They want Christ, not Christians
“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”- Mahatma Gandhi
Going back to Seminary produces mixed feelings in me. Seminary has been so crucial to my spiritual growth this past year, but the school that I study at is also very conservative. I have to look a certain way (even in the gym there is a dress code), think a certain way (premillennial dispensational), and hold certain political/social views (usually conservative republican). Basically I have to toe the party line and keep the status quo. This is not a necessarily bad thing, it’s a part of being in a community. In the church the “we” is bigger than the “me.” This means that I have to be extra careful in the way I dress, speak, write, blog, etc. Often I have to remain silent on topics that mean so much to me. I have to be careful with the discussions I have with my classmates, I don’t want to pick fights. My prayer is to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. (Please do not misunderstand, I love my school, but I don’t agree with everything. In this post, my goal is not cynicism, but authenticity).
Recently I was talking to a friend who four years ago had been accepted to my school. She was given a free ride and also the option of living off of campus (something that usually never happens,) but she refused. As we were talking, the reason why she refused unraveled. As I shared my love for my school, community and professors, my words resonated with her when I began to talk about the rigidity. It was because of the school’s rigidity, ultimately, that she decided not to study there (I think at that time dancing and any alcohol whatsoever was prohibited, even for professors. I’m not sure if it’s still prohibited).
After that conversation I was riding my bike contemplating our words and Gandhi’s idea of “loving Christ, but not Christians.” And I realized that Christians can come across as nitpicky and ultra-sensitive. Their love can be perceived as conditional because it is only given if you dress, think, vote or write like them. I think this might be one of the reasons why Gandhi felt the way he did toward Christians. (Actually when he was in South Africa he did meet Christians, but he was turned off by their exclusivity. Gandhi was greatly influenced by Christ and he lived out Christ’s words through nonviolence, but he did not like Christians, pretty ironic).
And yet just because a majority of Christians are judgmental, does not mean all Christians are. For example, if Bob judges Jane for the way she dresses and Bob is a Christian, does that mean that all Christians will judge women based on dress code? (Hopefully not). The problem, however, isn’t Christ, but Bob; the problem isn’t the message, but the messenger. People see Christians and think Christianity is hogwash that creates judgmental bigots and two-faced hypocrites. But that is not true, Jesus Christ embraced all types of people and he sternly rebuked hypocrisy. He taught us to love our enemies, that leaders must serve and that forgiveness is crucial. If people knew the beauty of Christ, it would rock their world. Jesus is the embodiment of both grace and truth and God is love.
The problem is not Christ, the problem is me, the person, the interpreter, the communicator. We often have screwed up pictures of the Bible, gospel, God and the church. Then we impose our personal interpretations on those around us. This causes excruciating pain and broken relationships, which fly in the face of the greatest commandment Jesus gave us in Matthew 22:36-40,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Do Gandhi’s words resonate with you? Have you been hurt by Christians? What has your experience with Christians been like?
Here’s a tiny bit more information on why Gandhi was turned off by Christians.
“Did you know that early on in his life, Ghandhi tried going to church? He was a young man, practicing law in South Africa, and had been reading the New Testament. Ghandi found Jesus captivating and was drawn to the Gospel, so he decided to go to a church. But the church stopped him at the door. They pointed out that he was a Kaffir, and told him that there was no room for Kaffirs in this church, and that if he didn’t leave that he would be escorted out.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/08/19/gandhi-the-church-and-the-kingdom-by-jonathan-storment/
Sad and sick but not surprising. Joe, I think that’s not the correct link.
Now it’s correct
Wow your post brought back some personal traumatic memories Joe Schafer. I can’t believe that so-called Christians are still committing the same mistakes Ghandhi experienced.
I remember I was invited to my first Bible study around 10-12 years ago by a Korean UBF “missionary”… When I stepped into the UBF center I realized I was early for my bible study so I sat and waited – I was met by 2 female Korean missionary (one was distressed that a non-Korean was in the center) and she rudely asked me what I thought I was doing inside her Korean church. The other so-called missionary asked if I was white (American) “sheep”.
The first lady then forcibly told me to leave because no one would do bible study with me.
Just then, the so-called missionary who I had originally scheduled my Bible study arrived. He immediately caught on – and quickly seated me in a room. He dismissed everything that was said as a test of “faithfulness” to see if I would stay and hear the Word of God.
Weird weird weird… but I feel I am worse or responsible since I withstood all of the UBF abuse and failed to realize that UBF is a very dangerous cult.
Shocking, sad and sick, but unfortunately not surprising, cmdiaz.
