Prejudice

Record Company Executive: Your fans are gospel folk, Johnny. They're Christians, and they don't wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin' to cheer 'em up.

Johnny Cash: Then they ain't Christians.

(from "Walk the Line")


I was reading a friend's blog yesterday and it made me angry.

Have you read it yet?

How about now?

As I said, this made me angry. How could people who call themselves Christians treat someone like this? At that thought, my anger turned cold. Guilt. Oh, the number of times I have been guilty of just that.

Christians are an interesting crowd. On a good day, we're open, loving, and full of mercy. On a bad day, we'll shun you for a single sin. We're not bad people, but we're still human -- we're still susceptible to judgment and hypocrisy, no matter how much we try to deny it.

But that's no excuse.

However problematic the Christian faith seems to those who aren't a part of it, its basis is pure. Christianity is based on the amazing love that Christ showed for us by dying for us -- people who are imperfect, who screw things up constantly, who are confused by this love and the mercy that comes with it. A perfect Christian would reflect this love constantly ... but this isn't normally the case.

In Pride and Prejudice, the sisters are all tainted when one sister commits a seemingly unforgivable sin by running off with a man who she doesn't immediately marry. This doesn't happen the same way anymore -- the running off or the tainting -- but there are aspects of this situation that still seem to fit.

This judgment for which Christians are sometimes blamed might be based on a fear of being tainted by association; we're afraid that people will think we're guilty of the same sins. This isn't a rational fear, by any means, but may explain some of it.

But I think there might be a different prejudice in here. I think that a lot of Christians, whether they believe it or not, might simply have a prejudice against past sins.

There are plenty of stories about people who had bad childhoods, or bad teenage years, people that turned their lives around and did something great. Those people are admired, looked up to, praised. But then there are others -- people who have screwed up, maybe even in big ways, and have turned things around ... but it's not so visible. Things that happened five, ten, lots of years ago that come back to haunt them ... Skeletons in the closet, or at least uncomfortable stories, that they've gotten past and don't particularly want to talk about.

In a lot of circles, it's these past sins that people are judged by. Things that make them seem less clean, or less likeable. Things that make other people uncomfortable, even if they're not really issues anymore.

I've not lead a perfect life. Things have happened that I'm not proud of. In some places, I feel like people are digging for these things, trying to find something to hold against me. Paranoid, yes, but unfortunately not completely off the mark.

I think this is one of the things that I like so much about this new church I've been attending. That judgment, although I'm sure it exists somewhere, doesn't come out. When they say the doors are open, they mean it. It's a little different than many other settings I've been in, and I like it.

"Love your neighbor" means just that. There's no addendum: "... as long as they've been good." I'm not saying it's easy, by any means. Those murderers and rapists in the "Walk the Line" quote? I'm not so sure I could love them. It'd be pretty hard.

But it wouldn't be so hard to love the people around me, if I just tried a little harder. And maybe I don't need to be paranoid about being judged.

Hmm.