Why I don’t like christians…

Jesus once told his followers, “The world will hate you because of me.”

Sadly, the quasi-humble reply to Jesus, today, would be, “And the world will hate you because of us.” My confession to those who happen to read this is, yes, I am a Christian. When I stare into the abyss of God’s never ending love that was profoundly punctuated by the death of Jesus on the cross, I am like a silly buffoon at the feet of my Kingly Father, simply proclaiming, “Yipee, Jesus love me.” Yet, when I live in a world where I see people that proclaim the name of Christ, and then walk around like assholes, I simply, am embarrassed. Embarrassed to call myself a Christian.

Now for the Christian, reading this right now, you might be going, “Schultz, you’re being judgmental yourself of Christians.” Well, you’d be right. Guilty as charged. But since we are a culture of people that have nearly mutilated thousands, if not millions of lives with our judgement. I think it’s only fair to pick on our own team a little bit.

Historically Christians have been idiots. From participating in the crusades, to defending slavery, racism, and the hatred of homosexuals. Sure… True Christians, the really real Christians, not the fakers that have nothing better to do on a Sunday, except put on a flowery dress that was popular in 1982 and sit in a pew and prayerfully gossip about who is worse than they are, the real authentic believers have not only detested those behaviours and actions…but fought against them. But, we sure got one hell of a reputation for being a hateful group of people don’t we?

Can you blame em’ for not liking us? I sure don’t like us.

A Catholic Priest, named Peter Scholtes wrote a hymn in 1968, and it’s title was “And they will know we are Christians by our love.” Oh, how I wish that were true. It is for some. For some like me, the people that have the greatest impact on my life, were in fact Christians. I think of people like my Grandma, my friend Todd, and my wife Amy to name a few. In all of these three, I have seen a gentleness, a purity in their love, and compassionate endurance in their forgiveness that I cannot deny is Christ-like.

Am I a hypocrite? You betcha. The great poet Rich Mullins comes to mind. “People say that Christians are hypocrites, and I’m kinda like, ‘Yeah, I thought that was the point. That we all come together and admit that we need God and each other.'”

I think being hateful isn’t necessarily a fruit that restricted to those who call themselves Christians. I think it’s a human thing. Our arrogant pride might prohibit us from realizing, or accepting this. But if we could quiet our souls, lives, and get honest with ourselves. I think we would realize there is hate within all of us. And that points to a greater truth. Somethings broken here. Something’s not right. And I may need help. As my Tennessee friend might say, “My soul needs a fixin'”

On any given day I am both annoyed by, and humbled by what I call the Annoying Christian. We’ve all got these people in our lives. No matter, whether your Jewish, Hindu, Atheist, we’ve all got that one really “Annoying Christian Friend, Neighbor, or Facebook Friend.” Heck, I may be that friend to you. I can’t speak for you, but what annoys me is the religious sappy-dappy talk. I’m a Christian, and I’m annoyed by this. It’s like I blow my nose, and they start their Gobbily-Goop Christian talk “Oh, Lord bless you. He’s pouring out his lovely spirit on you. God bless you and I pray heavenly blessings on your nose. The enemy  might be attacking you with some cold or flu, but I’m gonna pray against that and pray angels to surround your nose so you won’t get the sneezy-sneeze’s.” And which point I want to reply, “Just hand me a kleenex you nutball.”

And then, I’m also humbled by these same Christians. There’s a lot of fakers out there, that call themselves Christians, but there’s a lot of sincere one’s out there. Even if they are goofy, or have some mixed up ideas. And it’s the sincere one’s that humble me, that I for a moment am softened, and go “Come here you goofball, nutjob, in the name of Jesus, I love you.”

Whether it’s the bigot, the hateful (forgive my language here but I don’t have a nicer way to put it) son of a bitch that holds up a signs that says “God hates fags” or the faker, or even when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed even the “annoying Christian” I tend to use the expression “I don’t like Christians.”

But I think that’s kind of lazy on my part. Jesus warned us that we would have “wolves dressed up in sheep clothes”…I’m not going to judge their salvation, because that’s up to God, not me. But I can safely say this. The asshole with the “God hates fags” sign…is not a Christian. There’s nothing Christ-like about that. C.S. Lewis said that the definition of a Christian is a “little Christ.” The bigotry, the racism, is not Christ. It’s not Jesus. It’s not what the heartbeat of Jesus is, and therefore it’s not what the heartbeat of a Christian should be.

I think I need an non-lazy way to describe what I don’t like. And the good news… I think Jesus did it for me. Whether you are Christian, or Not a Christian reading this…you may find this interesting. Being a storyteller I found this utterly fascinating. The four gospels that we have about Jesus are filled with an interesting storyline. The bad guys of the story-line are the religious. Don’t mishear me or be dumb right now. This has nothing to do with Christianity vs. Judaism. Since all the first christians were Jewish, and our Lord & Savior was also Jewish. And my heritage is Jewish…So nanana-boo-boo. Okay, moving on. But what it is about… is astonishing…when we only have four books/gospels about Jesus..God could have given us so many things, talked about so many topics, answer unanswered questions etc…but instead most of, all we have about Jesus, is taken up with this story-line of Jesus vs. the religious. And when I realized this I went, how interesting, what is God trying to communicate, here? I mean, even the devil got less screen time as the bad guy in the story, than the religious rabble.

Wanna hear my guess? Religion, religiosity is the true enemy here. And it’s weapons of hatred, legalism (trying to obey rules to get God’s affection), bigotry, and even, what I tend to be guilty of “judging” even if it’s my own team.

I think there is an astonishing number of people who call themselves “Christians” that frankly, aren’t really. The fruit of their lives defy their claims. They may be religious. They may go to church. They may own bibles. But what pours out of their mouth isn’t truth, grace, love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness etc…but it’s sour grapes, hate, bigotry, and vileness.

So maybe it’s not that I don’t like Christians, it’s that I don’t like these religiously hollow people that call themselves Christians, but maybe, truthfully may not know Jesus at all. Because if they did, they would know they aren’t saved through their good deeds, they are saved by By God’s good grace. They wouldn’t be prideful and arrogant, they would be humble and thankful because they would realize that salvation, and ridiculous love of God is a gift and not something to be earned. And they wouldn’t hold up signs that say “God hates…” they would hold up signs that say “God loves”….

If you’re a Christian, you may think I’m being arrogant, and judgemental here. Okay, you may be right. But I would argue I think we need to be louder about love than those who are loud with hate. But right now those who hate, those who are wolves dressed up like sheep are running amok. They are destroying lives left and right. Sometimes to be loving, takes the posture of quiet grace, and sometimes it’s calling bullshit on what’s not Christlike….what’s not representative of the truth that is above all truth that Jesus loves the world. And not just in some corporate, collective, theological way…but specifically everyone, individually. He’s nuts about them. He does cartwheels when they wake, up. His love is unfair, and lovely. So let’s be brave in our love for what Jesus loves, and not be afraid to call out what is not of God…just like Jesus did in the gospels…why? So maybe just maybe one day…They will know we are Christians by our love.

Shalom,

David Leo Schultz

~ by David Leo Schultz on April 8, 2015.