If the Church Were Christian...Most Evangelicals Would be Woke

One of my all-time favorite books is If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus.  Now I'm not in the business of selling books, but the link there will take you to a bookshop website which will allow you to choose an independently owned bookstore that might be your favorite, to help them stay in business and keep promoting freedom of conscience apart from corporate censorship.  It is an excellent book, and it's a book that Christians of all brands, and non-Christians, can read, understand and get the point.  

I picked it up in the bookstore of the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, while attending a three day conference there on the "emerging church."  The conference was a high point of what I consider to be a personal awakening of my own Christian faith, out of the restrictive, dogmatic, conservative Evangelicalism in which I was raised.  The main reason I registered for, and attended the conference was that Dr. Brian McLaren, the leading expert on emergent Christianity, was a featured speaker and seminar leader.  I had already read most of his books at that point, and so, browsing in the bookstore that carried titles and authors I never saw in conservative circles, my eyes fell on the title of Phillip Gulley's latest work at the time.  It has had a profound impact on my own theology and practice. 

So when a link from a post on Democratic Underground carried me to a July 9th feature article in the Washington Post, about Grant Myerholtz, who is pastor of Mt. Hebron Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia, his account of his ministry in the church as its pastor, and of the influence of a book, The Ragamuffin Gospel on his attitude and approach to ministry, I read with interest and resonated with the whole description of the church's approach to ministry in a small town in Georgia.  The contrast between Myerholtz' ministry and his congregation, and that of most of their fellow Baptists, not just in his town or county, but most everywhere else in the United States, provides one of the best ways to understand the difference between churches and ministry based on a clear interpretation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and institutional, denominational religion that has been infiltrated by culture and based on uneducated ignorance.  

OK, that might be kind of straighforward and frank, but that's the way I see it.  It was actually after earning degrees in a college and then one of two graduate school degrees in schools affiliated with the same Baptist denomination as this Georgia church that woke me up--and I use that word intentionally--to the realities of the stark differences between the cultural Christianity in which I had grown up, and the actual values and principles found in the record of the gospels in the New Testament.  What's transpired in that denomination, and in its affiliated colleges and universities, and its theological schools, since then has been a purge of professors who teach truth that doesn't support the superstition or literalist fundamentalism found in the churches, or that the colleges and universities with trustee boards visionary enough to see what was coming separated themselves from direct control of the denomination and preserved their academic and spiritual freedom.  

Click the link to this thread in Democratic Underground to get to the article in today's Post.  I don't have a way to give a link to get past the firewall.  It's well worth the time to read it.  

The sign outside Mt. Hebron Baptist Church reads, "The tired.  The poor.  And huddled masses.  Welcome home."  Inclusive is a dirty word these days among Christians who now let their politics dictate their theology and practice.  It's part of what they label as "woke" culture, and as far as they are concerned, all of that is sinful, whether it is the recognition of the need to eradicate systemic racism, or the fear that is worked up around pride week celebrations and drag queen shows, as if those who are afraid of them have no control over their own life.  But Mt. Hebron's inclusiveness, open and inviting, is leading people, described by The Ragamuffin Gospel as "bedraggled, beat up and burnt out, to find refuge in the church, which is exactly what Jesus intended to happen.  And at this church, they do not get beaten up again in the place where they have come to seek refuge. 

That's genuine Christianity.  

The fact of the matter is that we are all ragamuffins, when it comes to our faith, and no one approaches God wearing a mantle of their own self-righteousness.  And because that's the way it is, there's no excuse for the judgmental arrogance which some people who call themselves Christians approach those that they consider to be inferior because, in their opinion, they don't measure up to their standard of perfection.  Judging someone else isn't a right that anyone has been given, and all of those values, morals and standards in the Bible are written to be self-acknowledged and applied, not to see if someone else measures up to them.  Pastor Myerholtz and his congregation have apparently figured out how to gather together as the church, a fellowship of believers in Jesus Christ, and create a refuge for ragamuffins.

In Gulley's book, If the Church Were Christian, each chapter title lays out one of the principles he discusses, and for which he provides examples, each one based on a specific point of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and supported by a reference from one of Jesus' direct quotes.  That makes his perspective difficult to argue against, something I discovered when I gave the book to a friend of mine who leans to the far right in his approach to being a minister.  He focuses on the following distinctives: 

If the church were Christian...

...Jesus would be a model for living rather than an object of worship. 

...Affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness. 

...Reconciliation would be valued over judgment.  

...Gracious behavior would be more important than right belief. 

...Inviting questions would be more important than supplying answers. 

...Encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity. 

...Peace would be more important than power. 

...Then it would be less preoccupied with sexual sin, and more concerned about love. 

---Saving the earth would be more important than saving our souls.  

 As I read the piece about Mt. Hebron and its pastor, I thought about some of these things.  My guess is that they don't have it all right, they recognize that they don't and that's why they are attracting the kind of people that they do.  Their potential, even in a very politically red county, is unlimited.  As Gulley says in the introduction, "Just because someone holds a high office in the church, or preaches on the television, or writes books, doesn't mean they represent the entire Christian faith.  No one person can give the Christian perspective."  

They will draw the criticism and the ire of those Christians around them who do not understand their approach, and are unable to grasp the concept of being a ragamuffin, even though from a spiritual perspective, so are they.  But that criticism is not the standard by which they practice their faith. They are of the gospel, and they are reaching out to become the church that is Christian.  While they are a refuge for ragamuffins, they are also an inspiration to others of us who get it.