I ran across this article by Tom Gilroy after having read this post over at Greg Kendall-Ball’s site. I would suggest reading Greg’s post and the comments that followed, as, most likely, it is all more interesting than anything I write about it. However, I do want to offer my own thoughts on it as well. 

The article itself is largely a political one, directed at President Bush and the Republican party, but he has quite a bit to say about their supposed Christian faith and Christians in general. Basically, it offers a glimpse of what (at least some) outsiders feel about Christians, about how they see us. I posted a couple of times in December along a similar theme (here and here). First, here is a quote from the article (which is the same quote Greg posted):

It used to be that Christians were known to all by their good deeds, but after almost four decades of the GOP’s cleaving the populace into warring sects to be manipulated at the polls, ‘being Christian’ is no longer defined by doing good deeds, it’s defined by an arrogant mission to tell others how they must live - who they can marry, who they can adopt, what they can say in public, what they must teach in schools - all the way down to what kind of medicine they should have access to.

It was easy to look away from inconvenient historical facts of Christianity like the Inquisition, the Crusades, or the pedophilia of the priesthood when you could still see true people of faith marching for civil rights, working in soup kitchens, or bearing witness in Nicaragua as the Reagan-funded militias gunned down families of peasants.

But ‘The Great Awakening’ now brings us faith-based leaders promoting torture and war, who lie to us on a daily basis, and violate our constitutionally guaranteed rights. The ‘national debate’ about values is reduced to quippy bumper stickers like ‘It’s Okay To Pray’ or ‘One Man + One Woman = Marriage.’ Our national conversation on ethics, morality, and faith has become a kind of WWF ‘Religious Smackdown.’

I suppose that in years past I might have just written off an article like this. The guy is just an anti-Christian liberal, so why should I listen to him? However, as I’ve written before, I think Christians in America do have somewhat of an “image problem.” Jesus said people would hate us because of him. However, I wonder if these days - more often than not - they don’t hate us because of him, but rather they hate us because of us. I see people like Fred Phelps and his “God Hates Fags” crew picketing funerals with absolutely no compassion whatsoever, or I see Roy Moore breaking the law by putting a monument in a federal building (and then fighting to continue to break the law), or I see Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson saying… well, just about anything, and I can’t help but feel that it’s not Jesus that is offensive to them - it’s Jesus’ people.

Yes, those are extreme examples, and some simply blame the media. “They only show the negative stuff, they don’t report the good stuff.” I won’t argue that. I think that’s probably true to some degree. Fred Phelps is going to elicit more of a reaction from the public. More people will tune in to see what stupid comments Falwell and Robertson have made now. The news media is out for viewers and ratings as much as reporting the news. They want to report what sells. But if we try to pin it all on the “liberal media”, and nothing on ourselves, I think we’re fooling ourselves. I think there’s no doubt that, in recent history, the church has become very self-focused. There probably are less “good stories” to report than there would have been in generations past. And if we were truly living out our faith as Jesus wants us to, then maybe there would be more good, and perhaps less bad, to report.

Later in the article, after pointing to a number of inconsistencies between leaders who claim to be Christian and the lifestyles they live or decisions they make, he makes the statement that “What all this tells us is claiming to be Christian, on it’s own, signifies nothing.” Well, yes - claiming to be anything means very little. THere has to be some proof.  When we claim one thing and display another with our lives, people won’t listen. It’s not that we have to be perfect. But, if we say we know Jesus and others cannot see any evidence that supports our claim, then people will find it difficult to take us seriously.

Another quote:

But if you want me to see the beauty and the power of your faith, lead by example, not by cramming it down my throat or voting for politicians who want to screw all of us so the rich can get richer. Christian values are feeding the hungry, helping the poor and aiding the sick—not cutting Medicare, veteran’s benefits, environmental protections, school lunch programs or health care. Period.

I suspect there are different definitions among different people for what constitues “cramming it down my throat.” For some, standing up for something at all is “forcing your beliefs on me.” But with organizations like the Christian Coalition, the American Family Association, and people like James Dobson being very politically active and outspoken, I think many see Christians as trying to do just that. They see us as more interested in legislating our faith than living it. “Leading by example” will do far more to impact our society than any laws we might seek to pass. Then people will stop dismissing us, and they won’t hate us. Well, some will continue to, but not for the same reasons.

So, what does the community around our churches think of us? Even if the media is only reporting “the bad”, and that’s the picture painted of us, could it be that this negative image remains because they aren’t seeing the churches in their neighborhood do anything to change that depiction? Yes, they don’t have a high opinion of Christians or the church, and I don’t think it can all be laid at the feet of the media. I think it very well may be because, in their daily lives, they don’t see anything different between the Christians they encounter and themselves. They hear a lot from us, about what’s right and what’s wrong, about who’s ruining the country, about how things must change. But they don’t always see a lot from us, living out the faith that supposedly informs our moralilty. Maybe we need to talk a lot less, and do a lot more. Are we really the hands and feet of Jesus in our community? Are we truly loving those around us the way Jesus would? Or are we just trying to make unbelievers live like believers, without really showing them the only One who can actually make that happen?