Imperfect

This may come as a shock to you, but Christians aren't perfect. We make mistakes. We err. We sin ... sometimes grossly. Hey, some of us are not even Christians, even though we bear the name. But for reasons I don't quite understand, it seems as if people think that we don't sin, we don't make mistakes. Where does that come from?

From 11th to the 13th century, the Latin Church engaged in what we have come to know as the Crusades. Now, the truth is that most people don't have a clue what was going on there. It wasn't expansionism or imperialism or the like. It was defensive warfare intended to stop the military expansion of Islam and to recapture taken territories. It has become a sticking point for a lot of people. "Look what Christians did!" And I would agree that it was awful. But I would disagree that it was "what Christians did." I would argue that "Christian" had nothing to do with it. Because Christians are imperfect and there was nothing Christian about what went on there.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, America and other nations practiced a breed of slavery that was shockingly horrible by today's standards. They went to Africa and kidnapped people for the purpose of selling them into forced labor. The practice was worsened by the fact that Christians tried to defend it. Preachers declared from their pulpits that it was good and right based primarily on racism. They argued that the black race was a cursed race because of the sin of their father, Ham (Gen 9:25). It was nonsense and foolishness, but they did it in the name of Christianity, so Christ took the hit.

History is full of this kind of stuff. The Roman Catholic Church was in the business of killing heretics. John Calvin is famous for the execution of the heretic, Michael Servetus. Misguided folk in Europe and in Salem, Massachusetts, burned people at the stake for being witches. The Spanish Inquisition is legendary. All done in the name of Christ. All without biblical backing, without any support in Scripture.

We haven't learned from this historic error. Yesterday we shunned the woman pregnant out of wedlock and her child. Today we are outraged at the homosexual or the transsexual. Like the heretics before, Scripture tells us that sexual sin and the like is just that, sin, but like the erroneous Christians of yesteryear, we too often ignore the biblical injunctions to stand for the truth and to pray and to love and we rise up in our own modern version of war, hating and fearing the sinner rather than desiring their best. Yesterday we segregated our churches racially, an error we still haven't well-recovered from; today we segregate them by sin. "You're not welcome here; go somewhere else." We mistakenly believe that if the Bible says X is sin we ought to hate those who do X rather than fear for them and pray for them and seek their redemption rather than their expulsion.

They tell me Christianity is a racist religion because some Christians have been racist. They tell me that Christianity is a faith opposed to reason and science because some Christians have been opposed to reason and science. They tell me that Christianity is homophobic because some Christians have been hateful or fearful of homosexuals. They tell me that Christianity is a sexist religion because some Christians have been sexist. None of these accurately reflect a biblical view of Christian values or beliefs. They reflect imperfect Christians who are just wrong.

Christians aren't perfect. We won't be in this life. Christians -- real or imagined -- have made lots of bad moves throughout the history of Christianity. It is not right to point to the errors of Christians and Christendom and say, "That is Christianity." What is true (like "Homosexual behavior is a sin") or false is not determined by improper attitudes of some Christians. Christianity is based on the premise that we're all sinners, that we all fall short of the glory of God. What we Christians need to do is stop ignoring the lessons of history and stop ignoring the instructions of Scripture and start being good representatives of the Savior in whose image we are being shaped. That's not done by hating gays or fearing sinners. It's done by calling them to Christ and bearing one another's burdens. We can and must discern between "sin" and "not sin", but that doesn't make us judge and executioner. That's up to Christ. Let it not be said of us, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Rom 2:24).