BLOG 2/17/16. “MUST’VE BEEN BITTEN BY A RADID FUNDAMENTALIST!”
The erudite and humorous church historian, Richard Lovelace, with his gift of metaphor, once sought to explain why some folk were so antagonistic to the Christian faith and to the Christian church. He just quipped: They were probably bitten by a rabid fundamentalist! Given the proliferation of quasi-Christian protestations by some breeds of politically conservative folk who define themselves as ‘evangelical’ brings Dr. Lovelace’s description back to mind.
On the other hand, I have lived inside the Christian church for longer than most, and, yes, there are some really dismaying persons and toxic church communities that could easily convince any sensitive person that the whole Christian proposition was a bad deal, and make them hyper-defensive against any suggestion that one should identify with it. When the witness of such negative church folk is negative about all the practices, persons, ethnic groups, etc. that they see as a threat, … they play right into the hands of those who, from Jesus’ day down to the present, falsely identify themselves as the practitioners of ‘true religion’ while at the same time contradicting the very calling to radical love that was so much the hallmark of Jesus’ teachings. Such quasi-evangelicals need desperately to go back and read and re-read the teaching of Jesus and his apostles … and then think twice before that embrace the name of Christian (or hi-jack the adjective evangelical, i.e. those who embrace Jesus’‘thrilling good news’ … to identify themselves.
Jesus was the friend of sinners. He didn’t hang out with the ‘religious ‘of the temple crowd. He entered into conversation with all kinds of questionable persons, for instance: a Samaritan woman of questionable morals, corrupt public officials, and local shady characters to name a few. His message was described as the gospel of forgiveness. He announced a whole and in-breaking New Creation where there was hope and forgiveness and reconciliation with God and with each other. He taught that his followers were to love their enemies, to do good to those who despitefully used them and persecuted them, to exercise costly love to the sick and the needy, to the poor and homeless.
His word, and that of his apostles, was that those outside of the household of faith were to be able to see their good works and be made curious by the sheer quality of their lives. There is never, never any suggestion that they were to self-righteously condemn those with whom they disagreed, or who were living life-styles that were contradictory to that to which they themselves were called. Never ‘us against them.’ Their very human lives were to the demonstrate the divine nature (Jesus living) in them. That is what they had embraced when they entered through the door, who is Jesus, and embraced the radical newness to which he called them. The central liturgical practice that he left with them was that they were to break bread and drink wine in remembrance of who he was and to that to which he had called them.
Those ‘rabid fundamentalists’ who are always making cause against real sinners, or against any costly ministries that bring real help to those desperately in need, or against members of terrorist groups, or other religions, etc. … need to meet Jesus. But beware! His calling is not safe or popular, or without cost.
And and in our current political season, it is not those who make a lot of noise about their Christian identification, but those who are proponents of the costly—even radical—love and justice that Jesus practiced and taught who deserve our attention, whether or not they profess to be followers of Jesus.
