Really?

I need to rant for a minute here. Since I don’t work in a church anymore I don’t have much motive to rant and rave, like a petulant child in need of a “bah-bah” and a “blanky.” But when I hear about something heretical being taught to students I still love, well, it just raises my fur, flattens my ears against my head, and makes my tail swing wildly to and fro (yes, in this metaphor I am a cat).

A former student of mine told me that in Sunday School class at “church” they were told that they should be only hanging out with Christians. As far as non-Christians go they are to “say ‘hi’ to ‘them’ in the hallways and invite ‘them’ to church but that’s all.” The justification for this thinking was Paul’s discourse in 2 Corinthians about believers and unbelievers being unequally yoked together. You shouldn’t be friends with non-Christians because it yokes you together with them. Now aside from the asinine interpretation of this passage, this idea is dangerous, fundamentalist, anti-Christian, anti-kingdom, and—dare I say it (Dare! Dare!)?—anti-Christ theology.

Say “hi” to them? Invite them to church? Nothing else? No relationship? Are you freaking kidding me? Are we even reading the same Bible or talking about the same Jesus? Think about the damaging implications of such a way of thinking and living. How has this “church’s” theology sunk so low?

So many thoughts and questions race through my mind:

What about the entire ministry of Jesus? He hung out with everyone but religious people, and when he did end up around them he usually rubbed their faces in their own hypocrisy.

What about “I came to seek and save the lost”? Doesn’t the act of “seeking” imply some sort of relational effort and involvement? Saying “hi” isn’t relational involvement anymore than video games are athletic (with the exception of Wii Fit maybe). And don’t get me started on “invite them to church.” Never does Christ ask us to invite people to “church.” Invite them into a Kingdom life, yes, to church, no (and “church” doesn’t always equal Kingdom).

So when Jesus ate with 1^st century IRS agents, whores, low-lifes, the diseased and ordinary, the forgotten and corrupt he did that because Burger King was closed and he had nowhere else to eat? He did it just to be nice? How do you get around him eating with Zaccheus?

So where were the elders when this was being taught, or the youth minister?

Hey, elders, wanna know why your “church is dying? It’s because of this kind of thinking.

Putting myself into that situation as a youth minister I think I would have an awfully hard time not speaking out against that kind of thinking during class. I know it would create a crap storm later on but that kind of destruction can’t go unchecked.

Churches that allow that brand of fear-driven thinking to be taught need to collapse and die for the good of the kingdom. If you attend a church that teaches you to fear and avoid the world—RUN! Get out with your soul in tact before you are brainwashed with anti-Kingdom thinking. Find a church that teaches about the Jesus who said, “Go into the world;” “Do not be afraid for I have overcome the world;” “[the Spirit] will guide you.” Find a church that teaches about a Jesus who chose to eat with the lowly and sinful and expected us to do the same, who called these very people “blessed,” and who shoed them a new way, the True Way, to be fully human, whole and complete. Find a church that values people, not for what they can add (money and higher attendance), but simply because they are, despite the outward exterior actions, language or beliefs, at their core God-breathed bearers of the Image of God.

Jesus’ harshest words were for the uber-religious who looked down upon “those sinners” with snobbish contempt and arrogant pride, not even deigning to associate with “them.” 

They accused Jesus of dining with tax collectors and sinners.

May we be accused of the same thing?

shalom, matt