Way back in February, Michael Gungor (the main dude behind the award-winning band with his last name) hopped on his blog and wrote a post called “What Do We Believe?” It’s long and heady and filled with big words, but it’s worth the time it’ll take you to work through it. I’m not totally sure why it’s taken so long for the church world to realize he wrote it (the church world does seem to be a bit slow, yes?), but over the last few days some prominent publications have begun to respond to what Gungor wrote, and that means that today could very well be the day the church kills him.
Because we are so very good at killing people who step outside the lines.
I thought about that this morning while I was running, because sometimes, no matter how hard I try not to, I cross over the line that divides what should be on the road and what shouldn’t be on the road. Runners fall into the second category anytime a vehicle is approaching, and if you don’t know that, I’d recommend that you not take up running.
It’s always interesting for me to see what drivers do when they approach me and I’m on the wrong side of the line. Sometimes they smile, sometimes they wave. Some will move a bit into the other lane, and some will even stop. Sometimes they look surprised. Some are chill. Some are mad. Some slow. Some rev the engine as they pass me.
Lots of different reactions, but from my perspective as a runner, I’ve narrowed them down into 2 fairly broad groups:
1. People I wave to, and
2. People I want to flip the bird to.
I know that the second one isn’t really a very Christian thing to write, but I’m not gonna try to be anything less than honest here. I don’t actually tell them they’re number one, but I do feel like it, and the difference between my reactions to drivers has everything to do with one very simple question:
Did they give me space?
The people who I find myself waving to are the drivers who see me over the line and, before they’re even close to where I am, have already pulled their cars over into the other lane until they pass me. You do that, and you’ll get a smile, a wave, or a “you’re the man” finger point as you go around me. I love drivers that give me margin!
But there are other drivers out there who see me on the wrong side of that white line – even by mere inches – and grip the wheel tighter and drive the car straighter just to prove that I’m in THEIR space. They look mad as they go by, and they refuse to give an inch. It’s as if they feel the need to teach me a lesson for crossing that line, and they do. I learn that they’re jerks, even though they’re trying to teach me where to run.
Now, let’s take the running metaphor back to Gungor.
When he sat down at his computer and posted to his blog back in February, what really happened? Did a portal open up under his desk that would mark the beginning of a slow descent into hell? No. But he definitely crossed a line, and the question now is: what kind of driver will we be as we approach him?
Never has there been an organization that moved more quickly to kill its own than the church.
Never has there been an organization that moved more quickly to kill its own than the church. Today, all over the blogosphere, people will write bad things about Michael Gungor because he expressed doubts, questions and opinions that were out of place and over the line. They will grip the wheel a little tighter and they will drive a little straighter, and they will – in a way that only elitist church members can – teach him a lesson for crossing the line.
This is why “judgmental” and “critical” are some of the top words used by unbelievers to describe the church, and this is an opportunity to prove them wrong, a time when we can look at one of our own and give him some room to – in the words of another honest writer – “work out [his] salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).
It’s the chance to give him the margin he may need in order to continue running in the right overall direction. We could – and many will – judge him on a moment, but put yourself in his (running) shoes and ask yourself if you’d like to be judged on every statement you’ve ever made that was over the line at the time but you later worked through? Of course you wouldn’t, and so it is with Gungor.
I won’t be the guy who says it doesn’t matter whether or not Gungor literally believes the Bible. I think it does. I think it matters that there was a man named Adam and a woman named Eve in a garden named Eden. I think it matters that there was an actual flood and that a man named Lot had a wife who turned into a pillar of salt. I don’t think it’s enough to try to find the meaning in a make-believe story about a bush that burned but never burned up. I don’t believe these things because a fundamentalist teacher told me to, but because Jesus taught us the truth about Himself and His kingdom using these events as examples (Luke 11:51 and Mark 12:26 are some places where He did).
I believe these things actually happened, and I think that when we don’t, we’ve crossed a line that could lead us – and those whom we influence – into dangerous roads filled with an enemy who is bent on running us down. Because of that, we have a responsibility to warn people like Gungor who may have started in a direction that could end badly.
But run him over to prove we’re right? That’s not grace.
Grace gives space, and if the church will do that today, there will be more “over the line” runners to give grace to tomorrow.