It seems that some missionaries were NEVER trained (while wanting to train others!). They leave their homeland with an ambition to “conquer,” subdue and rule over, but NOT to humble themselves to learn and embrace a foreign culture. It is simply cultural imperialism and ethnic superiority, both of which have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Jesus.
Hi MJ, thanks for sharing again. I think you’ve hit the layer of struggle that many of us have faced- the evangelicalism layer. There is a large number of Christians who decided to become “formerly fundie” because of the very issues you point out. The outlaw preachers group I found is filled with many such people, especially former evangelical pastors.
One the other hand, I have a gay friend who actually went through the entire program and graduated at one of the most conservative evangelical schools in the US. Evangelicalism has deeply rooted problems to address. But unlike UBFism, evangelicalism does have the Christian gospel at its core. So evangelicalism can be reformed, but UBFism should be rejected.
Just two reactions to your article, MJ:
“Basically I have to toe the party line and keep the status quo. This is not a necessarily bad thing, it’s a part of being in a community. In the church the “we” is bigger than the “me.” This means that I have to be extra careful in the way I dress, speak, write, blog, etc.”
> Unless you are divergent :) Divergents are not the problem, we are the solution!
“People see Christians and think Christianity is hogwash that creates judgmental bigots and two-faced hypocrites.”
> If Christianity produces judgmental bigots and hypocrites, it is hogwash, and in deep need of reform. Such hypocrisy is the one thing that got Jesus’ goat. It is unacceptable and must be called out. It is a false gospel that says “I’m a hypocrite but Jesus loves me anyway and allows me to be a hypocrite.” Sure it is true that we all have a certain amount of hypocrisy. But I will not subscribe to any faith that tolerates hypocrisy.
MJ, thanks for this article.
Along with Brian, I was confused by this line:
“Basically I have to toe the party line and keep the status quo. This is not a necessarily bad thing, it’s a part of being in a community. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/22/they-want-christ-not-christians/#comment-19066
If you continually have to toe the party line and keep silent about many issues that you care about, then this indicates that you are not in a true community.
Sociologists have a term for this. They call it pseudo-community.
(The term was popularized by M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled.)
Pseudo-community is a primitive stage where a group identifies itself by a narrow set of shared beliefs and values and cannot accept individual differences. Conflicts feel so threatening to the group that everyone must continually censor themselves to avoid arguments. At a superficial level, members of a pseudo-community may seem happy and peaceful. But that harmony is a mask. Behind the mask lies fear, suspicion, anxiety and judgmentalism that prevents people from connecting and loving one another as they really are.
To transition from pseudo-community to authentic community, a group will have to go through periods of conflict and chaos. Because this is so frightening, many groups get stuck in that primitive stage.
Here is a great quote from Jean Vanier about this:
“Scott Peck talks of pseudo-communities. These are where people pretend to live community. Everybody is polite and obeys the rules and regulations. They speak in platitudes and generalities. But underlying it all is an immense fear of conflict, a fear of letting out the monsters. If people start truly to listen to each other and to get involved, speaking from their guts, their anger and fears may rise up and they might start hitting each other over the head with frying pans. There are so many pent-up emotions contained in their hearts that if these were to start surfacing, God knows what might happen! It would be chaos. But from that chaos, healing could come. . . They discover that they have all been living in a state of falsehood. And it is then that the miracle of community can happen!”
― Jean Vanier, Community And Growth
A nice webpage with a concise description of how true communities form.
http://atlc.org/members/resources/four_stages_community.html
Blogged this classic quote last year: http://westloop-church.blogspot.de/2014/05/a-pseudo-community-avoids-messes.html
Wow, the term “pseudo-community” is a good way to describe UBF. Everything summed up in one word.
One shepherdess who was married and divorced in UBF because she wanted to leave UBF described it a bit harsher, but I guess it’s the same point: “There is no love in UBF.”
While inside, you think (or you want to think) that there is love in UBF, even more love than outside, but deep down you already feel that all the love is conditional and not real, and once you start to disobey or even criticize openly, the veneer drops and you see that there was never love and real friendship in the first place – it was all delusion, all contrived and fake, only used as a means to serve the one goal of spreading UBFism.
I remember another shepherdess who married a UBF member against the will of the leader. Before, she was the favorite and poster child of our chapter because she had many sheep, but after that, she fell out of favor. Nobody of her former “friends” from UBF except me and my wife attended her wedding, even though she had invited everybody. I remember it so well because we made her wedding cake.
