I got to thinking the other day: If Jesus is supposed to be the role model that Christianity claims he is, he’s done a pretty lousy job of it.
WWJD? If you read the Gospels, apparently not much that would please the Family Research Council.
Given the pressing social concerns about the “war on Christmas” and the first amendment travesty visited upon Phil Robertson, Jesus’ regard for the poor and oppressed seems laughably myopic.
I mean, if you believe that you’ve been put on this earth to skulk about pointing out everyone else’s sins, Jesus doesn’t set a very good example. Oh sure, he cracks on the self-righteous and the hypocrites, but usually because he feels a moral responsibility to shine a light on the self-satisfied, those who seem way too pleased that they’re “not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers or even like [the] tax-collector” (Luke 18:11).
Interesting that Jesus not only doesn’t feel the need to scour the countryside in search of people to condemn -- for fear that surely someone’s ruining the fabric of “traditional society” -- but, ironically, he seems to find those who are most publicly religious (that is, the folks who do scour the countryside in search of people to condemn) the folks most in need of a good verbal smack down.
So, if you believe your Christian mission centers on identifying sinners to steer clear of, Jesus is a really crappy role model. If you think that the demands of Christian purity require you to shine a bright light on the those people the church ought to be busy hanging scarlet letters on, then Jesus is bound to be a disappointment to you.
At this point, someone will surely object, “But we’re just calling attention to sinful behavior. We don’t hate the sinners, just the sin. What we’re doing is actually the loving thing to do. We love them; but we have a responsibility to make sure that they change.”
But let’s just be honest -- when some group utters “love the sinner/hate the sin,” everybody knows they’re only talking about LGBTQ people. (Frankly, I don’t think being LGBTQ is a sin, and I don’t like the phrase. But if you’re going to wield it against someone you don’t approve of, at least try to be consistent.)
Sarah Palin wouldn’t advocate keeping rich people, for example, from full participation in the life and ministry of the church -- in anticipation that they’ll, you know, renounce that which prevents their tricked-out camels from fitting through the eye of the needle.
I’m pretty sure Tony Perkins isn’t launching any campaigns meant to publicize the socially corrosive sin of anger evinced by road-ragers who terrorize rush hour traffic, proudly displaying their “Jesus” fish and their “God is my co-pilot” bumper stickers.
And personally, I thank God (and A&E) that we still welcome long-haired, tattoo-wearing mouth-breathers into fellowship without requiring haircuts and tattoo removal as a sign that they’re willing “to take scripture seriously” -- I mean, being myself a long-haired, tattoo-wearing mouth-breather and all.
The truth of it is, we’re extremely parochial about the “Biblical” sins by which we’re determined to be aggrieved.
My suspicion is that “love the sinner/hate the sin” language operates practically as a convenient mechanism by which one can appear morally superior to those whose sins most offend one’s particular sensibilities -- all for the purposes of public consumption.
But the specificity with which we apply “love the sinner/hate the sin” bothers me. I guess my question would be: Have you actually talked to the family of someone who’s been “loved” to death by all this concern for the particular sin of being LGBTQ? Young people are killing themselves from this kind of “love.”
Yeah, Jesus is a lousy example if what you care about are the sins that vex much of popular Christianity. In fact, not only didn’t Jesus make it his mission to fish about for people to be offended by, he sought out the people that most of the rest of polite society saw as offensive, and then proceeded to go to the bar with them.2
So, Jesus is exactly the wrong guy to appeal to as the inspiration for a 21st century version of the personal morality police.
And it’s kind of sad, really. For a large segment of Christianity, Jesus’ lack of moralistic rigor cannot but appear embarrassing.
On the other hand, if you want to pattern your life after a person who befriended the folks who always seem to get picked last in the game of life, Jesus works perfectly as a role model.
See, for example, Matthew 23 -- a chapter dedicated to calling out religious pretension. ↩
See Matthew 11:19. ↩