Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Mark 8:35
It is a paradox at the heart of Christian life. Once transformed toward the neighbor rather than literally being stuck on ourselves, we “delight” to enter others’ beliefs, passions, and imagination, even when we feel they are untrue, depraved, or lacking all realism…….It is knowing ‘in order to see what they see, to occupy, for a while, their seat in the great theater.’ One senses here that his larger aim….is awakening to a world ‘crowded’ with the presence of God.” – Broken Hallelujahs
I went to see Part of Me, the Katy Perry movie, a few days ago. (I wasn’t very impressed by the 3-D.) I find her story compelling. Raised by Christian fundamentalists, she eventually left for L.A., realizing there was more to life than what she was allowed. I related to a lot of her upbringing; aside from the pastors as parents, a lot of her story sounded eerily familiar, right down to not being allowed to watch Smurfs.
I think whenever someone says they couldn’t find acceptance of their identity in Christianity/evangelicalism, we should take notice and ask why. There are, obviously, some identities that run completely counter to the way of Jesus, but I think, too often, we keep people out who shouldn’t be. Why do we perpetuate this Christian bubble that shuts so many people out?
What are we doing and saying that leads so many people to feel unwelcome?
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” – Isaiah 6:3
Do we believe this? Do we believe the world is crowded with the presence of God? Is God somehow present in the music of Katy Perry? Is he present in her life? If so, why are Christians so dismissive of her? Why do reviews write her off because she features a gay kiss? Why do people only think she will have worth if she ‘comes back to Christ?‘
Why do Christians write people off as trashy or skanky, as if they have no value if there is anything objectionable about them? Why is it so easy to banish a song because of content instead of asking what’s behind it?
Because when we dismiss a song, an album, an artist, we are dismissing the person.
When we can only talk about someone in relation to how ‘godly’ or not they are, we dehumanize them. When we view people only as souls in need of conversion, when we set a standard of acceptability that we hold up before we allow a person in, we destroy them and reduce ourselves to something God never intended.
We shouldn’t cut anyone out, but we especially shouldn’t cut someone out who believes in Jesus. We have created this subculture of what it means to be a ‘real Christian’ and if you don’t do it acceptably, you aren’t in. Where is the grace? When we throw people out who are questioning, wrestling with it; why are we so offended when they leave altogether?
This is bigger than Katy Perry.
When we decide who is welcome and who is not in our churches, when we place strict limits on who our kids hang out with, when we only go to Christian clubs, camps, groups; we are devaluing whole swaths of society, and we turn ourselves into self-righteous prigs.
Why did Katy feel like she couldn’t write about life in ‘gospel’ music?
What is it about the way we’ve structured Christianity that avoids the darkness, the realness of life?
“Christianity is born out of struggle because it is born from men and women faced with the paradox of God’s purpose made flesh in a dead and condemned man.” – Rowan Williams (in Broken Hallelujahs)
It’s easy to be apathetic about other people. We can write them off and ignore their story, because it doesn’t affect our life at all. We can just turn the radio station to something more family friendly. We can find new friends who agree with everything we do.
Our posture needs to be one of interest, not dismissal.
Let’s be people who work towards openness, with a curious attitude and a desire to understand. We need to remind ourselves that the lyrics one writes, or the clothes they wear, the places they live, or the habits they practice don’t define their worth.
Are we somehow more pure because we aren’t tainting ourselves with ‘sin’? How off-putting is it to other people to tell them they taint us? That they are unworthy of being in our lives?
I don’t know how to burst the exclusive Christian bubble. I know I am slowly learning how to take small steps to pop the bubbles in my life, to look for God in all places. But it’s taken several years and books to get to this point. It has taken me several experiences with a lack of grace to understand what it is like on the unacceptable side of the line.
All I know is that if the distillation of Jesus’ message is love God and love others, then that’s where our focus has to be.
We need to do our part in speaking up for the good in others. We need to be able to see God in books, movies, music, people.
We need to seek peace and pursue it.
We have to seek justice.
We have to try and walk humbly.
Our goal has to be serving others.