But this phenomena of “pseudo-community” is not characteristic of only UBF or even just Christians. We see it in academia, when professors lose tenure for voicing opinions that don’t toe the university’s party line. Parents disown their children for forsaking the religion/career choice/spouse choice of their parents. Wars break out. It stems from a conditional love. Dr. B once blogged about the “shape up or ship out” mentality. It is so prevelant. Authentic community doesn’t exist on this side of heaven, or does it?
But this phenomena of “pseudo-community” is not characteristic of only UBF or even just Christians. We see it in academia, when professors lose tenure for voicing opinions that don’t toe the university’s party line. Parents disown their children for forsaking the religion/career choice/spouse choice of their parents. Wars break out. It stems from a conditional love. Dr. B once blogged about the “shape up or ship out” mentality. It is so prevalent. Authentic community doesn’t exist on this side of heaven, or does it?
Yes, authentic Christian community does exist this side of heaven. It takes hard work, understanding, commitment and intentionality. Just as it is possible to have a good marriage and a good relationship with your children. There are many good examples of authentic Christian community. The L’Arche communities founded by Jean Vanier are a prime example. The Focolare communities are another. Many people experienced deep fellowship at L’Abri. This is why I look forward to our discussion of A Fellowship of Differents.
fyi, I’m getting around to starting the series of blog posts on A Fellowship of Differents. Actually, I’ve already completed an article on the first chapter. But I’m working on an intro article inspired by some of the ideas in Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who is There.
Looking forward to it.
This seems relevant to MJ’s article. Sociologists list the reasons why some highly committed church members are deciding they are done with church.
* They wanted community.. .and got judgment.
* They wanted to affect the life of the church.. .and got bureaucracy.
* They wanted conversation.. .and got doctrine.
* They wanted meaningful engagement with the world… and got moral prescription.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/08/25/re-engaging-the-de-churched-four-strategies/
That 4-point list does describe the experience that some of us have had with American evangelicalism. But it doesn’t explain why so many highly committed people decided they were done with UBF. That list is more like this.
* They wanted to understand the gospel… and were told to go and preach the gospel.
* They wanted to understand why their relationships were so bad and getting worse… and were told to go back to the Bible.
* They wanted to understand why the atmosphere felt so dead… and were told to invite more people to double the ministry.
* They wanted to actually think about the meaning Scripture… and were told to put aside their own ideas and just believe.
* They wanted leaders to just be honest and admit that lots of abusive things have happened and do happen in UBF… and were met with silence.
* They wanted friends… and got coworkers.
* They wanted to stop the insanity of doing the same thing over again at every conference year after year… and the result was more of the same.
* They brought serious problems to the attention of leaders in a gentle and respectful manner… and were told “your tone is not right and “you have overstepped your authority.”
+1
What I wanted was to be a missionary, I was told I was not good enough, but we could go sit by ourselves in the most dangerous city in America after 6 months of driving training.
I thought I had joined a Christian missionary-sending organization, what I got was a Buddhism-induced, hyper-aesthetic pseudo-fellowship which covered my identity with a cultic Shepherd X mask just so that their Korean children can take over the leadership of the group.
hyper-ascetic?
Ah yes, my bad :) ascetic, yes. Perhaps it could be said we were also all concerned with beauty…but ascetic is what I meant “characterized by or suggesting the practice of severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.”
“Perhaps it could be said we were also all concerned with beauty – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/22/they-want-christ-not-christians/#comment-19082
Not really.
When UBF bought the church building on Artesian Ave. in Chicago, one of the first things that they did — on direct order from SL — was to take hammers and smash all the stained glass windows. SL wanted it to look like a “Bible center” not a church. People in the neighborhood were shocked and upset. (This is the kind of thing that the Taliban did.) OK, stained glass windows might not be your thing. But why not take them down carefully and preserve them in recognition of their beauty and to show respect for the hard work, sacrifice and faith those who built them?
That incident captures in a nutshell the attitude of SL and the UBF missionaries toward their Christian host community.
Good point. In Toledo we didn’t need to smash stained glass. We bought a factory, which had just the look we wanted for a holy army.
But then in 2010, much of that building was torn down and a new near-million dollar building was built. The point was to look so beautiful for the glory of God. JJ came and lectured us to fill this beautiful house! We were in awe of the beautiful snow we could falling during worship services, outside the high ceiling window.
But this rather grand building was just holy paint on a mound of stench. After declaring such a glorious, united work of God to build this building, half the leaders resigned.
