Loaded label
"You may not yet be a Christian and thinking of becoming one, but you’re worried that if you do you’ll become a worse person: judgmental, arrogant, narrow-minded, bigoted, and brainwashed. You feel attracted to something good on the path of Jesus, but you wish you could get that something good without a lot of extra religious, social, and maybe even political baggage. Do I have to like organ music? Do I have to say, ‘Praise the Lord,’ all the time? Do I have to vote Republican? Do I have to oppose civil rights for homosexuals? You wonder if there’s any way to follow Jesus without becoming a Christian."
This is harder than I thought it would be. I’ve never had such difficulty writing something. I want to write about my faith, to express why it is so important to me, to be a witness, yet the words don’t seem to be flowing…
Part of my hesitation is this awareness that once I identify myself as a Christian and someone who is active in the church, this will immediately conjure up some opinions about what that means about me. And it won’t always be in a flattering light.
I can understand why these labels are there in so many minds. For a long time, I shied away from getting truly involved in the church because I thought these things myself. For whatever reasons, I associated being an active Christian with arrogance and harsh judgments, rather than love and grace. I’m not sure where I got these stereotypes from – maybe it was a couple bad experiences with really pushy evangelists or seeing/reading about outspoken extremists in the media – but I definitely had my prejudices about what it meant to be an involved member of the church, even though I grew up going to church and my mom was involved in our church and she wasn’t like these stereotypes I had.
Regardless, I thought that if I met friends through church and became a part of that setting, I would have to change a lot about myself to fit in. I thought I would have to vote a certain way in elections as part of the “moral majority” regardless of what I felt was the best vote. I would have to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and never question anything they said or did. I thought I would have to hate gay people and violently protest at abortion clinics and look down on anyone who was not a Christian, while at the same time try to “save” them from their sinful ways so they wouldn’t have to spend an eternity burning in hell. I thought I would have to quote bible verses as a way to condemn others and “set them straight.”
And those verses in the bible that seemed to put down women and portray us as second-class citizens to men? Yeah, I thought I would just have to accept those words and not question whether those verses might be taken out of context or if that’s really what God wants for over half the population. Or, for that matter, not question anyone else’s interpretations of any other bible verses because, as a woman, it wasn’t my place to question them because – look here! – the bible says so (or does it?).
Almost as unfortunate as being inferior to men, I thought I would have to stop listening to the music I liked and only listen to cheesy “Christian” songs that they only play on radio stations at the bottom of the dial. I envisioned those commercials I used to see on TV that advertised praise CDs (call now! Only $19.99 plus shipping and handling). The ones where people in the audience sang along with their eyes closed and hands reaching toward the heavens and many of them had these strange expressions on their faces that kind of made me snicker when I saw the commercial because it seemed sort of staged and inauthentic, or maybe I just thought they looked “uncool” and I, of course, was much cooler than that. As for movies and television? Nothing over a PG rating would be acceptable. And, like, I’d have to own the entire Left Behind series of movies and watch them over and over again until I could quote every line Kirk Cameron’s character said.
I’m not saying all of this stuff is a bad thing, but it just didn’t appeal to me. At all. The bottom line is that I thought I would have to become someone I was not, someone I couldn’t relate to, someone I didn’t want to be. And I wouldn't meet anyone that I would want to be friends with in that setting.
I was wrong.
In my early twenties, I already had a spiritual life and a strong belief in God, but it was not shared in community. It was something I did on my own, outside of the church walls. Even though I was a Sunday School teacher at my parents’ church, I just didn’t feel connected to the Christian life, and I didn’t really want to be.
Nearly four years ago, though, I decided to check out a young adult group at a local church, mainly because I had just graduated college and I was lonely and not meeting people my age. Since then, I’ve met some truly wonderful people and friends and I’ve deepened in my understanding and appreciation for the church. Not only have I not had to become someone I am not, but I am actually closer to being the authentic version of who I really am. And I've never even had to sit through a single viewing of Left Behind, although I do enjoy the occasional Growing Pains rerun. Who doesn't?
I still have a long way to go, of course. But now, four years later, I finally feel comfortable enough to truly own this statement, out loud and in writing: I am a Christian.
So what exactly does that mean? There are probably numerous definitions, depending on whom you ask. To keep things simple, I’ll go to the dictionary:
Chris·tian (krĭs'chən) American Heritage Dictionary
n.
- One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ.
- One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.
Of the definition above, I strive to be the second part: I want to live the way Jesus taught us to live. Not that the first part of this definition isn’t important, but I see it more as talking the talk: “I am a Christian because I believe Jesus was the Messiah”
The second part, to me, goes further than what one says and contradicts a lot of those negative stereotypes about what it means to be a Christian: I am a Christian because of my faith and my actions, which means I love others as myself and I love the Lord with all my heart and I try to live as Jesus taught.
In short, I want to walk the walk, although many times I fall far short of doing this. Even though I stumble over and over again, I keep trying because it’s the most important thing in my life. This is what I hope to share in this blog: my walk in faith, as clumsy and imperfect as it may be.
|