An Open Letter to the Church

image credit: serre86/shutterstock

(This post was copied from my wordpress blog)

I've been mulling over my thoughts and feelings for the past few days now and I think I'm finally ready to express what has become a very serious concern for me. So, I present this very open letter to anyone who claims to be a believer in Christ, and more specifically, to the church as an institution.

With everything that has been going on lately, I've really had to re-examine myself and my actions. Consequently, this also led to my observations of the church as a whole. This is where my struggle begins.

We have failed our mandate.

I am grieved by the state of the church today. I weep whenever I see hate, sorrow, anxiety, impatience, harshness, hypocrisy, and pride take priority within the church. We unabashedly spew injustice, legalism, and dogma to those we were called to love and then wonder why church attendance is so low.

How easily we have forgotten that the very core of our story, the Gospel, only begins with the sacrifice Jesus made for us. It continues with his life, his teachings and his examples. He exemplified the very virtues that we should try to uphold every single day: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

He condemned no one, but offered his loving embrace and Truth to anyone who was willing to listen. He had compassion.

Yet, time and time again I watch in horror as those who are supposed to be the embodiment of all this good fall into the exact opposite. How little we cried out against the wrongs of our history, but how quickly we were to point accusatory fingers at others for their wrongs.

We sat idly by as organizations like Westboro Baptist Church openly harassed members of the LGBTQ+ community, and even showed our solidarity with them during events like "Chik-fil-a Day" (Remember that day in 2012?). Or, how about those times we made Kaepernick's peaceful protest about #blacklivesmatter, about him "disrespecting the flag". We ignore the fact (or at least, pretend it's not as bad as it seems), that people are abused and rejected by the church because of some imagined or real sin. If a person makes us uncomfortable, we shut them out.

I have never been more ashamed of my association with the word Christian as I am today. If you happen to be reading this and have been hurt by a "Christian" in any sense of the word then I apologize from the bottom of my heart. The hurt and pain and judgment that has been shown to you is not what Jesus taught and it is appalling that you had (maybe even continue) to experience that. I hope that you can find it in your heart to one day forgive us.

This has to stop.

The strongest evidence that we have failed our neighbor is being evidenced right now by the state of our country. We have allowed racism and politics to pervade our sanctuaries; something that should have never even been tolerated outside of the church, much less in. You want revival to happen in America? Stop judging and start loving. Look at yourself: truly, openly, honestly, and focus on the things that you need to work on and just love those around you.

If we are going to teach and preach that all people are worthy in God's sight, then it's time we actually lived like we mean it.

When asked, Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. In the same sentence he also added, love your neighbor as yourself. There was no caveat, no addendum, no exceptions. Love God, Love People.

We have not been loving our neighbor, and by extension we have not been loving God.

This is my call to action. This is my desperate plea.

Be better.

No longer tolerate injustice. No longer be enslaved to politics. No longer be bogged down by the dogma. No longer let there be a barrier between you and the people you were called to love.

Let us all strive to be more like Jesus. Right now we are so far from it.

In a lot of ways, I feel that we are guilty of far worse than the police officers who have shown just how brutal they can be. At least we know where they stand.

No, we just pretend like nothing is wrong as we savagely rip apart the souls of the downtrodden, the hopeless, and the weary. Instead of being a refuge, we have become a snake pit.

If Jesus were to give his speech to the Pharisees today, it would be aimed at us. I honestly think we would be the ones to be driven out of the temple with the whip. There is no place in God's kingdom for what the church has become.

Doesn't that make you weep?

You can try to justify, or argue. You can write me off completely. But I think deep down we all know the truth.

We must be better.

Grace and Peace.

Positing on Grace

I have been thinking about grace a lot lately.  In fact, I have been meaning to write my thoughts on it about two weeks ago but I allowed other things to consume my time and attention. Naturally, I suppose it's best to start with a definition of what I mean by grace.  I looked at a few definitions but none of them really fit what I am talking about. They are not bad definitions by any means but it also isn't quite what I had in mind. So here is what I've come up with in hopes of simple clarification.

Grace - Unearned, undeserved, and unachievable favor granted to another because of a genuine love held for that other.

I kept the divine out of my definition because I do believe it is possible for someone to show this grace to another; usually it goes hand in hand with mercy but evidence does exist.  However, I am referring specifically to the divine; God's grace in regards to humanity.

Something that has occurred to me lately is that the only religion (that I am aware of) that preaches grace is Christianity.  The rest all teach good works, or some type of deed that has to be accomplished.  Do so many prayers, perform so many good deeds, give so much money and maybe, just -maybe-, it will be enough to get another life, the after-life, the heaven equivalent.  On the other end, Christianity preaches that there isn't a need for good works to reach eternal life, that we are granted this entrance by simply believing that Jesus was who he said he was and allowing him to be the Lord in our life.

