Wearing Our Faith

          It being a warm, sunny day yesterday, I opted to eat my lunchtime sandwich while sitting on a low wall near a parking lot of the community college across the street from where I work. There was a light amount of foot traffic passing by, mostly the late-teens and twenty-somethings that comprise the majority of the college’s student population. From a distance I could see two figures who did not represent that population, though. Their distinctive white shirts, short-cut hair, and name tags gave their identity away, along with the fact that there were two of them. They’re always in pairs.

          I watched as they greeted students who walked past, asking if they could give them a brochure. Of course they stopped to chat with me. One asked if I was having a good day. “So far, so good,” I replied. Then the other asked if I was a student or teacher at the college. Good tact, I thought. Being mistaken for a student always makes me feel a little good about myself, even if that’s not what the speaker intended. I replied that I worked at the language school across the street. He then informed me that they worked at a school across the street, too, pointing to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints training facility on the other side of the parking lot.

          The young men were very friendly and pleasant, although one of them did most of the talking. Of course the conversation quickly steered toward “the prophet.” The chatty one asked me if I thought it was possible for God to call a prophet for our modern times. I replied that I believe it is possible for God to call whomever God wants and whenever God wants for whatever purposes God decides. They seemed to like that answer. When they inquired more about my faith, I explained that I am a deacon in the Presbyterian church. We talked about Presbyterian missionaries and their terms of service. We talked a little bit about what Presbyterians believe and so on. They invited me to a meeting where I could learn more about “the prophet.” I politely declined.

          By that time I had about ten minutes left before I needed to be back at work, so we amicably parted. Later, as I reflected on the conversation, I wished that I had thought to ask these young men some questions: Why does only one of you do most of the talking? How often do you get to call or write home to your family? Why don’t I ever see black or brown-skinned Mormon missionaries? Or overweight Mormon missionaries, for that matter? Why does your church hate LGBT people so much? And why do you keep talking about “the prophet” when your church is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Why not talk about Jesus and His message more? And do you really wear special undergarments that have been blessed by your church’s leadership?

          Then my thoughts turned to other religious people practicing their faith—or obeying their religion’s mandates—in public places: the Salvation Army in their pseudo-military getups; the Muslim men wearing beards and robes and head dressings, tabling on the sidewalk on the campus; the Jehovah’s Witnesses, looking like the rest of us until they whip out those Watchtowers; there are even a few bare-headed, robed, tambourine-shaking Hare Krishnas leftover from the 1970s here and there, at least in California. There are no pretenses with all these people. You know who you’re talking to when you see them, or at least once you see what kind of literature they’re holding in their hands. And while I don’t personally agree with all of their religion’s precepts, as long as they proclaim a message of peace and love, I can tolerate them as long as they tolerate me.

          It’s when the messages stray from peace and love to practices of exclusion, thought control, domination and submission—an “us vs. them” attitude—that I begin to have a problem with these or any religion’s practices. This morning there was a story online of the Salvation Army’s public service campaign in South Africa to raise awareness of domestic violence. The ad showed a pretty white female model wearing the now-famous white and gold/blue and black dress of recent internet popularity. The model was covered with bruises, and the caption asks why it's so hard to see black and blue (you can see the ad here). I inwardly applauded their noble efforts to help put an end to this detestable practice, but I quickly stopped my clapping when I saw a related story about how the Salvation Army had possibly denied long-term shelter to a homeless transgendered woman. Where’s the love of Christ there? Are attractive white females more worthy of God’s grace than homeless individuals who don’t fit the Salvation Army’s definition of womanhood?

