On grace and the principled evangelical
Over the last two or three years I feel I've been processing the implications of my evangelical upbringing. While we still go to a church that's evangelical in many ways, I also feel that a little distance has grown between myself and the evangelical mainstream. Or at least enough to have some perspective on it.
Here's one example: As a college freshman, I can remember my distinct disdain for liberal religion. I'd make snide comments about the "social gospel" and a faith that was all love and no rules. Yet more recently, particularly as I've been in a work environment that highly values accessibility (basically the virtue of hospitality) I've thought more about the role rules play in evangelical faith. While we may preach grace, there are lots of ways that legalism can sneak in. For example, I can remember ruling out at least one potential crush in middle school after I heard her swear. "She must not be a Christian," I thought. Now language is important, but there can be a little bit of straining the gnat and swallowing a camel in that one. It reminds me of Tony Campolo's famous line: "While you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night." There's a level of priorities here.
As a principle oriented person, I think the attraction to these kinds of intricate rules and social conventions can be attractive, but in the end, those laws exclude more than they include. They provide a framework in which church can be, as our pastor said last weekend, a country club, not a community.
I got a taste of that in extreme yesterday when we sent out an email to the college community for a new home for our pet. One response suggested that we find housing that would accept her, rather than essentially tossing her out on the street. After a rather upset reply from Sarah, this person wrote back that "speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves should arguably be an aspect of every person who cares about justice in general, and since i was a recipient of your mass email, about justice for your dog in particular...i see someone acting 'responsibly' irresponsible and i called you on it. i trust your dog would genuinely thank me; maybe you should take a lesson from her. "
What's going on here? Obviously this person feels like he is acting righteously. Yet these rather harsh statements about us without any contextual knowledge of our situation got me pretty steamed. Who is he to say this? Why should he impose his values on us? I began composing quite sarcastic and spiteful replies in my head.
Then it struck me--this is precisely what many people say about evangelicals, those of us who make statements about how people should live and love without any real knowledge of the people we are speaking to. The shoe was, for awhile, on the other foot.
Is this what Jesus came to create? A community of shouters? Now, certainly, Jesus gave his share of harsh words, though those were particularly for a judgmental religious leadership. And the prophets of the Old Testament didn't exactly tone things down for their audience. Yet if the kingdom is characterized first of all by love and grace, I've been increasingly convinced that those "social gospel" folks might have been on to something. Like all such dichotomies, it's not an either or, but there's a synthesis there that the church badly needs.