The forum… it often starts there. A friend stated in passing that they were an ‘awful Christian’. Someone seemed not to understand that and began a new thread. The discussion was rather… interesting… with one calling those who use such terms ‘dramatic’ and asserting that instead it would be better to give sordid details such as…
“I’m struggling with not yelling at my children” or “Bible study makes me fall asleep.” or “P*rn is a huge issue for me” or “I had an affair.”
I took issue with that suggestion and disagreed and was called, albeit indirectly, ‘overly dramatic’ as opposed to honest as I suggested such comments were intended. Many others rebutted the entire assertion saying that there are no ‘bad’ Christians, that it was a misnomer. These also brought out the doctrine of ’all sin being created equal’, that we are all ‘covered’ (the blood of Jesus you know) and so on.
A friend on the forum posted after some encouragement some strong thoughts on the matter that really resonated with me. I requested permission to share the post here so as to comment on it, which was granted provided it was done so anonymously. No attribution is given in honor of that request.
A friend speaks…
“Church-speak” is a perfect term for it.
The egomania and narcissism are phenomenal: when we say that all sin is equally significant we mean that all sins are equally insignificant until we encounter one we dislike. That one is serious.
We set ourselves up as arbiters of what matters and what doesn’t matter in the place of Christ. We assure ourselves and one another that we are all sinners, yanking scripture out of its context and far from its intentions to prove our point. We tell ourselves we are being loving and humane by doing this, as though it didn’t give us a pass for doing things that Christ says fit us for hell.
And so we comfort ourselves by twisting scripture until “it isn’t our righteousness but his” that matters, by which we mean now not only are we absolved from the discipline of disciples but we are excused from the guilt.
We posit a judgment in the future, in which we will be covered by saving blood, and in which we will have only the very flimsy excuse that we didn’t judge others for offenses we ourselves were prone to commit, like murderers who protest to the judge that they never condemned any other murderers.
But we break command after command after command: we hate our enemies; we call a brother fool; we commit adultery in a zillion ways; we manipulate each other; we use one another in more ways than any of us could count for our own satisfaction; we refuse to serve the least of these; on this very board we PM one another like catty little children to mock those we think are in the dark; we would pull out every irony and flippancy and scripture in the book to defend our self-importance rather than count another person the greater brother or sister; we excuse ourselves from going the extra mile; we admit that the meek will inherit the earth, but we mean to keep it in trust for them until they do; we cram our heads full of self-righteous tripe about the sins of others and fixate on it until we go blind; we demand our just desserts; we protect our sloth with every device known to modern psychology, science, and consumerism; our gluttony comes in every kind; we neglect the poor; we turn aside from the hungry; our prayers and fasting are quietly self-congratulatory, and we find the subtlest ways to make sure they become known without actually telling anyone; we abandon the widow and the orphan… I could go on like this for quite a while, and I’m only in Matthew 9.
And when I look at my life and the death and destruction I’ve sown, when I consider the mistakes I’ve made and the sins I’ve committed, and I am shown the consequences of my actions, and I look at the bleeding corpses of love all around me that are dying by my hand (and no, this isn’t drama, this is real), and I hear the twaddle about none of us being perfect, and all of us being redeemed by blood, I want to tear this building down.
I want to say, do you have no fear of God? Do you have no self-knowledge at all? Have you got the tiniest conception of what you’re saying? Have you looked in the eyes of the child you’ve wounded, the spouse you’ve abused with your petty stupid game-playing, the trust you’ve shattered, and the lives you’ve ruined, and then looked in the eyes of Jesus?
Because if you have, you would never be able to say “There’s no such thing as a bad Christian. You would be ashamed to open your mouth on the topic. You’d sit quietly until the topic changed, and you would wonder why death wouldn’t come more quickly for you so you wouldn’t have to keep crushing the things you touch.
Ugh! It all resonates. It all convicts. It’s excellent and I am guilty as charged on so many levels… but then I KNEW THAT and that is why I agreed when said friend made the ‘awful Christian’ statement in the first place. So often I look at myself and agree with the apostle when he said that he does that which he hates, and does not do that which he should love… I agree with Chesterton…
The London Times once asked a number prominent people to write essays on the topic, What’s Wrong with the World. G. K. Chesterton reply is the shortest and most to the point in history: Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely, G. K. CHESTERTON
… and I mourn being a bad Christian, resolving yet again to be better than I am, to die more fully to self… only to yell at my kids one more time (though I think the provocation great at the time… what homeschooling mom wouldn’t after having a 9 yr old walk up to them on day one of a new school year, point at the x between two numbers and say stupidly ‘what is that’ as if they hadn’t been proficient at multiplication just two months before) and have my failure arrest me mid-rant as though a third cock had crowed.
I want to be so much more for Christ each day than I am. I see my failures clearly before me. I resolve repeatedly to conquer these besetting sins and yet they persist… an appalling lack of charity (to borrow a friend’s phrase), an appalling lack of humility, an appalling lack of mercy, an appalling lack of wisdom, an appalling lack of self discipline, an appalling excess of self… I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea. So many faults I am struggling to conquer under His direction and with His help….
Many seem to think that such a harsh assessment of myself (and I might add inadequate as I’m sure I am sugar coating this substantially and ignorant of most of my sins) would deny any understanding of God’s mercy and love, especially as directed towards myself. They could not be more wrong. It is in drawing closer to our beloved Lord, in experiencing His mercy, His love, His grace, more completely that I begin to see myself more clearly in the reflected Light of His Glory. It is as a result of His illumination of my faults in order that I might cooperate in their removal, or at least, their remediation. It is a GIFT! How on earth could I ever be willing to have Him remove faults of which I am unaware? How willing could I be if I did not see them as repulsive as He does?
Yet, this gift can be a difficult one to unwrap at times… and at such times when yet another ‘layer’ of the ‘gift’ is revealed in all its filth and decay I can’t help but despair of His ever being finished with me and I have to ‘gird my loins’ yet again and launch once more into the fray… racing, walking, stumbling, crawling, clawing my way toward a finish that ends successfully only with my lips on His feet. At such times, I cling to the thought that it is those children He loves that He chastises, even the bad ones… and I am thankful….
