We talked while we waited for the show to start and I learned a great deal about him. One, he had attended Christian schools before he came to college. Two, he planned to transfer to a Christian college at the end of the year. Three, this was because Western allowed things like Gay Pride Day on campus. Four, he didn’t think there’d be any gay people at the Christian school. Five, he said the school would place him with a Christian company upon graduation and he wouldn’t have to work with any gay people. I stopped short of asking him if he planned on living in a gated Christian community with "no homos" signs posted next to the regulations for lawn maintenance and noise levels.
Besides the fact that he had a serious divorce from reality, his utter lack of compassion for anyone who didn’t meet his ideal was very off-putting to me. And I didn’t go on any other dates with him. There is a tendency among some Christians to separate themselves from the world. They take the scripture which says “we are in the world but not of it” to mean that Christians must turn the word ‘Christian’ from a noun to an adjective and Christianize everything. They listen only to Christian music, read only Christian books, watch only Christian movies, go to Christian school. Some even attempt to do business only with other Christians. (Call me crazy, but when I have a plumbing emergency, I don’t really care if my plumber knows Jesus; I just want him to plumb well.)
Exactly how these people are able to achieve the Great Commission when they avoid non-Christians like the plague is beyond me. They have become anti-Christ. Who did Jesus fraternize with when he was incarnate? Tax collectors, lepers, Samaritans, fallen women, the outcasts of society. His disciples were people who drank, people who fought, people with violent tempers. Peter cut off someone’s ear, for crying out loud! Yet modern day versions of these same people are completely shunned by some Christians.
Attitude is everything in the Christian faith. God is very forgiving of screw-ups if they’re honestly repentant. He’s less forgiving of the proud and self-righteous. Why is Moses revered as a man of great faith and chosen to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land after he killed a man? Why are Ananias and Sapphira struck dead after telling a simple lie? God looks at the heart. Christians who have cut themselves off from the rest of the world in an attitude of self-righteousness have hardened their hearts. They don’t view other people as Christ views them. They are modern day Pharisees, the people in the Bible that really pissed Jesus off with their rules and regulations and coldness toward humanity. They'd much rather debate Paul's theology amongst themselves than practice Jesus' commands to love their neighbors. And their enemies. And, you know, go out into the world making disciples.