An Open Letter to the World

Sometimes, an apology is the only, albeit difficult solution. That being said, I am sorry, truly and deeply sorry.

I'm sorry that we've allowed stereotypes to shape our views in ways we always said we wouldn't. I'm sorry we have become a people synonymous with "judgmental," with "hypocritical," with "hateful."

I'm sorry that we've embraced a tainted culture and that our congregations distort scripture under the guidance of flawed leaders. I'm sorry that we have become an inward-focused, sycophantic clique under those very same leaders who are more concerned with their social status than the well-being of their fellow man.

I'm sorry that we don't practice what we preach, that we knowingly go against our own doctrine. I'm sorry that we've discounted and undermined the message of our Savior to the point where no one wants it anymore, to where you don't want it anymore. I'm sorry that we've allowed the unthinkable to happen; we've allowed a life-giving Hope to become something undesirable to those who need it most.

I'm not going to make excuses for our actions or lean against the cosmic crutch of "human nature" to absolve our people of the guilt we should feel for our actions. If darkness is the absence of light, then we have succumbed to that void, embraced its chill, and fallen silent and still to its power. The light that should shine through us has been dimmed and dulled to a grain-sized glimmer of a reflection of a spark beneath layers of inexcusable behavior.

We have created a religious autocracy to replace our community of prayer, and in doing so, we've dripped poison into the remedy we were created to be. Worse, we've put the poison in an attractive glass, filled it to the brim, and tipped it against the lips of your children, our children, our future.

We're more focused on trying to make sin a quantifiable equation to be multiplied and added and ranked than we are introducing people to the One who takes sin away, the eternal minus sign. We've become sin-seeking missiles trained on sexuality and abortion and whatever hot button the conservative agenda is currently pushing. We're trained to obliterate our targets rather than to love them.

We've perpetuated a sickness in the Middle East with the wrongful damnation of a people as a whole rather than the radicals that besmirch their existence, enforcing their doctrine through violence and a deep, unrelenting hatred of their own. We've neglected to aid a hurting people, we've neglected to mourn their dead, and our knees have yet to hit the floor in prayer for their relief.

We've aided in the erection of walls segregating faces of our brothers and sisters based on their complexion. These walls stretch higher everyday, the mortar thickening at the expense of unborn children whose tiny, undeveloped ears have already been exposed to gunshots echoing off the walls of their mothers' wombs, echoes of an unfounded hatred.

And it runs deeper than black versus white, east versus west, "religious" versus secular. There is an infection, a curse, an evil in the lifeblood of our people that has left us vulnerable to the petrification of our hearts. Where believers once met the world with unyielding love and a message of unprejudiced hope, they now cling to cold, bitter stone.

As sad as it is, rarely do Christians represent the former half of their title. So, for what it's worth, I am truly and deeply sorry.

If you don't take anything else away from this apology, please don't look to us. We will only fail you.

Look to Him.

Hollywood's Heaven

As much as I enjoy the yearly influx of people who realize they believe in Jesus overnight and google directions to the nearest place of worship, this weekend's Easter celebrations left more to be desired.

There was a big hub-bub surrounding the feel good movie of the month, Heaven is for Real, which conveniently released within days of Resurrection Sunday. A lot of people, like Molly and myself, went on opening night to see the movie. Unlike many of those people, however, we didn't go out of some obligatory sense of Christian duty to support non-secular film. We went because it looked interesting and, more importantly, the tickets were free.

Because to be brutally honest with myself and everyone else...faith-based movies generally suck. I know that doesn't make me the most popular Bible-reader on the block, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. They suck.

While the message may be great, the acting is consistently sub-par and restricted to a very limited range of extreme emotions. There's only so much I can take of Kirk Cameron rapidly alternating between rage and a seemingly drug-induced state of bliss. And eventually, they're bound to run out of blonde-haired, blue-eyed children and attractive middle-aged women to cast for supporting family roles that require the extensive quoting of scripture.

But what ticks me off the most about "Christian" movies isn't that the actors are laughably poor. What ticks me off is how they don't even come close to accurately representing Christians.

Flicks like Heaven is for Real don't convey the true gravity of what it means to be a Christian in an ever-declining society, to cling to a dying faith. The directors consistently fail to capture how exceedingly controversial it is to have a relationship with God in a world where toxic levels of individualism and political correctness discourage religion all together.

Believers are portrayed as a cloudy-eyed stereotype. Their lives are perfect, their picket fence is a pristine egg shell white, and every new day is full of abundant blessings. In Christian movie world, the only struggles that exist involve trust issues with God. I hate to break it to you and possibly ruin the big surprise, but none of that is realistic. 

Granted, God does bless His people, and Christians do struggle with their faith, but our lives are very much still entwined in earthly matters, and as much as we would like everyone at church to believe life is all rainbows and puppies, that's simply not the case. Believers are not immediately placed in a reality-nullifying bubble upon accepting Christ into our hearts. We aren't granted immunity from human nature and society and this imperfect world we live in.

The internal battle for those movie characters may end in a passionate prayer while gripping a cross necklace, heads bowed at the altar. But the harsh truth is that, when real Christians are on their knees, we're just calling for backup. Because in the real world, the altar is just one of many places where the battle rages on.

The church you see pictured on the big screen is full of smiling faces with "amen"s and "hallelujahs" echoing up into the rafters and triumphantly bursting forth from steeple, but what the cinematographers fail to get in the shot is all the pain in those pews. They can't film every instance where those men and women have been looked down upon because of their faith or judged because some radicals ruined their nation's predisposition about them, despised for every drawn breath and subsequent exhalation of Jesus' name. 

They'll never be able to capture the ache etched in the bones of God's battered children who long for home, their real and eternal home.

"Christian" has become a label synonymous with "virgin," with "sober" and "drug-free," with "happily married," with "innocent," with "holy." I cannot express how very misguided the notion that Christians are somehow better than anyone else is. We are not exempt from iniquity or the suffering that goes along with it. We are just as unpardonably sinful, just as irreparably broken, and just as inexcusably human as everyone else on this earth.

But the difference? The thing that sets us apart? The reigning truth that makes it all worthwhile?

We have a perfect lamb to pardon us, a master healer to repair us, and a loving God to forgive our imperfections.

Perhaps, that's why Hollywood just can't get it right. Because there's no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker who could ever fully explain what makes believers different. Why, you ask? Because no drama or documentary or actor or writer or speaker will ever be able to fully explain the awesomeness of our God.