Not So Thankful

I’m really glad for my life. I look around me, and I’m happy about my circumstances. My faith, my family, my friends, my job, health, music. The whole package. In the middle of this happiness, though, is a small amount of energy that’s devoted to living down some of the elements of my past. I think we all have this, so I’m sure this isn’t ground-breaking news to you. To quote the great Jack Nicholson in the Tim Burton adaptation of Batman, “I have given a name to my pain.” This particular brand of discomfort is a mostly unspoken mindset instilled in me by the American Evangelical non-denominational Christian church. The nutshell of the way I’m feeling is that I’ve been brought up to believe that the world around me is largely a threat, or an enemy.

Granted, that’s a bit over-simplified, but you get the point. The things that I encounter are (for the most part) to be kept at a safe distance and judged from afar. This could include a book, a song, a movie, a lifestyle, a person… just about anything. I have some trouble reconciling that mindset with Jesus’ core mission stated in John 3.16-17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

The thing that strikes me, in this train of thought, is the part where it says that God didn’t send Jesus down here to condemn the world. Yet that’s what I find myself reflexively doing, more times than not.

I’m getting the impression that leading with suspicion, and judgment are contrary to Jesus’ core mission. The way he said it himself, he positioned “condemnation” and “salvation” as opposites. So how could I, as a follower of Jesus, claim to be about love and salvation when I’m spending more time condemning? I can’t. And, frankly, that’s embarrassing.

I’m not blaming the church for this, mind you. Please don’t take me for one of the guys who seem pretty happy to bash the church lately. There was a lot of good that came from my upbringing, and I’m grateful for it, on the whole. I’m also a big boy, and I own my flaws. So this isn’t a posting to absolve myself of these shortcomings. It’s more a verbalization to help me to more clearly identify it, and maybe strike a chord with the one or two other people who happen to read this.