Every now and then, culture and faith collide in such a way that it gives the church an opportunity to really stand out and show how following Jesus makes us different. Sometimes we step up to the plate and knock it out of the park, and sometimes we strike out swinging.
Over the last week, I’m afraid we haven’t even swung.
Two events happened almost simultaneously that got a lot of media attention. In a span of about 24 hours, Dan Haseltine – the lead singer for the Christian band, Jars of Clay – made some unexpected comments about same-sex marriage and the Bible, and Donald Sterling – the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers (and possibly the most hated owner of all time) – made some racist comments to his girlfriend that she made sure everyone heard.
And then, the world blew up.
Granted, it probably should have, because much of what was said was like a bomb. It’s not my position that Donald Sterling said anything privately that he hasn’t been known for publicly. His racist and prejudicial beliefs have been pretty well documented over the years. And as far as the comments by Haseltine about same-sex marriages and the authority of Scripture? Well, when the prominent front man for a respected Christian band hints at not caring what the Bible says, that’s as close to Twitter napalm as you’re gonna get.
What really got my attention wasn’t so much what was said (even though it raised some eyebrows), but what happened after what was said. From professional media to bloggers in the basement, people grabbed the keys, fired up the busses and proceeded to throw Don and Dan under them. And before you start to do the same to me, let me say one more time: I’m not advocating that they shouldn’t be under the bus, but consider for a moment the following statement.
In a drive-by culture, assassination is valued more highly than conversation.
Let me take a minute and unpack that sentence, and then let me tell you why I think it matters.
First, our culture has grown increasingly into what I call a “drive-by” culture. I’m not speaking about guns and drug thugs, but of talking heads and the way we’ve learned to handle conflict. There was a day when people could disagree and actually talk about it, but those days are quickly going the way of the dinosaur. Now it’s a roomful of “experts” spouting opinions and debating with no resolution. It’s a 140-character missile launch of explosives but no follow-up, a comment on Facebook or a blog without sticking around to answer reasonable arguments to the contrary.
In short, it’s immature people making points when mature people would offer thoughts. A drive-by culture offers sound bites that bite. And trust me, it’s an epidemic that isn’t contained to your TV. People you love and care for – friends, family, coworkers – routinely spout venom and then shrink away before anyone can call them on it.
And that’s why, in their minds, assassination is so much better than conversation. Assassination kills. It ends the matter and allows the person with the biggest gun or the last shot to escape without any accountability. The basement blogger can launch social grenades from a distance and never have to get his hands dirty. But conversation? That’s a lot tougher, because conversations require grace, and patience, and a willingness to kill the pride that makes us want to be right.
Not surprisingly, that last sentence sounds a lot like God, doesn’t it? Of course, God doesn’t have pride like we do, but Jesus proved that God isn’t content to stand off like a snob and simply launch a tirade against us. In fact, the Bible paints the picture of a God who COULD have assassinated us, maybe even SHOULD have, but instead CHOOSES to have a conversation with us about our sin.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
I love that and hate that all at the same time. I love the fact that God chose to “reason” with me about my sin when He could have just thrown me under the bus, but I hate the fact that His willingness to do so now becomes a reasonable expectation of me towards others, and that’s where I feel that the church has struck out looking when she had the chance to get on base.
I’m not surprised at the backlash toward Sterling. In fact, I expected nothing less. I am not a follower of Christ who expects anybody who isn’t following Christ to act as if he or she is. But I don’t have the option of assassinating the man, because, in His mercy, God sent Jesus to talk with me when He could have kept His distance and just condemned me. “To whom much is given, much is required.” (Luke 12:48)
What we learned with Donald Sterling is that the world handles hard things with drive-bys and assassinations. What we SHOULD have learned with Dan Haseltine is that the church handles hard things differently.
But we didn’t.
Almost before you could say “heretic,” the web was filled with posts from fellow believers (I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt) about how the frontman from Jars of Clay had embraced gay marriage and kissed evangelical Christianity good-bye. Admittedly, when I first read the tweets, I thought about posting, too, but decided to wait, thankfully. Within a day, Haseltine had posted on his own blog clarifying a lot of what he had said and giving the context behind it. Of course, when I went back to see how many of the bus drivers from earlier had posted updates with this new information, I found none (in the days since, there have been some updates).
Instead, I found page after page of Google results littered with the casings from the smoking guns held by Christian assassins who were too quick to shoot and too slow to reason. Sadly, that makes the church a little too much like the world and little too less like the God who calls us to reason, consider, and talk together about hard things.
Conversations don’t ignore the facts, and they don’t bypass consequences. In fact, over the next 2 verses of Isaiah 1, God included in the conversation the positive and negative consequences that await us when the talking is over and the doing begins. What conversations do accomplish is the opening of a heart, a mind and a life to the possibility of redemption. They allow the church to point those deserving the worst to a Savior who became the worst in their place.
So could we please, as Christ followers in a drive-by world, put down our guns and pick up the cross, and live in such a way that we talk about Jesus, point people to Jesus, and always remember the grace of Jesus that saved us when He had every right to gun us down?
That is a conversation worth having.