          My finger of blame may be pointing to the Salvation Army, Mormons, and other groups who claim to be a part of the body of Christ, but there are three other fingers pointed right back at myself. I grew up in a strict, predominantly white, Southern-rooted Christian denomination that still doesn’t ordain women as pastors or deacons, still doesn’t allow a divorced man to serve as a pastor or deacon, still condemns dancing, drinking alcohol, and playing cards, and would not tolerate a “practicing homosexual” to worship in their midst (Lord only knows what they’d do with a transgendered individual). This denomination is very male-dominated, patriotic, and focused on the avoidance of sin. I was taught that if a person died before asking God to forgive them of a particular sin, that person would go to Hell. Although I have traveled far from that black-and-white, rules-bound upbringing in my own faith journey, the evil spirits of judgment and labeling, of the “us vs. them” mentality, are hard to exorcise. It’s just that now my “them” are the people whose practices show disrespect for diversity, disregard for the environment, ostracization of the outcast, idolization of country and military might and weapons—basically all the things I am now against. But I know in my heart of hearts that I have such a problem with “them” because I was once them, ignorant and living in spiritual darkness, and inside my soul some of that darkness still struggles against the Light.

          Jesus, the model for my faith, loved everybody, even—and perhaps especially—those who persecuted him. And therein lies my struggle: it’s easy to love those who are like me, who agree with me socio-politically and theologically, who follow lifestyles similar to my own. It’s much harder to love those who are different from me, and the more different they are, the harder it is to love them. The labels for them come just as easily as those in my more conservative days: before, the terms “non-Christian” and “non-believer” encompassed anybody who didn’t fit my worldview, from Communists to liberals to feminists to gays to pacifists; now the labels are Islamophobes, homophobes, misogynists, gun worshipers, nationalists, warmongers, capitalists, and anything else that doesn’t fit my current worldview. I’m just as judgmental as before; it’s just that now I’ve stepped over the line and turned my lens back on the ones I used to stand with, years ago. What I really need to do is turn that lens on myself, get the “plank” out of my own eye in order to better see the “splinter” in my fellow human being’s eye.

          I posted a meme on my personal Facebook page recently, but I posted it as private because I was afraid that many of my conservative Facebook friends would judge me (How ironic, the judger is afraid of being judged!). It stated, “Buddha was not Buddhist. Jesus was not Christian. Muhammad was not Muslim. They were teachers who taught love. Love was their religion.” I liked this meme for several reasons: First, Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew. Many Christians throughout history and today conveniently ignore that fact. He worshiped in Jewish synogogues and temples, appointed a rough-around-the-edges Jewish fisherman to be the cornerstone of His community of followers, yet welcomed Gentiles, tax collectors, prostitutes, diseased people, and anybody else into His community, never once telling them that they had to become Jews, or even addressing the religious beliefs of those individuals. His message was all about simply turning to God and living in loving relationship with God and other people. In Jesus’ definition, sin was anything that kept one from loving God, loving others, and loving self completely. Yet like many of our Jewish spiritual forebears, we Christians (and many Muslims, too) became focused on identifying the particular sins of others; we became like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, publicly proclaiming how thankful he was that he was not like the nearby unrighteous tax collector. We became self-righteous by deflecting our unrighteousness onto those who did not conform to our own unrealistic expectations of righteousness. Like me, we judge others because we are too uncomfortable judging ourselves—or perhaps because we judge ourselves too harshly and can’t handle the resulting burden of guilt?

          Second, I feel that Christians have misjudged Buddha and Muhammad throughout the years. Buddhists are labeled as idol worshipers, while Muslims are labeled as expansionists and terrorists. Think about how Christians are labeled in many countries and cultures around the world based on the actions of some of those who profess to follow Christ. We are called warmongers, imperialists, and murderers because of what we have done in the name of Christ. What blasphemy against Christ’s name we have committed and continue to commit!

          I do not want to end this blog without acknowledging the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Salvation Army members, and others around the world who are united in their efforts to expand their particular group’s views into a more loving embrace of God’s people everywhere. These are the people who advocate for worldwide peace and nonviolence; who work for equity and fairness for the working poor and charity for those who cannot work; who not only invite members of the LGBT community into their fold, but affirm their identities and marriage commitments to each other; who seek to learn from, and not fear, other religious traditions; who respect all gender identities, all sexes, all races and nationalities and ethnicities and intellectual and physical abilities as being of equal value in God’s sight; who simply seek to love God with their whole being, and love others as they love themselves. I want to be like that. I want my only label to be “kind and loving person.” For if God truly is love, as 1 John 4:8 proclaims, then those who fit the label of kind and loving person must surely be a child of God.