If we can't be holy, shouldn't we be weird?

It’s not often that I talk about faith with someone who doesn’t share the same belief system I do. I guess I just feel like people don’t want to hear about it. But just the other night I did have a conversation about faith with a man a hardly know. He shared with me his perceptions about Christianity. He shared about a lack of love and the great amount of condemnation and how it’s time that Christians realized that they are on the way out of a position of power and are essentially a dying religion. It was as he shared that I realized the truth that Sheldon Vanauken stated when he wrote that the strongest argument for Christianity is Christians, when they are drawing life from God. The strongest argument against Christianity? Also Christians, when they become exclusive, self-righteous, and complacent.

I have known all my life that Christians are to “come out and be separate” from those who don’t share our beliefs. I understood that our spiritual commitment should make us different somehow. But I have noticed that if we are not marked by greater and greater amounts of love and joy, we will inevitably look for substitute ways of distinguishing ourselves from those who are not Christians. Essentially, if we can’t be holy then let's be different by finding external methods to satisfy our need to feel that we’re different from those outside the faith. If we cannot be transformed, we will settle for being informed or conformed. (John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted)

Jesus didn’t function like this. I wonder what my ever perceptive friend would have noticed had he had love demonstrated to him. Instead on focusing on boundaries Christ focused on the heart and identified Children of God by asking “Do they love God, and do they love the people who mean so much to him?” What if that is what my friend encountered? It is pretty obvious that he wouldn’t have such a crappy perception of Christianity. I think that would be nice.

I only point this out because I realize my own guilt. I tend to work harder at making people think I am a loving person than I do actually being a loving person. I do and I realize that I have contributed to a crappy perception of Christianity. I intend on working to change that by drawing life from God.