Don’t Call Me A Christian

I have a confession to make.  It’s come after a great deal of thought and reflection.  I don’t want to be called a Christian.  Christians today are judgmental, condemning, and driven by an agenda that has little to do with the teaching of Jesus.  In the following video, I explain how after 42 years of ministry, I’ve come to this decision.  Thanks for taking a few minutes to watch.

The following is a text version of this blog.

I have a confession to make.  For more than a decade, I’ve avoided calling myself a Christian.  Honestly, I don’t want to be associated with Christianity.

Conservatives have high-jacked the religion. They focus on things like abortion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  They claim that Jesus would have carried a gun.  Jesus?  Remember when he told Peter to put away the sword, that anyone who uses a sword will die by it?  The high-minded Christians of today swindle money out of their followers, teach intolerance and hatred, are judgmental, and are plagued by scandals of sexual abuse.  They claim to know the mind of God and worship the Bible, but have not taken the time to pay attention to the central teachings found in the Bible. I’m not saying anything that people don’t commonly know, but despite these matters being common knowledge, it’s still considered impolite to criticize the beliefs of others.

I won’t call myself a Christian.  I don’t want to be associated with those people.  This is similar to my not wanting to be associated with white supremacists or Nazis. 

I take seriously the teachings of Jesus.  I try to emulate those teachings.  I don’t follow them very well.  I’m impatient with people.  I could be more compassionate and generous.  But I am firm in my belief and understanding that the essence of God is love, unconditional love.  Further, I affirm that all life exists in the cosmos because of love. 

The face of God shown to us by Jesus of Nazareth is a generous entity.  It’s that loving God that invites us to give as generously as we have received and to care for one another.  That’s the foundation of the teaching of Jesus who came to bring good news to the poor, freedom to those held in captivity, and sight to the blind.  In other words, the mission of Jesus was to restore, to heal, to bring the world into full balance.  It’s out of that mission that Jesus explained that what mattered in life was not what creeds we believed or what prayers we said or if we had a personal relationship with him.  If you pay attention to the teachings of Jesus, the personal relationships that matter are the personal relationships we have with others:  feeding the hungry, giving a drink to those who are thirsty, clothing those in need, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned.  That’s where the rubber hits the road. 

After more than 40 years in ministry, I see very little in Christian churches that has anything to do with the teachings of Jesus.  Instead, I see organizations focused on their own survival.   Most churches aren’t helping people lead lives that embody the teachings of Jesus.  Yes, there are exceptions.  And I know people will write me and say, “My church is different.”  But look at the budget.  What’s the money paying for?  I suspect that money used to care for people is not at the heart of the budget but comes from whatever is left over. 

The mission of Jesus was not to build a church.  The gospels are clear:  Jesus called people to follow him, to listen to him, to change their lives, and lean into a different way of living. 

I’m not saying that I do a great job as a follower of the teachings of Jesus.  But it is what I strive to do.  I also learn from other wisdom traditions because they help me understand more fully what it means to follow the teachings of Jesus. 

That’s my confession.  I don’t call myself a Christian.  I prefer to think of myself as someone whose aim is to follow the teachings of Jesus.  Perhaps hearing it will have some merit to other people who struggle today with the state of institutional Christianity.