Members of a Club

Church is supposed to be about more than belonging -- it's supposed to be about saving people's lives. I remember a couple skits and videos that I've seen in church services or on-campus groups that explain how wrong it is for Christians to feel safe in their little club instead of reaching out to people to save them. Nonetheless, Christians, as a group, have a definite culture. To be saved has a particular meaning to us, for example. It also seems to imply a certain political leaning -- conservative, or to the right of mainstream America. What that leaning means to me is that I frequently find myself on the outside in political discussions with my Christian friends. I consider myself a Christian, but I don't buy in to all the political aspects of modern-day Christianity -- the Focus on the Family efforts to shape political beliefs, for example, have angered me since I was in high school. In my mind, Christians shouldn't use the pulpit to bully people. Political leaders talk about a "bully pulpit," but Christians ought to be more considerate of the right to dissent. After all, Christ was a dissenter against the religious authorities of his day. That fact alone is not enough to build a coherent faith or political argument on, but it does give me some comfort when faced with people who are so comfortable in their faith they feel that everyone who's a Christian should agree with them politically. There are certain principles that Christians should defend in public -- the right of conscience to believe whatever one likes without fear of government reprisal, for example -- but I don't think Christ would want us to use faith in him as a political weapon. In order to save people, we first have to listen to them and understand where they are coming from. We have to be willing to allow for opposing views to be expressed in order to really begin the work of healing and destroying confusion in people's heads about what Christianity really means. If Christians are really all about saving people's lives, wouldn't it make sense that we would do whatever it takes to reach them where they are, rather than putting up political barriers to entry?