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Being Real
January 2006
"Christianity has been made so completely devoid of character that there is really nothing to persecute. The chief trouble with Christians, therefore, is that no one wants to kill them any more!"
- S0ren Kierkegaard
It's a shame not nearly as many Christians are put to death any more, as it would certainly help our faith remain exclusive to those with true conviction. The problem, which has manifested from this tragic decrease of martyrdom is that people are rarely who they profess to be any more, and more so perplexed by any concept of sobriety in one's self when identifying as a believer in the faith. This raises the question of "why" as rather urgent for anyone whose goal is to be a true Christian and not some newly baptized confidant of hollow nepotism.
We may not be the only people falling victim to an identity crisis, but we're the most oblivious to it in our own selves. If I had to guess as to why this is, I would suspect it's closely related to the goal of every Christian to not be themselves. We Christians want nothing more than to mimic Jesus Christ, our Lord. The problem is that we seem to confuse true holiness as a demonstration
rather than a byproduct.
Defective Character
As flawed humans, it's in our nature to try and hide our blemishes since we can't get as close to mimicking the one who had none (Jesus), as we'd like to be. It's more socially acceptable too (especially among other Christians) because everyone else is taking part in this same charade. In fact, not only is acting flawless a lot easier than being flawless, but it also seems to be the accepted way of getting things done in most churches without the inconvenience of personal sanctity. It's a mathematical certainty then that the average Christian will end up with far more character flaws than they started out with, but they'll be able to keep it to themselves with much more skill.
My list is much shorter today than it used to be, but I'm still working out my salvation with fear and trembling. The problem is, several others are also
working out my salvation for me as none of my flaws quite fit the idealist's mold we've authored for a Christian to fit. I'm not entirely certain who created this new mold, but I'm pretty sure the mold maker had a few issues of his own - probably more than he was willing to cop to.
For this reason, the once passionate group of believers who welcomed martyrdom and preached with authority are now more interested in social survival and obscurity from accountability, and this with the full support of their pastors. This isn't how the real church looked, but it's how most function today for economic reasons. Being an individual living under grace is perceived as a character flaw if that grace is still working in you, making it very difficult for people to be what they were called to be - individuals living under grace.
The Mega Church
There's a reason the movement known as mega-church has become so popular. Among a small home group of believers (what the original church looked more like), there is accountability, honesty, and direct ministry. The byproduct of this was
covenant and holiness, but the cost was giving up privacy and embracing humility. People hated that sort of thing, and so the concept of crowding thousands of individuals together was brilliant in that it ensured anonymity and impersonal ministry without accountability or any of the other inconveniences the Bible tell us to walk out. It's also much easier to give personal, direct words from the Lord when statistics are involved. If it applies to 17% or more of the congregation and can be indirectly received by at least 43%, a word can be measured as personal and divinely inspired. Mass ministry saves time and
keeps the parishioners coming back, all without the need for any real
relationship, which no one has time for.
This act works for everyone so long as everyone is playing the same game. As long as most of the 7,500 church members appear to have arrived, no one will be the wiser, and all can eventually rejoice over what a fantastic and spiritual church was brought together by God. Bankrolled spirituality often operates by
omission, in that any "unspiritual" individuals who desire personal sanctity don't buy what's going on and leave.
Pontificating in the Mirror
In spite of our, attempts at least, to act as though we've arrived to a more
spiritually enlightened place, we typically land in the presence of others also trying to arrive who remind us we haven't yet achieved their own level of perceived holiness. Being in the presence of scoffers typically results in assimilation, and we couldn't get away from them anyway if we tried, at least without moving to a secluded land, or Mississippi. So to avoid that situation entirely, it's advantageous for today's Christian to wear rags of righteousness and establish Pharisaical class within the church.
It's not that we don't know who we want to be or where we belong; we've just lost touch with who we are. Pretending we're holy doesn't feel the same as living a life of holiness. In many cases, it amounts to nothing more than creating a list of rules to follow to keep us away from whatever sins we're afraid of ourselves. Instead of grace, we condition ourselves to respond with hostility to any infraction of our own form of ascetecism, even if it's someone else who isn't falling to the sins that so easily beset us. The world isn't therefore seeing much these days in the way of real Christians who walk with Jesus, because we're spending too much time stoning the forgiven instead of being the forgiven.
It's likely that this vicious degeneration of the church would have led to the ex-communication of many great men of God in the Bible, and if they weren't
ex-communicated, we'd at least write them off for failing to do the things we expect them to do.
