Sometimes, following a certain type of post I write (the most recent being Evangelist, or Ego-Driven Meddler?), I get an email or two telling me what a shabby excuse for a Christian I am. (Though let me hasten to add that for every one message I get in the “To [Hades] with you, devil boy!!” vein, I get thirty of the sort that make me blush with faux-modesty before I consider robbing a bank so that I can afford to go to seminary and then start my own church.)
If by chance you are a person who feels that at some point you, too, might be compelled to stop your busy day long enough to write and inform me of how I could or should become a better Christian, allow me, in the hopes of saving you that time, to say that it’s virtually impossible for me to care less about what you or anyone else think Christianity is. I just don’t care. I don’t care what my neighbor thinks Christianity is. I don’t care what members of the church up the street think Christianity is. I don’t care what any Christian leader, pastor, author, or celebrity you can name thinks Christianity is.
I. Don’t. Care. Not because I’m ornery. Not because I’ve Gotta Be Me. Not because I’m so convinced of my own version of Christianity that I’m blind to the wisdom of those who came before me, or who think deeper than I, care more than I, or flat-out know more than I. Lots of people know more than I about a lot of things—including, of all things, Christianity. I mean … duh. If being dumber than others about things that mean a lot to me bothered me, I’d have killed myself years ago.
I believe in the Christianity I do because one day God clobbered me over the head with the Christianity HE wanted me to understand. My entire knowledge of the core truths of Christianity happened to me at the moment of my conversion. (An event I wrote a bit about here.) My understanding of God, and God’s nature, and the historical reality of the figure known to us as Jesus Christ, hasn’t in any substantive way changed one iota since that revelatory moment. I’ve since then learned more about what’s in the Bible—but that’s it. The truth of what I learned remains exactly as I learned it. And it always will. I know this like I know my name.
It’s wonderful that you have your own relationship with God and Christianity, and that you feel passionately about it. But that relationship is between you and God, period. It’s got nothing to do with me.
Besides, if you’re a Christian, we’re already on the same side. God has already made me your brother. That’s enough. Maybe I don’t do Christianity exactly as you do. Maybe I hear our Lord saying slightly or even greatly different things to me than you hear him saying to you. So what? I guarantee you that I can respect your understanding of God, insofar as I count as dear friends Christians of every stripe. Conservatives. Liberals. Fundamentalists. Progressives. People at every point in between. All of them, listening to God. All of them, following God according to the lights afforded them. All of them, trying to become as much like Christ as they can.
A beautiful thing! (And common, I believe, to virtually everyone—but that’s another post.)
Anyway, if you write to tell me what I should think about Christianity, and what I should do about God, and what I must feel is right and true and necessary relative to Christ, I promise you’re wasting your time. I won’t be two sentences into reading your email or comment before I’ll be bored to death by it, delete it, and then literally forget I ever saw it.
Maybe you’re right, and I am wrong about God. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we’re all wrong. Maybe none of us is.
Life is short. I can wait to find out what I don’t now know about God. But, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to hear it from him.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Feeling lonely these days, dude?
I always read all the comments, too. Even when they hit a couple hundred! :-0
I figured this post AND the deacon one had that kind of potential, but people are slacking, I guess ….
Really? Cool. I don't know, though. I think at this point it's just you, me, and Ric. And I think Ric's off watching TV. So it's just you and I. And you, I suspect, have a life. So it's really just me.
Are you kidding? The comments get better and better after the first few dozen!
No one! You're the first to notice!
People don't often read this far down into the comments.
No one loves me.
So how many emails have you received from the curse police? I remember reading your testimony in Penguins and thought, "Holy crap! The Christian curse word watch group is going after this guy!"
Ok, I may not have thought, "Holy crap!" But I get enough email already.
So basically you are secure enough with your identity in Christ that you can rest in it instead of wondering "am I really a Christian?" when folks who are insecure in their beliefs decide they need to woo you to their views so they'll feel validated. And you have trusted people who hold you accountable in your relationship with Christ and speak truth out of genuine love for you when there are sin issues to deal with (because we all have them)…without attacking or questioning your Christian identity. I dig that.
But Anita I disagree with you on one major point. I love and enjoy John's posts, but I love Disneyland more. Sorry John.
Excellent thoughts, Snow; in fact, they made me go back and reword a bit of what I said. (I actually sort of said it backwards: My knowledge of GOD was in that moment made as complete for me as I knew it would ever be—but of course I still had almost everything to learn about Christianity. Beyond that, though—in t his forum, in this … bloggy context, it's just too much to go into. But I've heard every word you said, and absolutely agree with the spirit that I know gave what you've said its form/articulation, if that makes sense. I'm glad you wrote, because it made me see how much I REALLY needed to change what I did. THANKS!