Just reading over the previous description makes me feel that it is pretty obvious that this good works mindset can be pretty stressful since there really isn't even any type of guarantee of success, whereas allowing this Jesus power to do all the redeeming required to enter into that heaven is much more freeing.

I realize that previous statement is probably incredibly subjective, but the heart of the question and point remains: Do the work ourselves, or let someone else do it for us?

I'm sure that my readers know by now, but I truly believe there is nothing we can do that will ever be enough to gain the rights to an eternal life.  Just taking a look at the news on any given day and you can see how messed up humanity really is.  We constantly compare ourselves to others to justify our own lifestyle choices.  I can attest that I have had my own thoughts of "Well, at least I don't do [that]"  or "-I- would never," etc.  And if we are honest with ourselves, we've all got things we don't want others to know about because we know we aren't as good as we like to pretend we are.  In short, if we rely on our own power and goodness we fall horribly, horribly short with no hope of success.

But, that's the bad news.

The good news is the message of grace.

I'm sure you've all heard it.  Jesus, also called Christ by many, came to earth living a righteous, perfect, sinless life and acted as the end all solution for humanity so that eternal life becomes attainable.  Jesus does all the work on our behalf and through his intercession we have hope.

That is the true beauty of Grace.  We don't have to stress ourselves out trying and trying to be enough.  It will never happen.  However, God's grace through Jesus makes us enough.  When we come to understand and accept this then we find that we can do and be good because we want to.  Because, we are so changed by the grace that has saved us from a life enslave by worry and hopelessness, that we can't help but share the grace, peace, and hope that we experience.

You see, I believe there is this huge misconception about Christianity.  Many believe it is this huge list of rules and thus you can't have any fun but I find the opposite to be true.  These aren't rules I have to follow.  I -choose- to do so because it is the least I can do for the person who saved me and saves me daily.  What's more it is my pleasure to do so because it benefits not only me but those around me.

After all, Grace, peace and Love is and has always been the message.

Grace and Peace.

We Were Wrong

I begin this post with hesitation and a little bit of trepidation.  It's easy to be passionate about something that a lot of people can get behind, but it is hard to confront people when you feel that they are in the wrong.  That being said, I want everyone to know that this is not written out of ignorance, hatred, etc.  I fight for Truth, and I feel that it was overlooked yesterday.  Let's begin.

I am appalled.  The more I think about it.  The more I research both sides opinions.  Chik-fil-a day should never have happened.

The fact of the matter is, this was never about freedom of speech.
This was never about toys.
This was never about faith.

When the first outcry happened after Dan Cathy spoke his opinion openly, it was about a group of people who have already been victims of inequality in so much more than just marriage.  It was about the fact that Chik-fil-a has funded millions of dollars to organizations that view homosexuality like this:

 

Criminalize, cure, and deport homosexuals.  I'm offended that anyone would be OK with this.  This individual isn't the only one who says it either, check out another individual's blog post.

I'm posting these links because I want it to be shown that I'm not just making this up.  People are really hurt right now.  People that we, as Christians, have been called to love.  

This isn't about Chik-fil-a.  

This isn't about one man's opinion.

This is about something bigger.

Whether right or wrong, the LGBT community is greatly offended by the actions of a franchise because they felt that those actions have further encouraged the outright hatred that has been shown to them over these many years.  Don't believe me?  Check out these statistics on just bullying in schools!

What was the Christians response?

"Support family values!  Buy a chicken sandwich!"

I can't help but scoff at this!  Family values?  I don't know about my readers, but to me a real family value would be standing up for people who are unjustly persecuted.

Same Sex Kiss Day came about as a response to Chik-fil-a day.  In the end, I feel that it was the Christians then who made the first move.  We started the war.  We caused more unnecessary bloodshed (metaphorically speaking).  And we will suffer the consequences.

Because now when LGBT community sees pictures like this:

 

and this:

What they are seeing, feeling, and interpreting is this:

and I can't support that.

Because for me this shouldn't be about who is right and who is wrong.
This should be about showing love and support even when you don't agree.

Because in the end, the only thing we did by having a "Chik-fil-a" day was look and sound like this:

And I know, no one wants that.

If you do, I am deeply deeply concerned.

Grace and Peace.

The Gospel?

What is the Gospel? No, really, what is it?

Now that it’s been a few weeks since I read the book, The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight and have had time to digest it more I think I can be ready to put up my thoughts here. So, back to my question: What is “The Gospel”?

