Why I’m Not A Good Christian. Part 2.
(6) I think it’s ok for Christians to own nice things.
I’m not even really sure how people got this idea stuck their heads, but none-the-less I hear over and over again a philosophy that Christians shouldn’t own nice things. “Nice things” is a pretty broad term, so just so there is no confusion I want to define it here. A “nice thing” can be anything a person likes that costs more money than you think that person should spend. Huge houses, fancy cars, elaborate vacations, speed boats, hot tubs, a collection of DVDs or even Elvis collector plates can all be examples of “nice things”. Personally my “nice things” would be my super sweet collection of Disney memorabilia, but anyway…
Before I get on my rant; I would actually like to take this issue out of the church and look at it without any theology attached. A fact of life is: people have different incomes. If you’ve busted your butt in medical school for 500 years and you are a highly specialized oncologist, then you are going to be making more than a person who didn’t go to college or is content to flip burgers for the rest of his life. (And just so its said, there is nothing wrong with that.) I think we all can agree, given these variables, Mr. Oncologist deserves every extra penny he makes over Mr. Fry Cook, right? I think so.
Ok, bring this back into the church. All of a sudden… we have a problem. Where as our now Christian oncologist may not necessarily be looked down upon for his higher income (Although there is no shortage of church-goers who do this anyway.) our now Christian fry cook is no longer poor… now hes theologically “storing treasures for himself up in heaven”. He will even advertise this fact! I’ve seen a bumper sticker before on an older, semi-beat up car that read: “Don’t let the car fool you, my treasures are up in heaven.” This type of public testimony is just wrong, and I can prove it.
Who would want to read a bumper sticker that said, “I’m storing my real treasures up in heaven” on the back of our Christian oncologist’s 2008 Lexus whatever. Theologically speaking, this bumper sticker could be 100% accurate, but when Christians see this spectical, we will automatically assume that the driver is sinning by associating to him a sense of pride and superiority– when the truth is we would be the ones sinning for making that association in the first place. You just can’t have this ideal of rich vs. poor “storing treasures in heaven” both ways; logically it doesn’t work, and that makes it wrong.
Having nice things and money is no more wrong than not having nice things and money; but I wish we could all agree that this is fact of income and life choices and not an issue of theology. If was really forced to explain this warped thinking, I would guess that this stems from feelings of envy and jealousy more than anything else. We just have to manifest these feelings as a matter of theology, because Christians aren’t supposed to be envious and jealous. Thats just my opinion; I could be wrong.
(7) I think it’s ok for Christian companies/ministries to pay their employees well.
This point ties closely into the previous one, but I think it’s worthy of it’s own bullet.
I feel this is another matter of education and life choices leading to higher income than of faith and theology. I just have to look at this issue slightly different in the respect of where that income is coming from. A lot of funding for Christian companies/ministries come from tithe and offerings. That is people like me sitting in church, or at a ministry event, depositing 10%+ of my hard earned income into the offering plate. Because it’s my money that I’ve earned and have given away that the company/ministry is now spending, do I really think that Jim Bob is worth a six figure income to manage the business and legal aspects of said ministry? The short answer: yes.
Christian companies/ministries on many levels are (or at least need to be) run like businesses, and as such, they need people with skills and talents to function just as much as companies like Microsoft or Dairy Queen. This isn’t a issue of misappropriations of funds, this is about the reality of running a successful organization.
Though I am not a big fan of Joyce Myers’ teachings, (What’s my deep spiritual reason for not being a fan? Her voice kind of annoys me.) I like her ministry policy. She publicly states and make no effort to shy around the fact that she pays her staff whatever they would be making in a comparable position in a non-Christian company. If you’re a sound engineer for her tour, you’re going to be pulling down the same size paycheck you would if you were a sound engineer at a Smashing Pumpkins concert. (Smashing Pumpkins are still around right? Oh, they aren’t? Too bad. I was a fan.)
Just to be perfectly clear: I know there are very needed and worthy organizations out there that can’t afford to pay the big bucks for their people’s salary, and God calls extremely talented men and women to sacrifice potential income to help these organizations out. There is nothing wrong with this at all. On the contrary I praise God for these unsung heroes (because that’s what they are)!
