Please allow me this brief rant. You may call yourself a Christian. Your social media profile has Bible verses on it, you attend church, give money to charity, and sponsor children in Africa.
…but if you smoke or drink alcohol, you are showing everyone just how dark and sinful your heart is. Cancer kills over 500,000 people a year in the US and alcohol related deaths total almost 40,000 a year.
If you smoke or drink, you are not emulating Jesus. You are not honoring God. You are not interested in loving your neighbor as yourself. That the simplest and least invasive gesture to ensure other people will not get sick and die, has become for you a source of perceived oppression and a spot to loudly declare your defiance—should be an alarm to you that the narrative that plays in your head about your motives and your virtue, is at least partly fiction.
Oh, you craft for yourself certain narratives that serve to assure yourself you are a good person, but when you are faced with the reality that something you do might contribute to the death of others, you dig in your heels and flip-off strangers and feel so self-righteous.
As someone who sees you clearly right now, I need you to know that I don’t think you’re a Christian who cares about human life, or that you are even a very good person.
***
WHAAAT??? Joel, this doesn’t sound like something you would say! This sounds like a self-righteous, pharisaic, Fundamentalist Christian would say! That’s the kind of hateful attitude that infuriated me so much that I left my church! What the heck is going on???
***
Rest assured; I don’t really think all that. But a few days ago, I came across an online article by the Progressive Christian John Pavlovitz entitled, “If You Don’t Wear a Mask, You May Not Be a Good Person.” As I read the article, I felt my skin began to crawl.
Now, let me be abundantly clear up front: Covid-19 is a dangerous pandemic; everyone should be wearing a mask in public places, especially indoors; everyone should try to socially distance as much as possible. All that should be a given.
My attitude has been that I am going to be socially responsible, follow the guidelines, and live my life. And even when I see some people not wearing a mask or see stories on the news about large irresponsible gatherings where people are not practicing social-distancing, I’m not going to hyper-ventilate and I’m not going turn into the Church Lady and start condemning people to hell. I’m certainly not going to start judging people as “not morally good people” based on it. And I’m most certainly not going to start judging other Christians as not being real Christians simply because they don’t have their mask on in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
I grew up in an Evangelical culture where I occasionally encountered Christian speakers who made a living off of judging other Christians as “not real Christians” because they…smoke, drank, listened to secular music, voted Democrat, etc. That kind of hateful, judgmental Pharisaism made my skin crawl then, and it still makes my skin crawl.
And my skin was crawling as I read Pavlovitz’s article. It is reflective of something I’ve been noticing for the past few years, and it gets to the heart of the problem I mentioned in my previous post. Far too many Evangelical Fundamentalists and ex-Evangelicals continue to have the same mindset and practice the same kind of self-righteous Pharisaism that seeks to (1) condemn everyone who isn’t like them (and 9 times out of 10, this comparison is along strict political lines) and (2) put on full display for the public to see just how good and righteous they themselves are.
It doesn’t matter what your politics are. If your prayers (and online articles) pretty much convey the sentiment, “Oh Lord, thank you I’m not like those sinners!” They may say they are Christians, but they really aren’t, because they’re not like me!” –Then all I have to say is, Yikes!
So yes, wear a mask and socially-distance and try to be a safe and responsible as possible. And take the vaccine when it becomes available. If, for whatever reason, you don’t, I’m going to think you’re being rather foolish, but that’s your choice. I’m not going to publicly condemn you as a filthy sinner who isn’t honoring God because of it. That’s what Pharisees do.
The attitude in the Pavlovitz article reminded me of an old song by a Christian singer named Ken Medema entitled “Mr. Simon.” It is a creative adaptation of Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector who went to the Temple to pray. It is something all Christians should take to heart.
The last lines are this:
Two men walked into the church upon that Sunday Morn;
One left slightly wrinkled, the other left re-born.
I agree that that framing is pretty gross, but there’s one important difference: cancer isn’t contagious.
True, but smoking and secondhand smoke contribute to it.
But yes, it is the self-righteous framing that is at issue.
