To his own ears this sounded quite noble. He got to stand up, trumpet his own views regardless of how they'd fall on other people's ears, and then claim to be a victim--and his audience as hypocrites--the instant someone challenged him...all in the name of his belief in God.
Yeah, it was pretty gross. And the conversation that flowed from this incident was unhelpful, fractured, embarrassing.
And yet we've all heard this kind of thing before. "If you don't tolerate me saying this then YOU'RE the bigot!" How much water does this hold? Is this a case of the persecuted Christian standing up for their faith in a world that hates them? If not, where did they go off the track?
You can tell already by the tone of my writing that I'm going to argue that this was NOT a case of a persecuted Christian being wronged. In fact I found this person's interpretation of "Christian" lacking, though unfortunately quite common. So let's take this from the beginning.
Did the person fall short of Christianity because he had an opinion on the matter in the first place, based on his understanding of scripture? No. This is exactly what we're supposed to do, draw from the well of scripture and base our lives accordingly. Scripture is vast, touching all times and places. Humans are different. Inevitably some people will draw from scripture in one way while a neighbor comes to an opposite conclusion. That doesn't make one "Christian" and the other not. We are free to hold opposing convictions on many matters. None of us are perfect. The world will never be sinless. We're never going to find full agreement. If we do, that belief will have become our idol...a false compromise with a broken world.
Fortunately as Christians we understand that we're not saved by our own opinions. Christ saves us despite our opinions. Some beliefs rest on firmer foundations than others but in the end we have to go with our understanding of God. If that lands us in a place different than most, that's the way it is. God loves us anyway. This guy's opinion didn't make him not a Christian. There's room for people you disagree with at the table.
The point at which our speaker went off the rails was when he chose to express his opinion without regard for the people around him.
Notice how the statement began. "I must say this..." For whom was this statement made? The primary motivator was not the need of the listener, but the need of the speaker. People often want to hide behind the truism, "Didn't Jesus speak boldly and correct people?" He did indeed. But at no point did Jesus get up and speak to make himself feel better, more secure, more justified in his belief. He didn't put himself first. He spoke on behalf of the people around him.
The times when Jesus spoke stridently, correcting and getting angry at others, all contained a common thread: he got angry at people who were victimizing others in God's name. The Pharisees and temple leaders put themselves first whenever they spoke about God. THAT'S when Jesus got angry. He corrected them right there in the presence of their victims precisely to show those victims that the self-centered approach that they'd been subjected to by "faithful" people was wrong. Even here Jesus wasn't speaking on his own behalf, but to protect some of his people from others of his people who were hurting them.
When our speaker unleashed his opinion, defining it as "Christian" because of its content instead of its effect on the community, he ceased speaking a Christian manner. At that moment he stopped following Christ and started following the people Christ spoke against. This was true even though his words were couched in scriptural terms just as the words of the Pharisees were.
Summarizing for clarity: "Christian" isn't shown by what you believe as much as what you do with what you believe. Believing right and doing the wrong thing with it doesn't make you Christian.
As it turned out, our speaker's statements victimized the people around him. It was probably more carelessness on his part than intent, but that doesn't change the effect. Predictably these people reacted negatively. Instead of love, joy, forbearance, and the other fruits of the Spirit flowing from this conversation we got anger, frustration, pain. Whether the intent was to assert his own beliefs or educate people around him as to the "right" way the speaker failed miserably.
Predictably when the listeners objected and expressed their anger and pain the speaker turned around the issue, claiming that they were intolerant of his beliefs. This is a common and distressing practice which should be addressed.
First of all, claiming the protection of religious intolerance was ironic since this guy wasn't following Christian tenets in his speech. People weren't objecting to scripture or a faith system. People were objecting because this guy was being a jerk! He stated things in ways that felt like an attack to other members of the audience and then claimed that God mandated that he do so. Who isn't going to object to that? In fact the people who countered him fit into Jesus' sandals better than he did. They at least were responding to protect the people around them, a legitimately Christian motivation.
Second, common sense tells you that you can't throw the first punch at somebody and then scream, "Hey! No fighting!" when they swing back. You can't state something that's unfaithful and intolerant and then claim other people are being intolerant for not accepting your injurious words with tolerance.
Let's say we were at a gathering full of people of all kinds of races. Somebody stands up and says, "The Bible says that God hates everybody who is not white!" People start to object, saying that this is not OK and that God loves and accepts everybody. The speaker now stands up and says, "Well you're not loving and accepting me because you got mad at my opinion and say it's not faithful! You didn't let me express myself and are persecuting me!"
Is that true? Is everybody being equally intolerant here? Of course not. The speaker isn't being persecuted for his beliefs. He's being stopped from doing damage to everyone around him in God's name. "God loves and accepts his children" doesn't mean that Christian folks are supposed to stand by and smile tolerantly while people hurl racial epithets or abuse or imprison or commit all kinds of wrong against their fellow human beings. Rather we move to combat the things that would send the message that God doesn't care about you--slurs and abuse and wrongful imprisonment and people standing up and speaking however they want without caring about others--and lift up the things that show God does care.
If we see somebody beating another person with a baseball bat we need to show that God cares about the person being hit by stopping the beating. We don't stand there and say, "I can't interfere because that would make me seem intolerant towards the guy with the bat." What about the guy who's being hit?!? Jesus loved everybody and died for everybody. He never stood by while another person was victimized in God's name.
This "I can say whatever I want and you can't object or I'll claim I was persecuted" is garbage. Being persecuted means suffering for the sake of someone else in the course of helping them. It's not a way to weasel out of responsibility for your own utterances. Nor is it a shield to hide behind while you lob attacks at other people. The Pharisees didn't get to claim they were victims because they weren't allowed to damage all those around them.
In his own mind our original speaker felt like a hero for his faith. He stepped up and said something he thought would be unpopular regardless of consequences and became a martyr when people responded negatively. Reality is far less noble. His message was harmful, his consideration and love for his neighbor non-existent, and even his martyrdom was pretty weak, as he objected to the counter-attacks all the way. If this were old-time Rome he would have happily been thrown into the Coliseum to face hungry lions for the sake of his faith as long as nobody actually opened the lion cages, as long as he could continue throwing stones and accusations at the crowd in the process, and as long as he could storm off feeling self-justified at the end instead of being eaten.
It was a miserable experience all around, completely un-educational, largely a waste of time. But that's what happens when you define Christianity as something you do and believe instead of something that God works through you for the sake of the world.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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