For What are We Known?

When our Outrage Exceeds our Love

A recent article criticizing Christians challenged me to look more carefully at my social media feed. What I found broke my heart.

The article claimed that modern Christians are more known for what they stand against than any other uniquely Christian characteristic or claim. As a pastor and ministry leader, one might guess that most (about 75%) of my social media connections are self-proclaimed Christians. So, I spent two weeks tracking the number of posts in my feeds that proclaimed anything unique to Christianity and the number of posts that positioned Christians against anything in society.

The result:

The believers in my feed were twice as likely to post something proclaiming their indignation over the gender politics of beer and shoe marketing campaigns, the scourge of inappropriately applied wokeness, abortion, drag-queens reading stories to children, or misguided public-school policies than to utter anything about the Risen Christ, or his forgiveness, grace, love, peace, or joy.

Let that sink in.

Have we become more known for what we are against than for our love for God and others?

I am not defending any of the sensational political ploys or true grievances which my brothers and sisters in Christ are railing against. Yet, when we cross the line and recreate our primary identity as the moral consciousness of our society rather than the beautiful, grace-filled, loving Bride of Christ, we have become prodigals drifting from joy to junk while still sitting in the pew.

And it must break Jesus’ heart.

Have we rolled up our sleeves and found our purpose in taking public stands against what we deem as outrageous, in-your-face immoral conduct in much the way enthusiastic Pharisees yearned to stone the woman caught in adultery?

Perhaps Jesus might ask us, “Where is thy love, humility, grace?”

It is so much easier to passionately condemn in the name of faith than to compassionately develop creative alternatives to the policies and practices we disdain. Though embracing the easy route leaves most of us unbalanced in how we portray our faith. Then the light of the world is increasingly perceived as a police spotlight, rather than an inviting porchlight to those around us.

Jesus would not have embraced any of the immorality of our culture nor the celebration of such. He was clear about the costs of sin, judgement, and even God’s wrath. But how often did he take a public stand against the horrendously unfair first-century Roman policies, sexual misconduct, or the thousands of misguided practices of his day?

And how often did Jesus offer unconditional love and acceptance as he shared unwavering truth with hope and promise overshadowing judgement?

As citizens in a democracy, we have an opportunity unafforded first-century citizens. We can take a stand against any and everything we deem inappropriate or wrong. But we must be mindful that when we do so by standing upon the public platform of faith, we are defining our faith to those who know little about our community called church and our Savior called Jesus. Then we risk staining both his identity as “Love” and his calling to us to “follow me.”