I am reminded of what happened to a Christian friend of mine years ago. He was smoking outside the church building after services. Someone came up to him and said, “You know, Jim, I just can’t visualize Jesus standing outside the synagogue smoking a cigarette.” Jim responded, “I can’t visualize him standing outside the synagogue eating a hot dog and drinking a Coca-Cola either, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
Hahaha! Perfect!
DA – Hope you are doing well.
Projections of the ‘righteous’ like this always remind me of Matthew 6:5 and praying in private. The older I get, the more I have come to the conclusion that goal number one is about finding inner peace and the whole point of church and community should be to help facilitate that journey.
I regularly find myself disgusted by the above sentiment. Saturday, while driving, I saw a double-sized billboard on the side of the interstate; beside the picture of the attorney read: “Your Christian attorney for divorce and bankruptcy”.
My late grandmother (a staunch convert to the Episcopal Church in the 1940s who also loved Pat Robertson and the 700 Club and frequented a couple of local charismatic/nondenominational churches) had a toll-free helpline where anyone could call and ask for prayer. She prayed for more than one person who was contemplating suicide and later credited her prayer with/for them with helping them not go through with it.
One self-righteous person from another, rather conservative fundamentalist-type denomination called one day to ask what right my grandmother–a woman!–from a “false church”–had running such a helpline. She told them all she was doing was praying for people. Whoever this was replied that if the people calling her were living the way they ought to they wouldn’t need prayer in the first place.
Pax.
Lee.
Call me quite unconventional, but what I, a believer in Christ’s unmistakable miracles, find notably missing from scripture is the side of Jesus that (as I personally like to picture him) occasionally enjoyed a belly-shaking laugh over a good, albeit clean, joke with his disciples, rather than always being the stoically serious type of savior.
I can find immense hope in a creator who has a great sense of humor rather than foremost a loose, very bad temper.
Our collective human need for retributive ‘justice’—regardless of Christ (and great spiritual leaders) having emphasized unconditional forgiveness—may be intrinsically linked to the same unfortunate morally-flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet.
I fear that way too many monotheists are creating God’s nature in their own angry, vengeful image.
Yes, indeed.
I think Genesis One is about the same local area that was covered by Noah’s Flood. The “heavens” in 1:1 is the same Hebrew word used for where the birds fly in 1:20 and “earth” is the same Hebrew word translated “dry land” that appeared when the water was gathered into one place in 1:9. When God said, “Let there be light” in 1:3, that light was local (not everywhere on Earth), shown by the fact that there was day and night in 1:5. When the Spirit of God “hovered” over the surface of the deep in 1:2, I think He was over the Holy of Holies. The same Hebrew word translated “hovered” here is only used in two other places: “All my bones ‘tremble’” in Jeremiah 23:9 and “as an eagle…’fluttereth’ over her young,” in Deu. 32:11. The water in 1:2 is only “deep,” and not “the great deep” where the fountains were broken open during Noah’s Flood in 7:11. The arguments and evidence against the entire Earth having been covered by water in 1:2 are the same ones Christian and secular scientists use to prove Noah’s Flood was local. I think 1:1 is just a “Statement of Fact” concerning two things God revealed/restored/made: “the heavens where the birds fly and the dry land that appeared after the water was gathered into one place. This explains why God does not speak in 1:1 and why “all things aren’t mentioned there. Bruce K. Waltke points out that the “waw” (and), at the beginning of 1:2, is a “waw descriptive” and not a “waw consecutive,” meaning verse two describes the situation at the time of that stated in 1:1. The Hebrew word for “beginning” in 1:1 doesn’t carry the meaning of “the very beginning,” shown by the fact that its used in Jeremiah 28:1 concerning the beginning of the “reign of Zedekiah.” Almost all of the history of Earth and the Universe happened long before Genesis, including the creation of water and angels and the history of Lucifer, including when he was Earth’s High Priest, King and Prophet; and his long history of being “perfect in all your ways” and his fall from grace. (see: “The Invisible War” by Donald Grey Barnhouse). According to AIG’s, Terry Mortenson (The Great Turning Point p. 35), John Pye Smith (1774–1851), “advocated a local creation.” As far as I know, he was the first. If nothing else, I hope this small study has given you something to think about.
In Christ, Mike Riter