In Defense of "Christianity"

Novelist Anne Rice, ten years this side of her conversion to Christianity, has finally abandoned what she seems convinced is a flying Dutchman faith: a doomed ship, populated by horrors and believed in by fools. And she has her reasons. Like many of us, she has read one too many feature stories about Fred Phelps and his pack of mixed nuts, or ex cathedra pronouncements by the likes of Pat Robertson. And so she is done. She wants to retain her faith in Christ but relinquish her identity as a "Christian."

Tempting. In fact, in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that in 2004, I wrote a post on this very blog espousing very similar ideas (my objections were more aesthetic than ideological). Christianity, as the world's largest religion, is bound to contain its share of crazies. As a seminary-trained thingamajig with a little knowledge of the bible, I find that many of the Christians who get the most coverage actually severely misrepresent the scriptures, either misunderstanding the content or the context. Worse yet, many overcook aspects of God's character (aka Fred Phelps, his anger), and leave the opposite aspects (his overwhelming mercy) out of the recipe. 

None of this is surprising; it does seem as if the lunatic fringe has won the day recently. And that is tragic, because Christianity has a wonderful heritage of people who have done incontrovertibly excellent things from within the folds of the faith: Christians like Henry Noeuwen, a self-described celibate homosexual who quit a productive academic career to care for disabled adults; or or geniuses like Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, and Sayers; or saints like Mother Theresa and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

The problem is that the faithful do not tend to promote themselves, and there are faithful Christians everywhere. Sure, they are hypocritical and inconsistent, but so is every atheist, Muslim, and Jew I've met. Inconsistency to our ideals seems a part of the human condition; even those who claim to believe nothing but death and futility are unable to keep themselves from acts of kindness and beauty. 

Jesus came not only to ransom individuals for himself, but to build a community. He speaks of it over and over in the scriptures: we are Christ's bride, the body of Christ, Christ's family. Do we like all of our family members? Probably not. Would we like to slap some of them? Absolutely. But Christ is not ashamed to call them his brothers.

The old Augustinian saying goes this way: "the church is a whore, but she is my mother." Who are we to abandon her? Shouldn't we stay and work for her good, instead of harassing her from without?

Comments

[Timothy Padgett]

As always, very well said. We are Christians not because we are Christ-like but because we need Christ.

[Linda Bedsole]

We are stamped, sealed and redeemed as Christians. We may not be pretty, but we dare not be ugly as His bride.
His love and mercy rests on us as His. We must carry that love and mercy first and foremost to a world totally confused as to who Jesus is, and even more often, what His followers are to look like. You have said it well.