But I Don't Even Like Elephants

The title of this post is not entirely true. I wouldn't say I necessarily dislike elephants. I'm more just confused by them. Real elephants, that is. Now symbolic elephants, that is a whole other story.

Some of you may be aware that, here in the sometimes-good-ol' U.S. of A, the elephant has come to act as the symbol of the Republican party. More and more, though, I think the party might consider shifting towards a new emblem. What might this emblem be, you ask? Terrifyingly, I think it might be a Bible.

Before I go any further, I want to say what this blog is not going to be. I'm not going to sit here and rant about politics and faith. Instead, what I want to talk about today is the public image which Christianity has developed, and the dangers of letting that image go unchecked.

My thoughts on this, though growing for a while now, largely stemmed from a conversation I had with someone in one of my classes. His opinion of Christianity was that it has essentially become a political tool, a weapon which could be used to drive home particular points and establish a certain morality as the foundation for American rule of law. After doing some more digging, I've found that this is a fairly widespread view of Christianity.

Some people, as I'm sure we're all aware, and 100% in favor of this. It's thought by many that America would be a better place if we just ran it like the Bible instructed. The issue with this thinking, though, is that a country is not a person.

In all my talks with people on this subject, not once has the idea that Christianity is a faith which cares about people, not just widespread political action, come up. The truth of the gospel, the fact that Jesus died on a cross so that each and every individual person might have an intimate relationship with God, is completely lost on a good chunk of people. There was no mention of the fact that Christians are called to meet people, right where they are at, regardless of circumstance, behavior, or character, and love them. To the people I talked to, the fact that God is a person, not just an agenda, wasn't even a mental footnote.

As I think back on these conversations, the only thing I can do is ask what happened to our faith? How did Christianity become so viciously misrepresented in Western society? There are plenty of ways in which the blame could be directed. We could blame the Religious Right, we could blame the media and its obsession of inflammatory sound-bites, any number of groups. I've got a different perspective, however.

I'm going to go ahead and blame myself.

I appreciate the thought if you're leaping to my defense, reminding me that I wasn't even born when this particular perversion of Christianity got its start, that I'm fairly new to the faith, that I can't possibly have been the cause of this pervasive lack of trust in God. The fact of the matter is, however, that I haven't done nearly as much as I could have to solve this crisis. I've sat around and bemoaned how horribly my faith is misunderstood, but I haven't taken the time to engage people so that I might challenge their misconceptions.

So here I go. First off, I want to apologize to any who read this for when I, personally, or my faith, as a collective, has failed to truly represent who God is, the unbelievably loving individual who desires a relationship with each and every person on this Earth. I'm sorry for when I have demonized you because of your behavior, when I'm specifically called to love you regardless of where you are at. That's how God loves you, and I don't always do a good job of living that out. I'm learning, though.

Not to say I'm anything super fantastic, but I think this is the attitude that the Church needs to take. We need to stop yelling at a nation, and instead start talking to people. The former hasn't really done God any good, and has alienated more than can be counted. If we're going to begin healing the hyper-political image which the Church, and by extension God, has received, it's going to take engaging with people. If you consider yourself someone who is following after Christ, I invite you to join with me in taking off the sackcloth we have been wearing to mourn the non-existent passing of Christianity, and instead go and show this world who God really is.

With His love and hopefully His grace,

Taylor