“Authentic community doesn’t exist on this side of heaven, or does it?” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/22/they-want-christ-not-christians/#comment-19077
I concur with Joe. Authentic community is possible. It is however messy and awkward at first, but entirely possible and oh so good. Perfect community and utopian community and exclusive community is not possible to sustain, however and often only exists in our wishdream.
I experienced authentic community many times. We had authentic community numerous times in my first few years at ubf, especially just after I joined. But every time authentic community broke out, the missionaries would squash it, interfering until we conformed to UBFism. The three great enemies of UBFism (no not Ben/Joe/Brian :) are the Holy Spirit, the gospel, and friendship.
I also experience genuine community now in my family. We are learning to be together. When we were a house church, my wife and I lived as business partners with benefits. We lived as single college students. And we did not form a healthy community at home. We are trying now.
If there is any place to start to bring about actual healthy change at ubf, it would be to stop the arranged marriages and allow authentic community at home. In essence, let people be family-centered!
Authentic community has happened in UBF but…
As mentioned often by many on ubfriends, authoritarianism has reared its protrusive ugly head and has inadvertently squashed some organically developing relationships among members, usually among “sheep” and/or native leaders, and perhaps less so among missionaries, in my opinion.
Sadly, some older missionaries do not trust native leaders (or younger missionaries who are critical thinkers) for independent leadership or creative initiative. There are numerous reasons for this, among them Confucianism, authoritarianism, and so-called “spiritual order” with the (older) missionary invariably having the final say, etc, because in their mind they have “more experience” and tenure and seniority and the “highest” positions of leadership.
Until this is seriously addressed in HOT conversations and ongoing equitable dialogue and discussions, I do not think that authentic community will be forthcoming any time soon.
I’ve witnessed this on many occasions: UBF members start to open up and get honest with one another. Relationships start to form, direct friendships unmediated by UBFism. Leaders see this,
feel threatened by it, and intentionally put a stop to it.
That practice goes back to SL. If he saw two chapter directors talking to each other, acting like friends rather than coworkers, he would suspect that they might be plotting against him. Then he would send someone (often Little Sarah) to break up the conversation. He wanted all the relationships in UBF to be mediated by him.
And I’ve seen other leaders follow his example. I’ve gotten email messages from the director of Washington UBF ordering me not to contact anyone in his chapter (even people I’d known for 25 years); he demanded that all correspondence go through him.
In addition to being outrageous, that kind of behavior makes a (pseudo) community very weak. It guarantees that interpersonal relationships will be superficial.
In fact, a lot of the “training” that SL dished out was designed to pit aspiring leaders against one another. For example, boxing matches to select conference messengers. (I never witnessed that, but I heard he did it in Korea.) I can give many examples that I did see firsthand.
SL would deliberately create situations where members were in competition. Then he would rebuke them for being competitive.
So a dominant ethic seemed to be one-upmanship, \sarcasmfont which is absolutely great for authentic community building \sarcasmfont. Whereas if an ethic of love was the norm, then any kind of competition (out-loving one another?) would seem odd and out of place.
I cannot find any examples in the New Testament where Jesus deliberately put his disciples in competition. Ditto for Paul. But it was a mainstay of UBF discipleship training. For example: weighing the fellowship leaders’ Bible study material at the end of the year to see whose was the heaviest. And the charts on the wall for each fellowship, showing the numbers of 1:1 and SWS attendance and world mission offerings.
The charts have been down for some years now. But I remember when I first came and they were there. “So and so had twenty one-to-ones last week; he/she most be so spiritual!”. Also, I was giving offering consistently on Sunday, but didn’t bother to label my offerings. My roommate saw that my name was not on the tithing chart after some months and took it upon themself to lecture me from Malachi about the blessing bought forth from tithing. All I could think was, “man, I would rather have someone repeatedly stab me in the ears than listen to this.”
“For example: weighing the fellowship leaders’ Bible study material at the end of the year to see whose was the heaviest.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/22/they-want-christ-not-christians/#comment-19091
Oh man… SO VERY MANY books needs to be written… We measured our binders by thickness and by quantity of binders, not by weight :)
So many more stories need to be exposed…
– checking shepherd’s underwear for skid marks
– getting perms to look more spiritual
– eyelid surgery for Koreans
– late night speaking in tongues sessions
– having bible study with stuffed animals
– taking out loans to make special offerings
– falsified PhD journal publishing
My new book is too kind…
For several decades I used to teach that unthankfulness is the root of sin based on Rom 1:21. I still think so.
But over the last few years, with support from the recent comments, I would restate what the root of sin is: THE ROOT OF SIN IS THE NEED TO BE IN CONTROL.