Invoking a Reaction
I wrote in a previous essay that the name of Jesus elicits a reaction - good or bad - in most people. You don't see a lot of people incorporating Buddha into their everyday profanities (except maybe some former Buddhists), and talking about Ghandi never caused anyone to throw a salt shaker at you. I wonder if part of why nobody wants to kill us anymore is because we lack that which elicits a reaction. Most of the time we see ourselves to be above outspokenness, and write off boldness as immaturity. Waiting for a formal orthodoxy from God to do what he's already commissioned in His Word leaves us remaining complacent and stagnating, all while feeling dignified about it.
I've seen many colloquialisms used throughout Christianity designed to foster inaction. One of the more notorious says, "Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words". Romans 10:17 was apparently misprinted in those copies, as it was supposed to read, "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ". And wasn't it David who, while dancing before the Lord, said, "I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes". Whatever was engrained in the hearts of these individuals seems to have gone missing in our community of manufactured holy people.
These men were also far from perfect. The Apostle Paul cursed out a high priest (Acts 23) in the midst of answering to and preaching the Gospel to the Sanhedrin. David had his own stockpile of problems including lust, adultery, murder, and heavy use of profanity (he apparently used Java a few times). Perfection has never been a requisite for verbal evangelism. When, Biblically, was there room to deny the message of Christ to others while we selfishly work on getting our own act together? The world judges us, not as hypocrites, but now as disgenuine because we won't confess Jesus Christ as Lord unless we first establish our holiness with them.
Being Real
So what is being real? It's hard to define, but real people know other real people when they see them. The world is able to pick genuine people out of a lineup. To the world, being anything but real is like meeting a beautiful woman and then realizing she's computer generated, like Barbie or Cameron Diaz. Christians have absolutely no standing in today's society if there is even a hint of insincerity among them.
As for actually becoming genuine, "To thine own self be true" seems to be a good start, and identifying the "you" that you'd backslide into without Christ will certainly lead to a sober perspective of others. We can act as holy as we want, but at the end of the day we're all still terribly flawed and will likely continue making plenty of stupid mistakes until we die. That's why we're under grace, and were set free in Christ to live. So live.
Being sober about ourselves is probably the best way to let others see what Christianity is really about - we were screwed up, God came and forgave us, and now we've got hope. It's Christ who gave us the ability to reflect Him in spite of ourselves, and He wasn't wearing a suit at the time. Being real is a two-part effort. Certainly, live as righteous and blameless a life as you possibly can, but then realize that you're still poor, blind, and naked, in desperate need of Jesus otherwise you'll end up back as the reprobate you used to be, and in fact may
still have hints of.
Sanctity isn't the dichotomy we make it out to be.
The perfecting of the saints is a continual process which will never be truly
completed in a physical realm or in this life. We haven't conquered anything - we haven't made ourselves clean - we've been made clean, and just as surely as we were grafted in can we be grafted out.
If God were planning on making us perfect in this world, John wouldn't have written, "He must increase, but I must decrease". Nobody wants to see the
righteousness we ourselves are capable of, especially God - therefore all we can
boast about is Christ and His perfection (the way it was supposed to be in
the first place).
Being a genuine Christian involves understanding where we're at and meeting other people where they're at. It essentially comes down to the colloquialisms we've all dismissed as tripe. Would Jesus be accepted in your church [1]? Can we ever love the people Christ loved? After all, He spent His time with whores, liars, and the degenerates of society. Got any x-prostitutes in your church? Chances are,
the men in most churches haven't got the character to handle that anyway. If most of us caught a glimpse of Christ's ministry today, we'd think it's a good thing we're not like Him.
We'll never be truly like Him, in fact, until we learn to identify with humiliation. Pick the most pathetic, weak, and disliked person you can think of. It's
unlikely that Jesus will be your first choice, yet He became this rejection of
society for the world's benefit. It's no wonder He could love the scum of society so much, as He ended up bearing their sins (and ours) upon His crucifiction. Identify with the least of these, and you know what it's like to walk a mile in His shoes. The great part about walking in Christ's shoes is that only the real Christians will be able to stand to be around you. You might just get some worldly people to surround you too. This will really
give the religious people a well-deserved tweak on the nose.
It doesn't seem like Christians want to aspire to martyrdom anymore, which
seems a bit paradoxical. I suspect that may even be the root of why we treat
people differently than we used to. Perhaps if we were to welcome persecution
and martyrdom with open arms, and make it our goal to die for Christ, we may start living the true life of a Christian
again, rather than build the comfortable, safe, and mostly inert
teddy bear of a Christian following we've come to aspire to.
~
[1] A favorite musician of mine once said that Jesus would never be accepted in his own church, as the blood and dirt on his feet might stain the carpet.
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