This entry is very intriguing to me. One big question I came up with while reading.
You said your entire knowledge of Christianity came to you at the moment of your conversion. But not your entire knowledge of God, right? Because that would be impossible. For anyone to fully and intimately know an infinite and perfect, holy being in a moment- that's impossible just because of the nature of God.
But then you go on to say your understanding of God hasn't changed substantively one iota after all this time since conversion. So… I'm just confused about that. Sorry. :/ It's just, I've been a Christian almost my whole life and I have had my own Isaiah 6 moments and Job periods and been through discipleship classes and mentoring since I was pretty young, and He still surprises me all the time. He surprises me through you sometimes!
To ever say I know all about God, or that no one else could teach me anything about God, would be silly for me- the more I know him, the more I find out that I want and need to know so much more! And God wants us to know Him- Intimately- and many times he uses other people- imperfect people- to draw us closer to Him. So we have to be open to that, even if it hurts, or we lose out on knowing Him, on our purpose. Those are my thoughts, anyways.
Okay seriously, and I can be if I want to (I just don’t want to be all that often) is that while I’ve loved about a trillion of your posts over the months John this post is better than a weekend at Disneyland and all that.
The very heart of Christianity is based on the idea of (and let’s say it all together people) a personal relationship between the believer and God through Christ. What part of personal suggests that it’s up for group approval or meeting corporate standards?
Jesus is everything to me and all that, so I have no problem sharing my faith with others but critiquing another person’s relationship with Christ, judging their interpretation of the Scriptures, or offering my stamp of approval or rejection on how they embody their understanding of Christianity is quite simply none of my business.
Phily: You raise a great point. The truth is, I DON'T respect everyone's ideas about God: some people's ideas about God are plain awful. I tried to cover this caveat by saying, "…INSOFAR as I have friends…." I meant that "insofar" to indicate that I was only referring to .. well, the Christian-types I go on to recount. Perhaps I was wasn't clear enough on that. You did well to note that little snag, though. I was kind of surprised no one else had sort of called me on it.
Interesting post, I'll spew my 2 cents on the matter, not that they are of any worth mind you…
"Maybe I don’t do Christianity exactly as you do. Maybe I hear our Lord saying slightly or even greatly different things to me than you hear him saying to you. So what? I guarantee you that I can respect your understanding of God, insofar as I count as dear friends Christians of every stripe."
Respecting another's view of "who God is", can be fine; however, it can be taken too far. I will respect you or anyone else's view of God as long as it is in line with what He has revealed too us throughout His manifested Word. I will not however respect a view of God that in anyway contradicts or is out of line with Scripture.
I had a guy who claimed to be a Christian come up to me the other day and state the he thought "God is those who believe in Him, He is any Christian and any Christian is God" now obviously this guy was just confused about what it meant when we say that the spirit lives in believers…I have no respect for a view of God that is irrational and unsupported by scripture and I continued too explain what Christians mean when we say that. I'm not going to stand by and say "Well thats your view of God and I respect that" because I don't, I will state what I believe to be in line with scripture. Sound teaching is vital to a Christian's walk with God, we need to know what we are worshiping, and scripture is an excellent guide.
I enjoyed reading your post, keep up the good work!
God Bless,
Phil D.
Anita: beautifully said. I could write as well a you, I … well, would. You've got a gift. Thank God you don't use it for evil. Well. Thank God you hardly ever use it for evil.
Well, thanks, I meant every word. It's a great book.
You know, I think I’m going to link to this …
I just had three people question whether I’m really a Christian because I dared to criticize their idol … I mean, vice-presidential candidate … and quote Scripture at the same time.
This is a great post, John.
By the way, I was wondering today about your plan to take over the world. How’s that coming?
Candace: Thank you for your review of "Being Christian" on its Amazon page! We really appreciate it. It was a real quality piece of writing. Extremely good. Thank you for that.
I would like to add as a disclaimer that I personally believe in the church and that the church as a whole has a relationship with God as well as all of its members having their own personal relationship with him too. This is why I agree with statements of faith, but not statements of thought……not sure if that makes sense but I hope you know what I mean
Oh Jim, I don’t like it when people use a single verse either but well done you!! In fact, in all my study in seminary I don’t recall it ever being taught that we weren’t allowed to disagree, in fact that is what most of seminary is about, huge loud arguments!! I guess God gave us brains to think and thinking causes disagreements. We are not meant to be robots who all believe and do the same things, then this would not be a ‘personal’ relationship with God, it would be a ‘mass’ relationship with God
Writing books about bible doctrine puts you in the teacher’s seat I’m afraid. Hot seat, isn’t it? You handle it well. But as far as being a false teacher, I John 4:2 says: This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
Man, I hate it when people throw a single verse out to prove some point, like I just did, but I think that a thorough study of the subject would still reap the same conclusion as that one verse. I’m pretty sure that I’ve read somewhere on your blog that you believe that Jesus, God’s Son, came in the flesh. That verse in I John doesn’t say anything about false teachers being those people who teach something that doesn’t line up with what I, personally believe.
