(or women :-) )
A good friend of mine (Rusty Lopez) referred me to a great article by John Fischer at Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint website. (thanks, Rusty) Fischer’s concern as expressed in The Separation of Church and Hate is similar to mine – there is far too much witness to The Enemy (Satan) than to Christ in some of the things that come out of Christians’ mouths or are committed by them. Yet I think he takes this idea’s complement, i.e., that non-Christians in essence may be more discerning in a Christlike way than Christians themselves, too far:
...there are a significant number of people who equate Christians in America with hate. Though I’m sure some of this can be blamed on the media and the resulting propaganda surrounding a culture war, that doesn’t explain everything. We must have given ample reason to make the connection....If Christians were consistently acting in loving ways toward each other and toward those who are not of the household of faith, this association could not have been made. (emphasis added)
Christians certainly have given ample reason to make the connection, although, at the same time, I’m not sure that Fischer’s final statement is true. I believe it’s possible that the sinful heart can make an association with hatred, or judgment of some kind, when none is exhibited. The association with hatred comes from the person’s own confused thinking. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7.
I am the first to say that Christians must not be guilty of what Fischer says here:
If we can’t face our own sin, then we become angry at sin, and angry with the sinner in order to avoid being angry with ourselves, which is where the focus on sin needs to be. When we fail to properly deal with our own sin, our guilt-fed anger always turns outward. It’s all about self-preservation.
As did C. S. Lewis, Fischer understands much about the human heart. But I think he tends to assume that the unsaved heart might be cleaner than the saved heart – how could so many Christians act so worldly while so many non-Christians see through it? Such a question leads many to question who the saved really are – they claim, and perhaps somewhat rightly so, that many who call themselves Christians really are not, and many who would not say that they are actually have more of a heart for God than the so-called Christians.
I think it’s closer to the truth to say that Christians, while saved, are still very far from being perfected from the sin from which they are ultimately saved. Many non-Christians, while being wise in many respects, are also deceived so that their accusations against Christians sometimes represent deceit itself, or at least lack of understanding. This deceit and darkness of mind as authored by Satan reigns in the human heart as a result of the Fall.
Some of this concern about the human heart goes back to issues that were raised by Fischer’s column of October 2003, Home for Halloween. In it, Fischer makes some very good points about non-participation in Halloween representing escapism:
It all comes down to why we are here. Are we here to enjoy life in as safe an environment as possible? Are we here to recreate the world as it should be, or as we might want it to be? Or are we here to bring Jesus to the world, however dangerous that might be? All this protective activity is counter-productive to the Gospel. We are trying to be safe from the world when Jesus has promised only to keep us safe in the world, while always assuming that it is a dangerous place to be. "My prayer," he said, "is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one" (John 17:15).
Yet he also asks,
But what about the Satan issue and the occult? We hear of practices on this day that use real blood, real seances, real calling up of the underworld. For some, this is serious business. But for every one house in my town that sees Halloween as this, there are hundreds who do not. Why allow those few to drive me away from my home on a night I am guaranteed to have visitors?
I would answer: #1, it’s not about being driven away from one’s home; it’s about a proactive refusal to participate in something that could cause someone to stumble. #2, in the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus is not concerned with the 99 sheep who are in the fold; He’s concerned about the one that is lost. If there is one lost “house” out there among even hundreds (and I doubt the ratio is as great as Fischer implies), is that one house less important than all the others for whom Halloween is “harmless”?
I don’t believe that we should brush off any harm that might be done someone by anything that we do. At the same time, we are not responsible for how our good acts may be received by others. But, in all of our actions and speech, we are to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). (“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be...” said Jesus to the disciples.)
Fischer’s article (the first one) does list five cogent points that would well be heeded by every person who considers him/herself a Christian:
1) We have been more focused on sin than the sinner.
“Loving the sinner begins with me. I must admit my own hidden sin and need for forgiveness. Only then will I be able to love and forgive the sinner next to me. This is precisely what Jesus meant when He told us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.”
2) We have been selfishly more concerned with creating a society that is safe for our children and ourselves than with making a positive impact on culture.
“The more we leave the prevailing culture for the safety of a Christian alternative, the worse that culture becomes in our absence, further justifying our exodus...So rather than going into the world as Christ sent us, we now pit our Christian world against the world we left, and the cash registers of Christian stores ring with $4.2 billion of alternative product.”
3) We have bought into the notion that we could effect a change upon society through politics, so we all ended up on one side of a political battle already in progress, making us the immediate enemy of half of America without even trying.
"In short, we bought heavily into a polarized political system without counting the cost or realizing the limitations...we have slipped into a Christian coalition of power that seeks to influence the system by aligning with the more conservative party and letting a few do the thinking while the rest fall in line...We have entered the world of polarized politics at one pole and become entrenched there so all the accompanying hatred that goes along with a two-party system now is a part of our identity as Christians.” (emphasis added)
4) We have opted for morality over the gospel.
“Morality is cleaner and less threatening than the gospel. The gospel makes me admit my sin and welcome sinners. Morality lets me keep sin and sinners at bay. Morality deals in black and white—right and wrong. But representing morality breeds entitlement, self-righteousness, and condemnation.”
5) We have become the self-appointed last line of defense that God doesn’t need and never asked for.
“Keeping Christ in Christmas, God in the Pledge, prayer in the schools and the Ten Commandments on government lawns have become all-consuming, when all of these guarantee absolutely nothing in terms of what it means to follow Christ. We could win all these battles and still have a Godless nation and a Godless church.”
Read the whole article.
I will close by reproducing something (my own confession) I wrote to send to a friend that is in keeping with Fischer’s point (5):
“I have shot my trap off early and/or unwisely so many times in the past...after years and years of stupidity I finally learned to control my tongue and change my attitudes (heart). I learned the importance of establishing a relationship of sorts, a trust, with someone before becoming confrontational. I have finally learned how to be less selfishly and more graciously confrontational in my closer relationships. Sometimes it’s necessary to speak; other times it’s better to hold the peace until a better time, or to phrase things differently. In other words, I’m learning to keep my feelings where they belong and express them in a less self-indulgent and damaging way. I’ve learned how oftentimes my desire for another’s best good gets subsumed by my desire to feed my own pride. I’ve learned that God doesn’t need cheerleaders, supporters, or hit men.”
