Tom Davis: Why Christians Suck

For the past year or so I’ve had the privilage of getting to know Tom Davis, a no-nonsense friend of Jesus and humanitarian rabble-rouser. He can be gruff-around-the-edges sometimes, but he has a heart of platinum and is loads of fun to hang out with.

Tom has started loads of wonderful initiatives, including Children’s Hopechest, the Red Letters Campaign, and 5 for 50.

If you like readin’ books, you can check out a few of his that have come out in the past couple of years: Fields of the Fatherless, Confessions of a Good Christian Guy, and Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21SHHU0CCgL._SL160_OU01_SS160_.jpg

And if you like coffee, you should treat yourself to Saints’ Coffee, which is http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GJNB7gFdL._SL160_OU01_SS160_.jpgorganically grown, fair trade, and directly supports oprhans worldwide! It doesn’t get any better than that, folks. (Seriously…cancel your Gevalia subscription and try some Saints. You’ll be glad you did.)http://radicallybalanced.typepad.com/radicallybalanced/images/2007/09/10/red_letters_large_2.jpg

So: Tom is no stranger to controversy, and this past week he’s been setting this here internet a-buzz with his article entitled (as my blog entry title suggests) Why Christians Suck. Except Beliefnet censored it, reading instead “S**k” throughout. Which somehow feels far more salacious and tawdry, y’know?

Anyway, here’s some of what Tom has to say:

“Each Sunday, millions of Christians in America gather to worship the God who commands us to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” We belt out praises to the God who tells us that “pure and undefiled religion is caring for widows and orphans in their distress.” We kneel in pious prayer before the Almighty God of the universe who describes Himself as loving, gracious, merciful, and generous.

Then, we walk out the back door of the church, step into a world in need, and proceed to withhold the love, grace, and mercy that’s extended to us.

We might as well give God the middle finger. Outside of a tiny minority of Christians, we have become a self-centered group of priggish snobs.

In short, we s**k.”

Well come on, Tom! Tell us what you really think! He does this, unpacking his prognosis right here. But Tom doesn’t leave us hanging – oh no. He shows us a remedy to Christian suckishness in his companion piece How to do What the Bible Says.

So how is it that the brewer of Saints is so keen on the Church’s sins? A few years ago, I would have said “Now wait just a minute, Mister!” After growing up in guilt-inducing religion, I was refreshed to find teachers who explicated the refreshing nature of grace; that no matter how sucky Christians behaved, Paul (for instance) always addressed the churches as “holy ones” in the New Testament. Holiness is the core reality of the new creation, regardless of the more external trappings. So my thinking on this has been kinda like John Eldredge’s, pointed out in this 2004 Christianity Today interview:

[Eldredge] challenges Christians who apply Jeremiah 17:9 (“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure”) to their post-conversion hearts. “Not anymore it’s not,” he writes in Wild at Heart. “Read the rest of the book. In Jeremiah 31:33, God announces the cure for all that: ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ I will give you a new heart.”

And what about the seemingly humble assertion that Christians are just sinners saved by grace? It’s a Big Lie, Eldredge writes in Wild at Heart, adding: “You are a lot more than that. You are a new creation in Christ. The New Testament calls you a saint, a holy one, a son of God.”

I believe so much in the gratuitous holyfying nature of God’s manifestation in Christ that I have an entire section of my links directory dedicated to it. I believe it, saints. But at the same time, I can’t camp out here any longer. That I am beloved by my divine Abba before I lift a finger and no matter how sucktastic I am is a core reality that helps me get out of bed in the morning. But the Gospel, as Brian McLaren helped point out to me, transcends justice-avoidance. It isn’t Thank God Jesus died for me so now I can live for myself. The transforming energies of death and resurrection are dedicated to our new creature-ship, to seeing heaven’s reality more and more on God’s beloved earth.

These two vital realities must be held in creative tension. We shouldn’t be guilt-trippin’, but neither should be sitting around like slugs on a log. In my Bible, Paul and James aren’t enemies. Both are friends of the God found in Jesus Christ, who has given us every grace and enablement to live a life marked by transformative good deeds.

Grace & Justice to you this day,

Mike

7 Responses to Tom Davis: Why Christians Suck

  1. ben July 24, 2008 at 12:16 am #

    Brother, being a lover and seeker of truth I cannot help but love this truth! Every Marine learns early in Boot Camp that “can’t” means “you won’t!” I can’t help but love it. And furthermore, will not “truth make us free?” Maranatha! <

  2. Brandi July 24, 2008 at 7:09 pm #

    I found you through Tom’s blog. . .great post. My Pastor refers to it as “Living in the Tension”. . .walking that fine line between 2 seemingly contradictory truths. . .We, Christians, HATE that! How then, can I judge how well I am doing? But, it sure brings us to our knees b/c we NEED Jesus if we are living in the tension. We need the Holy Spirit’s direction!

    Thanks for the great post!

    Brandi

  3. SpaceGhost July 26, 2008 at 2:18 pm #

    In other words, “Just die”.
    I’m beginning to see, more and more, that many people who seem to be saying different things….really aren’t.
    The snags are in perverted twists which occur when one element of truth becomes so central, so enveloping, that all other elements are discounted and deemed as irrelevant.

    I suppose that we can only grasp so much at one time.

  4. Andrew July 28, 2008 at 2:12 am #

    Great article. Thanks for pointing it out. Hope to see you Friday.

    pax,
    a.t.

  5. Jeff Goins July 28, 2008 at 9:18 pm #

    Great words. I agree. I am a friend of Tom and Jesus, as well. While I am just now discovering this new-found Christian identity as a saint, I’m also learning to embrace God’s passion for justice. I love how those two streams of Christianity are juxtaposed here. I also like coming up with excuses to use the word “juxtapose.”

  6. joe August 24, 2008 at 8:13 pm #

    Christians suck because we’ve too often bought into the myth of redemptive violence. In our public lives, it means that we are prepared to sacrifice our membership of a kingdom ‘not of this world’ for earthly powers who tell us that our safety can only be assured with the destruction of our enemies.

    In our spiritual lives, it means that too often we have elevated particular verses in the bible above others. So we accept the one-for-all never-to-be-repeated nature of the crucifixion above all those verses that claim that people like us will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In short, we’ve been sold a lie that says Christianity is to mentally assent to a bunch of theology and then we are spiritually sorted. Which, in the cold light of day, is far from the Jesus of the gospels, who calls and demands everything from those who claim to be his disciples.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Great Article « Sensual Jesus - July 24, 2008

    […] Great Article Posted on July 24, 2008 by Brittian Bullock Mike at zoecarnate just posted a (sortof) review of Tom Davis over at his blog.  It ends up being a lot more–and I for one love where it goes.  Check it out. […]

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