explain what it means to be saved that salvation is yours.

 

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
-Mohandas Gandhi