Nut Job Christians

 

Turn on your tv, but not right now, you should finish reading this first. Stephanie, Mike, and I just finished watching the hilarious, extremely clever and well-written Netflix Original Series "Orange is the New Black." It's mostly about a woman whose past relationship with a drug dealer lands her a spot in federal prison. We watched the whole series in under a week! It was that good. 

But towards the end of Season 1 (SPOILER ALERT!!) the writers brought in a new character called "Pensatucky" who is the most ignorant portrayal of a "Christian" that I have ever witnessed. She is quite literally a crackhead who is under the impression that she has been chosen by God to tell all the other women in the prison why they are damned to Hell, and eventually tries to kill one of her fellow inmates for having a different opinion about God. I know that many Christians may have the instinct (while watching someone bash your beliefs) to turn off the television and never look back, or maybe even to write a disgruntled email to the producers complaining about the way that they portray our faith. But I am encouraging you to try something different. Watch.

Why I'm asking you to do this is because we who know Jesus need to see exactly how we are being charicatured, because chances are that someone you know has this exact opinion of you. Or people like you. Why?  Because somewhere in the church it is partially or often even completely true.  We must come to realize that to some who has never been in close contact with a Christ-follower who is living out the gospel, this may all that they see. This is all that they know. It would be easy to see the picket signs held by the members of Westboro Baptist and to truly believe that this is the way that all Christians feel.

I am actually begging those of you (Christians) who are reading this to let it constantly be on your mind that you are in the world and you are constantly being watched. You might be the only chance for others to see that there are Christians who choose love over judgement, service over shouting, caring over condemnation.  There are those who hold others to the same measure of grace that they expect God to show them--and we must be seen and heard to make a difference.   It is so very important to show the world that we know that we have not earned our passage into heaven, and that we never could. In Christ alone. We do know this, right?

So how can we get that across?  
For one, please stop using your Facebook as a megaphone to broadcast your controversial views on gay marriage. What good does it do to stir up an argument on your newsfeed? (Apart from making me giggle.) Understand that you cannot expect people who do not believe what you believe to feel convicted about everything that you feel convicted about. It is the Spirit's job to convict people, our sole purpose in this world is to love your God and to love the people that He loves, which includes everyone you know and all the people you don't know, too.  Believe me when I say that judgement of others comes from no other emotion but pride. Not concern, not love, not even fear, only pride. 

Teresa of Avila wrote
"Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body."

We must live our lives as if we are the only opportunity someone we know or meet may have to see Jesus.   Because it just might be.