If enough of us do this, small step by small step, giving ourselves and each other grace along the way, if we ignore the naysayers and attackers, the wall-builders and the line-drawers, then maybe, some day, people won’t feel like they have to leave Christianity to try and find Life.
What are some of the bubbles in your life? How can we change it so that people feel welcome to explore life within the church?
Honestly? The biggest bubble I experience is the need to be well enough to attend a Church building. My husband and me are too ill to attend Church services, and as such have been neglected by the Churches we are (were?) members off.
What makes it worse, is that because we haven’t been well enough to attend a Church building in a long time, Christians see us as people who “need saving”, disbelieving that we can have a close relationship with Jesus when we cannot attend a Church service.
Sorry, that came across a bit ranty! You’re right we need to open the bubbles, and we need to love. I really enjoy your blog 🙂
x
Every moral system has shibboleths they use as boundary markers. We use a persons words or behavior to locate them in our conceptual grid. How do they treat women? How do they treat the minorities (racial, sexual)? How do they treat the weak (disabled, old, children)? How do they treat the poor? What do they believe about ____________? It is very hard indeed to find a system where we don’t categorize people according to their behavior or their beliefs and treat them accordingly. The American cultural communities do no different.
At the same time we all want to be treated 1. with a presumption of our good intent to strive after the true and the beautiful 2. with the grace of understanding that we aren’t even achieving our own moral and performance goals. When we think about things like “God looks at the heart” we appeal to that in terms of God’s evaluation of our character. We are all biased to judge ourselves kindly and with grace even while we judge others more harshly. CS Lewis associates this with Jesus’ command “love your neighbor as yourself”. In other words extend the same generosity of judgment towards others that you extend to yourself.
This is very difficult in a real world of choices. Whether or not we wish to express internal condemnation deciding which community to maintain public association with and which community we wish to leave will implicitly communicate or be received as judgment. Katy Perry in changing her name, changing her lifestyle, changing her message changed communities, or at least is understood as doing so and the community she left probably took it as a loss and as an expression of judgment.
The tradition I’m from, following the outline of the Heidelberg Catechism attempts to make a radical break with these moral systems by designated them as part of the law. It doesn’t fully break from shibbolethic systems, however, by continuing to have boundary markers, belief and behavioral expectations and expressions of what new life in Christ is intended to be exhibited (fruit of the Spirit, life in the Spirit, etc.) but at least there is a critique of shibbolethic moral systems as such. My traditions attempt to work through these issues, not always successfully of course, perhaps even seldom sucessfully.
I’ve seen little indication that other groups have made much progress either, even those communities of “radical inclusion”. Anyone who wishes to say “the world should be X and Y” always has to deal with those who disagree in terms of their beliefs and their behaviors.
That many Christians get this wrong is no surprise. Christianity is too commonly confused with moralism and when this happens conversations get reduced to shouting matches about moral application and designation of who’s in and who’s out or what behavior is in and what behavior is out.
The default human religion of community is moralism and Christians find it difficult to distinguish their faith from that default system.
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“Because when we dismiss a song, an album, an artist, we are dismissing the person. When we can only talk about someone in relation to how ‘godly ‘ or not they are, we dehumanize them.”
So true. Celebrities are REAL PEOPLE. That’s something I don’t think about much.
Yes, well I have to confess I have a few other celebrities that I really, really can’t stand, so I’m preaching to the choir here, lol
Well this just makes me sad 🙁 That’s such a shame. I’ve had just as much church from podcasts as I have from an actual building sometimes.
This is wonderful! 🙂
“…maybe, some day, people won’t feel like they have to leave Christianity to try and find Life.” I’d love to get to that point right now.
ugh, yes I know that struggle :/
A song or a work of art that gets “dismissed” by Christians is simply, exposing the sin for what it is – a willful act against God. It is not dismissing the person. Nor is it excluding them. We are to be vigilant about things that can harm us in our walk with God. Or cause a believer to stumble. That doesn’t mean that the PERSON should be shunned. God loves Katy Perry just like anyone else. But if she is leading people astray from the teaching of Christ, then that sin should be acknowledged. Especially someone who has so much influence over youth.