So I was sitting in Dr. Thurlkill’s Abrahamic Traditions class earlier this semester when something she said hit me in a funny way. For a while, I couldn’t understand why the content of her statement uneased me, but after it had time to soak in, I understood completely. And it still riles me up when I find the occasion to speak of it.
Basically, Dr. Thurlkill was talking about how the Christian faith has spawned so many different denominations. Actually, over 14,000 distinct denominations, conservatively. She said thus:
“In Christianity now, you can find a denomination to accommodate anything you want. If you want a woman preacher, don’t want a woman preacher; If you want to take Eucharist, or attend a service that doesn’t provide Eucharist; If you want to have music, if you don’t want to have any music… Basically, if you like it, then there’s a denomination for it.”
I couldn’t deny her statement. But it disturbed me, as it should. This is what I understand from it:
We’ve taken the very words of God – the one in same God that could, with the sliver of a whim, will each and every particle in the universe to spontaneously explode, ending all physical and spiritual matter – and made it subject to human interpretation.
Then, someone goes and makes a study Bible, which is like having spiritual cliff notes. You no longer have to shave the crown of your head and wear drab, brown robes, devoting yourself to a life of celibacy to really know what’s going on in the Biblical realm, because everything you could possibly hope to know about Koine Greek is right living in that little box between the margins of New Internationalese.
And yet, we’ve made it all about the one thing we always make it about… Ourselves. We no more desire to know God than we desire to not photoshop images of ourselves before they become our facebook profile picture. We’ve come to this point where we only want what we want. we’ve got it way more figured out than God, anyway. Nevermind that he can split a sea in two, make the sun stand still in the sky, and rodeo every kind of animal into a boat… we can make our iPods play a song just by touching something. We’ve clearly got Him beat.
I think if we would start reading the Bible and do what it says, then this “Christianity” thing would look a whole lot different. If we would cease to play the devil’s advocate on every single issue and simply obey what the book says, I believe we would walk in the power that the apostles had.
But we’ve made it about what we want, what we like, what we accept, what we deny…
The man was telling a story about a time when he was speaking at two events at one time in Florida. Because of the timing of the events, he had to leave early from one each night in order to make it to the event across the street. One night, as he had shared the Gospel message, he was hurriedly trying to exit the building when a young girl came up to him and timidly said,
“Mr. Wade, I… I think I want to follow Jesus.”
“Sweetie, that’s great. Go talk to one of your leaders and they will help you on what to do next.”
The girl looked at him and said firmly, “No, you don’t understand… It’s so much harder for me to follow Jesus than anyone here.”
Wade thought that she was being overly dramatic and a little arrogant. He said to her, “It’s hard for everyone to make this decision, don’t think you’re a special case. There are others here that are struggling, too.”
“No,” she said emphatically, “You really don’t understand. It would be so much harder for me to follow Jesus than any of the kids here.”
Wade asked, “Do you love your father?”
She started to tear up. “I love my father more than anything in the world. We have a wonderful relationship. When I was young, he sacrificed so many things for me to be happy. I’ve always been a Daddy’s Girl, and I would never do anything in the world to hurt him, because all he has ever done is love me. But I know that the words you spoke tonight were true. As much as I wish I could walk away, something in me knows that.”
Wade looked at his watch and knew he had to leave, “Honey, not to sound insensitive, but tonight you’re going to have to choose between your earthly father and your heavenly father.” And with that, he walked out the door.
On the way across the street to the other church, Wade thought,
“With my words, I could have just torn apart a family. I could have destroyed a family. I could have helped to put a teenage girl homeless on the streets.”
Wade said that he thought about this interaction for weeks to come before encountering a nearly identical situation in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
He was standing at the back of the auditorium when a thug kid walked up to him. He said this kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old, but was covered in tattoos and looked like he’d rather fight than speak. However, the kid walked up to Wade and said,
“All that stuff you said about Jesus tonight… I believe it.”
Wade smiled, ‘Well, that’s great. Do you want to pray with someone from your church now?”
“Naw, you don’t understand. I can’t just walk up and pray with those people. Following Jesus would be so much easier for everyone here than for me.”
The kid rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tribal tattoo. “I’m in a gang. I live with these people, day in and day out. No one at home loves me and this family is the only family I have.”
Wade asked, “Do you have to leave the gang if you become a Christian?”
“Naw, but everything that we stand for is against what you said Jesus taught. I couldn’t be in this and follow Jesus… I’ll have to leave.”
“Then… leave.” Wade said.
The kid shook his head, “Naw, you don’t understand. You can’t just get in and out of this gang. It almost killed me to get in because they beat you until you lose consciousness, and sometimes they beat you after that. After I was initiated, I spent two days in the hospital.”
Wade looked at the scars and marks on the boy’s face, and said he absolutely believed his statement. “How do you get out?”
“I don’t know, but from what I’ve heard, the process for leaving makes initiation look like nothing.”
Wade stood there, looking over the tattoos and scars that decorated the boy in front of him. Just as before, he had a thought…
“What I tell this kid might absolutely be the difference in life and death. My advice could put this kid in the hospital, potentially in a grave. What instruction I give him could change his life forever. He could be seriously hurt. Do I want to have it on my conscience that I advised a sixteen year old kid towards the path of affliction and pain?”
Wade said:
To this day, I have no idea what happened to either of those kids. I don’t know if they chose to follow Jesus or if they decided to deny the convictions placed on their hearts in favor of the easier way.
But I do know this:
If these two decided to follow Jesus, no one will ever have to tell them to get real about their faith.
I think we need more people who are willing to follow Jesus, no matter the cost. No matter if that involves the New Baptist Hymnal or not.
