When your brother sins, or acts like a jerk…
I’ve been encouraged by a couple of folks to write on some topics. One wants me to talk about witnessing to Jewish friends, and another has encouraged me to say something really noisy and radical — to stir things up a bit, so to speak. So here’s my effort to satisfy both requests.
Jewish folks will often respond to witnessing attempts by saying that Christians have persecuted their people practically forever, and asking why they would want to join the ranks of their oppressors. It’s a valid question, and shouldn’t be blown off. Sometimes the conversation will go something like this:
Jew: Christians killed six million of us in the Holocaust [Jewish folks often don't distinguish between Christian and non-Christian Gentiles].
Christian: Those were Nazis, not Christians. Real Christians wouldn’t do something like that.
Jew: Oh yeah? What about the Catholic kids in my neighborhood who used to beat me up, calling me “Christ Killer”?
Christian: They were ignorant kids — you can’t generalize to all Christians based on the behavior of kids!
Jew: And their parents egged them on!
Christian: OK, so their parents were ignorant idiots too.
Jew: And what about the Inquisition? When we wouldn’t convert, we were murdered in the name of Christ. When we tried to escape, we were chased and persecuted everywhere we went, even to the New World!
Christian: But they were Catholics! They weren’t even necessarily Christians!
Jew: Luther wasn’t Catholic. He hated us too. In fact, the Nazis used his anti-semitic comments to justify what they did.
…and the conversation just keeps on deteriorating.
Here’s the thing, and this applies to pretty much any witnessing experience: Our brothers and sisters sin and act like jerks. Sometimes it’s just the ordinary folks who get caught while doing wrong — your neighbors or coworkers, for example. And sometimes it’s the big names, like major church or political leaders. Regardless, these sinners are still our brothers and sisters and we have to relate to them as such. In the context of witnessing to those whom our brothers and sisters have offended, we need to admit their sin and own them as family members — otherwise we end up constantly setting the bar higher and higher as to who is really a Christian. And the reality is this: How do you, or I, or anyone other than God know who is or isn’t a believer?
I could easily list a number of fairly well known folks whose historical or recent actions have made Christians look pretty bad, but what the heck — let’s go for the big names. (more…)