In summary, the point I’m tyring to make with this bullet is simple: If you are educated and qualified for a position in a Christian company that is able and willing to pay you a six figure income to perform a needed and valuable service to the best of your ability– more power to you!
(8)I think it’s ok for musicians who are Christians to not have label the music they play as ‘Christian’.
This one is an ‘easy’ one for me. The common argument loosely takes the follow shape: Singer Johnny Axel publicly stated he is a Christian, and while his songs are uplifting and not offensive, he doesn’t label it as Christian music!?! He is squandering his gifts and talents that God gave him to reach the lost! Johnny Axel hates Jesus! blah blah blah…”
I want to spin this.
If Johnny Axel was the most efficient, Christian box packer you’ve ever seen would you bust on him for working for UPS instead of God Send, assuming God Send is a company that only ships “Christian packages”? I know it’s a stretch, but I think I’ve made my point.
(9) I’m trying real hard not to use Christian-ese in conversations anymore.
Hey, guess what all you non church going people? We have words that us church people use behind your back! Do you stay as far away from church as possible? We call you “Lost”. That’s you’re code name. As a matter of fact, your code name is in our mission statement. The church is here to “reach the lost”. Do you come to church, ask questions, but have yet to make any kind of commitment? Well then we call you a “Seeker”. The church has a whole bunch of “seeker friendly” activities that we would love for you to attend. Are you a Christian who used to attend church all the time but have been a ghost for the past 6 months? Now we’re worried about you “backsliding”. “Backsliding” is bad, we’re afraid you’ll get “lost” again. If you get “lost” again, you might start being “of the world” instead of just “in the world”, cause though you are “in the world” you shouldn’t be “of it”.
But the real concern is the phrases that Christians have for ourselves, isn’t it? A fellow Christian could stop you in the hall at church and ask how you’re doing. Your response should be one of three options: “Great!”, “Fine!” or “Terrific”. If you don’t respond to the question with one of the approved church lobby phrases then we’ll pull out some of our catch-phrase arsenal and throw more at you. For example: been feeling down lately? Some fellow Christian might ask, how is your “quiet time”? They have to say “quiet time” because you can’t say “spiritual meditation”. Meditation sounds like something voodoo evil people do before they sacrifice virgins. During your “quiet time” do you “prayer journal”? Perhaps you just need to “let go and let God”? Or maybe you just need more “hope to cope” or you’ve lost focus of your “purpose driven life”. Or could it be that you just need to take a “spiritual sabbatical” to take time out and think “What Would Jesus Do” while you “fully rely on God”? Or you might just generalize and shove off the whole conversation by stating, “Gods still working on me.”
And on and on and on and on…
I speak fluent Christian-ese and I have to tell you… its great! I can get through an entire Sunday morning without having to open up to anyone about the struggles of my life! When you ask how I am, my response of choice has been “great”. This is in instead of telling you about the depression that I fight on almost a daily basis and was especially fighting on the drive into church that morning. While we talk, I might work something into the conversation like, “… right now, I’m just really relying on God” because it’s less words than saying “last night I was up late wrestling with my doubts about faith, family, God, and Christianity as whole”.
Now… if I can be honest. There is nothing wrong with using catch phrases, or referring to non-Christians as lost, or wearing a WWJD bracelet. My concern is that our Christian-ese lingo has become the equivalent of a secret handshake that all kids in the club have to learn. Aside from making those who don’t know it yet feel like they don’t belong, if you greet a Christian with the handshake, we assume everything is “cool” with you and it saves us the trouble of having to probe into your life any deeper.
For me personally, the truth of the matter is I don’t really want to talk to other people about my problems anymore then I want to listen theirs. I think that spilling your guts to someone else is just about as attractive as it sounds. But this in unbiblical; so I’ve learned the secret handshake so I can tell myself I’m not ignoring the well being of another Christian while at the same time thinking I’ve shared with you an incite about my life. (And I have a suspicion that I’m not the only person who plays this little game.)
It’s a nasty little trick that may fool other Christians, but isn’t fooling God, and I’m trying real hard to break it.
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