“Oxymoronic.” I love it. Fabulous. Wonderfully said, Cibola. Thank you. You guys are ROCKIN’ this comments section!! What a deal for me.
Great post John!
I was wondering how long of a comment it would be if I listed all of the new testament verses that say something along the lines of “judge not your brother.” I’m thinking it would be a bit longer than the “rebuke and encourage” verses! There is definitely something oxymoronish (oxymoronic?) about someone who says, “I’m going to tell you where your Christianity is wrong so that you can be a good Christian like I am.”
WAHOOOOOOO! It was my Amazon review, wasn't it?? C'mon, I know it was!
Can I have a cushy job in the new regime when the time comes?
Thanks, Wickle. I'll go over and see your blog, see these meanies picking on you.
How funny that you asked about my plans to take over the world!
Well, let's see: Today I posted my first video EVER on YouTube—and this week I found out that my/our latest book, "Being Christian," has been bought for Spanish and Korean foreign edition rights.
So you tell me.
John, please add me to the legions of people, OK, maybe six here, but lots elsewhere, who do not feel an obligation to tell anyone how to worship or what to believe, but to love them,unconditionally, and let God sort it out. Someone put that in a book I read somewhere. The two great Commandments trump anything else.
ecc.12:13 …conclusion of the whole matter….
Dan: You're at the top of the list. When the mob with the pitchforks shows up, I'll send 'em straight to you. Cool! Thanks!
Christine: exactly right. perfectly said.
I think the conflict here is that John is saying don't TELL me what to believe. Discuss differing opinions, yes, have deep discussion and disagree, why not, if he didn't like that he wouldn't have started a blog!!! (and if you don't like discussions on contoversial points John I know yea not at all). But there is a difference between TELLING and DISCUSSING. I would let all and sundry discuss something with me, and hey, if they had a good point maybe it would open my mind to a few things. But I wouldn't let even my closest friene TELL me what to do. If someone came to me in love and was concerned about something I was doing then hopefully (and my good friends do this) they would seek me out, discuss the problem, suggest a solution and then LEAVE ME TO MAKE UP MY OWN MIND!!!! Telling anyone one how to think will automatically push them away. Only God has the right to do that in my life
David: Too perfect.
Gray: As I keep meaning to communicate: It depends on what this correcting friend was seeking to correct me about. If he was advising me not to have an affair, or to quit … I don't know … smoking or drinking too much, of course I would listen to him. But if he was trying to "correct" my understanding of God, I … well, I'd know right away if what he was saying was right or not. If he was right, I'd appreciate the perspective. If he was wrong, I'd laugh at him and throw any fruit at him that I happen to have nearby.
I agree that a perfect stranger has no place in defining your faith or your relationship with God. If anyone has questioned its validity or wholeness, they deserve a smack. But as Lindsey pointed out:
"There is a big difference between someone you know, whom you know cares about you, coming to you with a rebuke than someone whom you’ve never met and will never meet."
I was just trying to figure out if you would listen to the 'correction' from a trusted believer and friend.
yikes |yīks|
exclamation informal
expressing shock and alarm, often for humorous effect : I had a dip in the 40-degree pool (yikes!).
ORIGIN 1970s: of unknown origin; compare with yoicks
Okay, so we compare with yoiks to see where "yikes" probably came from:
yoicks |yoiks|
exclamation
used by fox hunters to urge on the hounds.
ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: of unknown origin.
Urging on the hounds. Yup, that sounds about right.
So I am not the only one with this fantasy? I mean, after all, its all God's money anyway, right?
There are a few who never grasp this.
Almost always the alleged correction lacks gentleness and love. Rarely does it emanate from someone who loves me. In fact, of the group of people who know me and love me, I cannot think of a time any of them got-in-my-face anywhere near as much as internet strangers. Its like they've traded in the 2 Great Commandments for "Rebuke your brother (in love)" and "Expel the immoral believer!"
Something inside me desperately wants to straighten them out. However, I realize that is my ego talking, not Him.
Thanks for your post on this topic John.
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