Many Christians will tell you that the Gospel is that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins and eternal damnation in a fiery pit called Hell. While I believe that there is truth in it, I also believe that this statement is incredibly short sighted and largely misses the target.

Gospel is defined by many as meaning “good news”. What about the above statement is good news? Salvation, sure, but saved from what? Our sins? What does that even mean? What about Hell? You expect me to believe in some ultimate destiny that no one really cares to think about? Honestly, how often do you think to yourself, “When I die…”? I know I am often distracted by the present to think too deeply about an expected 50 years in my future. Obviously, not all of us alive today are going to live another 50+ years, but I think it’s safe to say that we all expect and hope to. So this good news often feels irrelevant to John Doe who works in a corporate office from 9-5, whose wife is threatening to divorce him, whose kids hate him, and whose dreams are slowly slipping away. John doesn’t need to be saved from death; if anything, death might feel like a relief. No John needs to be saved from fear, pain, worry, and despair. There is no better way to break a person’s soul than to make them fall into despair.

This is a little bit like where Israel was around the time Jesus showed up: Romans had taken over the government and frequently levied taxes on the people; Their deity, I Am, has become silent for over 400 years; the people they trust to direct them in the ways that honor their deity have become corrupt; and there is general unrest. You might even say that this was Israel’s form of The Great Depression. I do not know about you, but I can almost feel the darkness that surrounds this era of earth’s history. So many things go on in the shadows.

In comes Jesus, born of a virgin, Mary, and raised by an earthly father, a carpenter, Joseph. On the night of his birth an insane amount of Angels shout out in joy (and scare the crap out of the shepherds they are speaking to), there is excitement in the air (certainly wasn’t a “Silent Night”), and YET, this kid enters the world largely unnoticed, and would not really make a name for himself until he reached the age of 30 and began his ministry. For 3 years, Jesus develops a relationship with and intensely invests in 12 men, which we know as the 12 disciples. As a closure to this time spent with the 12 men and the crowds that followed to listen to his teaching, Jesus is accused of blasphemy (rightfully so according to the religious leaders at the time) because he did, after all, claim to be the Messiah and God Incarnate. The penalty for Blasphemy is death, but by this time the Jewish religious leaders were so angry they decided stoning was not good enough. The man needed to be crucified as the show of ultimate shame. Thus Jesus was killed, on all accounts blameless and sinless. The story doesn’t end there though, according to his followers, this man decided that he did not want to be dead any longer and revived on the third day. After spending a few more months with his disciples Jesus finally ascends into heaven and is never heard from again, or at least, not in the physical sense like he was for those 33 years.

A couple of decades later we have Jesus’ disciples writing about the events that happened in his life. These accounts are known as the Gospel. We have all heard the story, but have we all grasped the fullness of it. Looking at Matthew alone I find there are details that I often overlook; for instance, the constant use of numbers to emphasize a point. 12 disciples, 3 days, 5 loaves 2 fish (7), and on and on it goes. Each number means something to the Jewish reader; each one sticks out like a sore thumb.

All that to say, the Gospel is – so – much more than the story of the death and resurrection of a Jesus, Messiah. It is a completion of a story. It is the Resolution of a long history, and the beginning of a sequel. The story of Jesus is the story of God restoring Israel, and all of creation with her, to that has been longed for since the first sin of Adam and Eve. It is freedom. Freedom from legalistic law, freedom from the worries, stresses, and hopelessness experienced by people under the rule of a Roman Emperor, and freedom from themselves in some sense. No longer are they enslaved by the law, but freed by it. How many times did Jesus say something that had to do with life? Jesus’ death allowed for people everywhere to live. He was the “ultimate sacrifice” as I’ve heard it called sometimes. I tend to think of it as the ultimate communication.

“I love you, come be with me.”

And I think that is what he would want today as well. Yes, we are saved from a wretched existence, enslaved by the very things we often do not want to do. But even more importantly than that, we are given a freedom and a life that we can experience here, now, in the “today”. I believe that in the death and revival of Jesus, there is peace that can be found, and a relationship that can be established with a very real and involved deity that we simply call “God”.

I believe this for so many reasons both intellectual and intuitional. I would even argue to be a Christian you cannot have one without the other. And even if I’m wrong, to paraphrase Puddleglum in C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair, I would rather believe in a place that has peace, freedom, life, and emphasizes this concept of altruistic expression to others and to a creator being than in this hopeless place we are in now. I do not mean place in the physical sense (heaven, hell, or earth); I mean it in a status sense. I would rather follow a standard that tells me to make my current location as much heaven on earth as I can. To let people know that I love them, even if no one else will.

Now comes the temptation to trail off. So, I’ll be done.

Grace and Peace