From the Salmon

Another piece that has given me a lot to chew on over the past few days is a post on Welcome to the Grind titled ”Why I Am Not a Christian.” The author is a frequent commenter on a number of the sites that I read regularly. He’s very bright and has a voluminous knowledge of Christianity, but what has really drawn me to his comments has been the graciousness, respect and restraint that he displays almost without fail.

(I mention this only because his post, inasmuch as it is quite personal, is probably much more interesting if you’ve already come across him and have a little bit of context. Also, since a post with a title like that tends to make some Christians see red, please keep in mind that what he writes is much less an argument against Christianity than it is a personal explanation for why he left and is at peace with that decision. And if you feel like commenting on his post, please do yourself a favor and read the whole thing and the 30+ comments first.)

One of the issues Leighton raises (and I apologize if I don’t do justice to his thoughts) is the idea that many people leave or join the church not for particular motivating beliefs but for reasons that are more social or cultural. By way of example, he says:

You see this when people say things like “Seeing the behavior of [Christian X] makes it so hard for me to call myself a Christian.”

When he fleshes out this idea later in the post and in the conversation that follows, he starts to give words to something that I’ve struggled with but hadn’t named yet. First, he says that when he was growing up in the church, he felt that:

As a Christian, I had to take responsibility, in a sense, for the behavior of every other Christian toward every other person. That’s too much of a burden for anyone to handle.

In the comments section, he expands on this idea:

The “too much of a burden for anyone to handle” line, now that I think about it, is probably an allusion to the neuroses that I think are unique to people who grow up in the evangelical subculture.

I think I know this neurosis all too well. And I’ve been struggling with it a lot lately. Admittedly, the feelings I’ve been having may not be exactly what Leighton had in mind when he wrote this, but I’d like to use his idea as a jumping off point to explore my own experience and thoughts.

One of the hallmarks of community (the Christian church, the USA, a political party, a business, etc.) is that when members act contrary to what the community stands for, it reflects negatively on the rest of the community. When an athlete uses steroids, it reflects poorly on the sport. When soldiers torture prisoners in Iraq, it profoundly damages the image of America. And when someone like James Dobson uses the platform of his ministry to say that Supreme Court justices in their black robes are roughly equivalent to the Klan in its white robes, his demagoguery hurts me and causes me shame as a Christian. In the past few weeks, I’ve found it particularly painful that people like James Dobson and I are members, ostensibly, of the same community. Do I feel responsible for their behavior? Not really. But I feel the burden of their behavior.

That burden actually has very little to do with what I think or believe. It’s how others around me view Christianity. In Berkeley, the default view seems to be shaped by the most vocal, most shrill and most radical of Christians. And while it’s patently unfair to extrapolate for all of Christendom from a Dobson or a DeLay, knowing that it’s unfair doesn’t make it any easier on me to know that by identifying myself as a Christian, I’m taking on all of that baggage in the eyes of the people I come into contact with.

So what to do? When confronted with the pain and shame brought on by the actions of Dobson, DeLay or others, one game I could play would be to say that they, on some level, really aren’t Christians. Over time, I’ve found this game to be particularly ugly, and one that’s not terribly useful. Whether we admit it or not, we’ve each got our own standard of orthodoxy (often based on a historical body of theology but not always) that we would use, if it were up to us. But I don’t believe that it’s ultimately up to us, so I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and let God make the call. It’s so tempting to take the other path, but I just don’t feel right about giving myself the power to write people off.

So if I don’t want to put that option on the table, where does that leave me? If you read my previous post and the post of Brandon’s that I linked to, one clear answer might be respectful, confessional, thoughtful dissent. I can’t tell you how many times in the last few weeks I’ve desperately wanted to do this. But I’ve had writers’ block. And it’s hard to keep up when they keep getting crazier.

I suppose I could pray. For myself, for Dobson, DeLay and others, for the church. Honestly, I don’t pray enough for leaders or for people I don’t agree with. And I don’t pray enough about the anger and frustration and shame and burden of it all.

Ultimately, I don’t think I know the answer to this particular evangelical neurosis. Perhaps I’ll find a way to grow out of it. Perhaps I’ll put my trust more in God and care less about how the people around me view Christianity. In some way, I hope that by reading and writing and engaging in dialogue, I can come to a better understanding of God’s vision for his Kingdom community so that I might do my best to model it for others, and so that I can start planting those ”flags of resurrection” that N.T. Wright talks about. Maybe then I can find a way to look more to Christ and his love and worry less about Dobson and his hate. Maybe.

But Leighton’s right. This community thing can be exhausting.