Guest Post From a Reader: On Compromise, Love, and the Church

[From Molly: The following post is not written by me.  It came into my inbox, meant to be a private ramble between friends, but I begged the author to let me share it with you.  Permission was granted, with the caveat that the author remain anonymous.  These kind of mullings are not exactly smiled upon in many conservative Christian circles.  I found the contents of the email to be too good to leave sitting in my poor neglected inbox.  Know that this letter is by no means an essay, but written more in the spirit of thoughtful wondering about what our faith is supposed to look like in our world. I hope you find these ponderings as muse-worthy as I have].

The Letter

I’ve been really thinking about what a friend of mine had to say about proximity and how it shapes us.  Here’s a quote:

“ We know that “bad company corrupts good behavior,” which of course can just as easily be said for the Pharisee as the atheist—but still, it can’t be good to become so comfortable with sin that we live compromised lives, nor can it be good to be so far removed from evil that we feel we are immune to it or somehow better than those in more unfortunate circumstances.”

Yes, this is the crux of it:  how to live in the world and not be OF the world.  The thing that has been running around my head:  what is compromise?   I can remember when I thought my only interaction with the world was supposed to be “witnessing.”  When I was a kid I read some biography of D.L. Moody and got it into my head that I never wanted to have a conversation with an unbeliever without preaching to him/her.   That went over well.     And back in those days, I would have thought friendship with a gay neighbor – and by this I mean talking in the yard, car-pooling, letting the kids play together, taking food when someone’s sick – was compromise.   Unless i was actively and verbally letting them know they were in sin and needed Christ, I was basically becoming like Lot and his ridiculous family – in danger of fire and brimstone.

What is compromise to me now?   Hmmm…..that’s a lot harder.   Refusing to share the gospel when the time and the relationship are right?  Not acknowledging – in my heart and to others if that is necessary – the sin of “active” homosexuality?   Becoming a lesbian myself?    All of those things seem like compromise….but living side by side with the world, seeking the same justice for every person (honoring the imago dei in each human) and more than that:  serving the world in love and kindness…those don’t seem to be compromises to me.  One home-schooling friend of mine recently said to me,

“I think (and could be very, very misled) that same-sex couples have every right to the “ability to teach school children.”

It is a public school system, and their children attend the system, and thus, I deeply appreciate their desire to have their lifestyle taught as acceptable, normal.

I don’t see this as a “fierce agenda.”

Ah…agendas.  I never know what people mean by that word.  Growing up, I thought there was a group of evil people – filled with Satan  – who made it their life’s work to subvert christianity and plant seeds of evolution and death everywhere.  I imagined a wicked mastermind and a written plan of slow, but steady takeover of our minds.  “First, we get everyone to doubt the existence of God….then we tell them the earth is 6 billion years old….next, we’ll convince them noah’s ark is just a myth….”  with evil laughing and rubbing of hands included.    

Of course we all have agendas to promote.  Our kids eat and breathe the doctrine of capitalism, free markets and consumerism.  I’m not sure there’s an organized group pushing that at them…just that the majority of north americans believe in it and we set up our countries to pursue it and thus our kids are shaped by it.  ( I actually find capitalism – in my limited understanding – to be contrary to the Biblical model for finances.  Not a sin, per se, just not the ideal model.   Interesting that American Christians aren’t outraged by the sin of usury.  Oh yeah, most of us participate freely in that one….)

Anyway, I kind of agree with my friend.  A public school should be representative of the whole public – and like it or not, there are gay families everywhere.  I never had a problem with alternate descripitions of “family” – in the sense of describing how people actually live.  Even in an ideal christian community you are going to have families made up of all types and I think it’s fine to validate the home situations of children. 

One thing iIm seeing in the comment thread is that there is some confusion on who is supposed to be “other” in this world.  It seems like people have forgotten that WE are to be strangers and aliens…a peculiar people, set apart, lights shining on a hill.   The unfortunate part of the myth of a “christian nation” is that we get confused about how we are supposed to fit into the whole thing.   We’re not used to being the minority voice (though they would claim they are a persecuted and misunderstood minority – the whole liberal media, etc.)  and we certainly don’t want to give equal time to the other voices out there.  

I don’t know, I always think about my role here as a missionary.  Once you take the questions out of the context of your own culture it gets easier to see the answers, I think.   How would I act in a Hindu nation?  A Muslim one?   Would I be picketing and screaming and demanding they change their laws to reflect my minority Christian values? 

Or would I go about living my life quietly according to the principles of God’s word?  Just modeling the truth:  this is what marriage looks like in God’s kingdom, this is what love looks like, this is what justice looks like….until people begin to examine their own individual lives in the light of Christ. 

And the question one friend of mine poses about keeping ourselves separate yet being close enough to love is so important.  I think this is our biggest problem in the church.  We use the law to maintain order and uphold standards.  Jesus used grace to do the same thing.  In Jesus we see this beautiful tension:  an invisible authority that gives no place to sin and upholds righteousness in team with a shocking lack of legalism and requirement. 

We talked about this before, I think, that the church needs to be a hospital – not an art gallery.  We are working to eradicate cancer and aids and fix broken bones….but the whole building is full of sickness – some of it longterm, some of it easily mended.   We should be saying to the world:  come in, come rest.  Lie here and I will bring you food and make sure you are warm and we’ll do what is necessary to get you healed up and whole. 

Instead, our churches try to be art galleries:  full of beautiful paintings and a few security guards.  “Make sure you’re quiet and don’t come in without a tie.”

If we were a safe place to get healed, we wouldn’t have to be separate from the people God asks us to love.  Our kids would know gay couples because they would be in our churches alongside us.   (and I suspect… there are gay people in all our lives – they just don’t talk about it and they sure aren’t going to hold seige to our churches.) 

Perhaps there is no more vivid mark of an UNHEALTHY church than that there are no embarrassing sinners in our pews.  Seems to me, Jesus was dripping with prostitutes and tax collectors while He was here.

I can only think that our churches have a form of godliness, but deny its power.   True godliness – of the kind Jesus possesses -  must have an awesome attraction and power to keep us from falling into compromise and sin. 

And here’s a thought:  if we isolate ourselves from the sickness of sin, we forget after awhile what we’ve been saved from and how precious is the life He’s given.  If we surround our children with only the light…how will they ever know what “darkness” means?  Why should they fear it?  Why should they avoid it? 

But if they walk the halls of the hospital, tending to the wounded and watching love in action…who would choose cancer over the chance to be a nurse?  Who would want to be stuck in a wheelchair when you could be running down the hall with medicine and a cup of water?

I think, in a home where Christ dwells, proximity to the world breeds love for the world – not necessarily compromise and complacency.

I don’t think, however, that we need to move into cities and go chase “sinners.”    I think God has placed us uniquely where He wants His light to shine – and whomever we meet on the paths we each travel are the ones God sent to us to love.   I’m apparently called to love red-neck, racist republican baptists and a few mormons.  *sigh*  The liberals were easier.