The Question

I bet you're (before I corrected myself, I TOTALLY misspelled this as "your." Eff.) dying to know what it is.

On second thought, I bet not, because I'm fairly certain the only people who read this stupid blog already know what "the question" is.

The Question: Why do so many people have grudges against the Christian church?

You can read more about it at http://whygrudge.blogspot.com, but the reader's digest version is: My dad and best friend Emily came up with the idea to start a massive blogging effort, answering the question of why so many people dislike the Christian church. You can find a full list of blogs tackling this question at the above website, the home base of sorts for this movement.

I hadn't really thought much about this issue until I read Donald Miller's books. Blue Like Jazz. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Searching for God Knows What. MY FAVORITE. I'm in love with Searching for God Knows What. But that's beside the point.

There's no neat and clean answer to this question, nothing that fits into tidy little boxes. There's really no answer where, on the other side, we come out looking like the good guys.

There's the obvious reason for how ridiculous the premise of Christianity sounds. A virgin conceives a child (yeah, right!), he grows up, NEVER messes up EVER (again, yeah right), is crucified and dies, then rises from the dead. (Um. That's just plain impossible.) But I'm not going to get into all that.

Here's my main issue:

Non-Christians see the extremists that make it into the media,
extremists who say natural disasters like the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan
are God judging and punishing us,
extremists who say things like "God hates fags,"
extremists who completely disregard God's relentless love and grace.
(Despite being called to love everyone,
I'll confess I have to make a conscious effort not to hate these people.)

Non-Christians see hypocrisy in us.
They see religious leaders who emphasize living a pure life,
but who hold nothing but
judgement
animosity
and lies in their hearts.

Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to be any better. Because, when you get down to it, the whole lot of us are screwed up. We're called to love as Christ loves, and we fall short, every time. (Proved by parenthetical statement above.) I'm sure that contributes to why people don't want to be Christian. Non-Christians see all of the terrible things we do, despite claiming to love people.

A couple of us at work were talking about this very thing the other day. One of them said something to the effect of "I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I love Jesus." I think if people could get past the image that Christianity has, they'd find that Jesus is actually really awesome.

I mean, who couldn't love a person who,
despite having the power to stop it,
endured unimaginable, excruciating pain
just for you?