stereotyping

You know what sucks about being a Christian? The stereotype that comes with it.

Last night (Thursday night--it's late Friady night right now) I was cruising blogs and more than once came across one I wanted to post a comment to. But I hesitated. I hesitated because I thought about those people, those other bloggers coming to my blog and seeing that it belongs to a Christian and immediately drawing certain conclusions about me. Conclusions I’d rather people not draw.

Without getting into a church bashing session let me just say this: if you’re reading my blog and kind of checking things out, don’t immediately assume you know what I mean by “discipleship”. I don’t really care too much about organized religion, the politics of church or even “Christianity” as an entity. I do, however, care a great deal about Jesus. My endeavors in spirituality are entirely wrapped up in growing closer to Him. You can keep the rest of it, frankly.

(In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I stole that last thought straight from Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller—a really cool book about non-churchy faith—though I may have made the point more aggressively than Don would.)

My point is just that I worry sometimes what people will think of me when they hear that I’m a Christian, or worse yet, when they hear that I’ve worked as a minister. I wonder if words like “close-minded”, “judgmental” and “self-righteous” immediately cross their minds. I fear they do.

I try not to get too cynical about it, but as this post attests, that’s a struggle for me. Nothing whatsoever is accomplished by my ripping to shreds the establishment of the church or the ideology of American main-stream Christianity, and yet I’m tempted to do just that in an effort to prove to the rest of humanity (or at least to the three people who read my blog) that I’m not one of those Christians. It’s a tough line to walk.

But I won’t give in. I’m not going to blast Christianity at large, but neither will I defend it. I’m pro-Jesus, all about Jesus, and Him I’ll defend (again, stealing from Miller), but the church is going to have to fight those battles on her own.

What point was I trying to make? Oh yeah, the stereotypical Christian. I’m not one. Give a guy a chance. We on the same page? You picking up what I’m laying down? Good. Great.

Love and peace all around. Happy blogging.