Precisely why I chose the title “Rest Unleashed” for my first book. From the moment I decided to wear an orange shirt to that Easter conference and write an honest conference report, I had freedom in mind. I want to be free from the control, free from the constraint. I don’t intend to destroy ubf, I intend to unleash the rest that comes from the gospel, and see the gospel spread like wildfire.
Thanks MJ for this article. Yes I agree with Joe that an authentic community can exist on this side of heaven but it is a painful process. Painful because it is unpredictable. We don’t know how another person will response if we are honest with them. But it is a worth the risk. I also agree with Ben that the root of sin is the need to be in control. I did that most of my shepherd life and I felt sick to my stomach. I worried about who will come on Sunday or Bible study or who our children and members will marry. But after planting our church and listening to our children and members, I let go and trusted in God and trusted our members and our children with the life decisions they make. I felt its not up to me but up to God. This Sunday we thought only 3 members will come to church John, myself and one brother because our sisters were visiting their parents in another town and other members were not in Kyiv. But then I started to get calls from old members who wanted to come. We even had one Russian family who met our sisters when they were serving in the East of Ukraine, come for a visit. The orphan boy we are helping came with his adopted mom. It was such a nice service. God always surprises us. I like what you said MJ, “If people knew the beauty of Christ, it would rock their world. Jesus is the embodiment of both grace and truth and God is love.” He is the head of the church. I must admit that I don’t like to read UBFriends because of negative comments about my church. But I learn from them. They must be heard and not be repeated and where a wrong was done it must corrected with a public apology and other compensation. That’s the only way as Christians we can have an authentic community. In a way we kinda have it here in UBFriends. Everything is out in the open and anyone can comment good or bad.
Hey Brian how can I change my portrait? I really don’t look like it.
Hi Maria! Thanks for sharing. You can change your icon after logging in.
1. There should be a “Howdy, Maria Peace” link in the upper right hand corner.
2. Hover your mouse over that and then click “Edit My Profile”.
3. Scroll down and upload a new picture.
Thanks Brian. Now its the real me.
Cool, much better!
“That’s the only way as Christians we can have an authentic community. In a way we kinda have it here in UBFriends. Everything is out in the open and anyone can comment good or bad.”
Hmmm…Mom, very interesting that you would consider an online blog an authentic community. But you do have a point, all view points are welcome here. And I really appreciate that. I abhor censorship of any type. Your comment reminds me of something I read today.
“In a democratic society, we do not practice the savage methods of an autocratic regime, but we find new and pernicious (bad) ways of expressing our prejudices. Education’s goal is to impart knowledge, and knowledge is not only heretical but unpredictable and often uncomfortable. One has to pause and imagine what it would mean to censor all that is uncomfortable from our textbooks. How, if you cannot face the past as it was, can you ever hope to teach history?”
Later the author compares knowledge to, “the bite of the forbidden fruit, with its promise of a different kind of power and freedom.”
One of my teachers mentioned how after his class, we were all empowered to become better heretics. Knowledge is dangerous; education is dangerous; it is unpredictable. It scares people. But it is authentic. I don’t want to be a cynic, but I want to be authentic.
Very good thoughts Maria, especially this: “I must admit that I don’t like to read UBFriends because of negative comments about my church. But I learn from them.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/22/they-want-christ-not-christians/#comment-19103
It is also painful for me as well. ubf was my church too. People are mistaken if they think I love using the words I use. But deconstructing our community belief system is a part of genuine community. What has happened here is indeed genuine community. Just because ubfriends is virtual does not mean it is not authentic.
One aspect of genuine fellowship that gets overlooked is the fact that genuine fellowship grows and changes and eventually dies. The reason the fellowship at ubf is often so fake or falls apart and crashes is because people are unwilling to let it die. At some point, you have to let go of the past. Yes I had wonderful fellowship at times at ubf. But if we cannot let it go, the community crashes and burns.
This virtual fellowship here at ubfriends has already died, at least once. Joe’s original vision and belief for this website, which I shared with him, died. We let go of our wishdream. At times this virtual community seemed dead. No one discussed anything. But as different people shared different thoughts, the community grew and changed.
At our local church, people freely come and go. No one freaks out if you are not present some Sunday. At ubf, you never leave, unless you are willing to experience the traumatic fellowship. Even after leaving on relatively good terms, former members report the clingy nature of their shepherds.
So yet another angle to see the ubf community from is this: people leave in a crisis situation every 8 to 10 years because the fellowship is static and intended to be permanent.