They will know we are Christians by...

They will know we are Christians by our Love….

I don’t know if this is a Christmas song or not, but I remember it as being sung mostly at Christmas. As it was yesterday on the Christian radio station where I live. So soon after I had finished reading a Barna Group study as to why Christianity has come to be viewed so negatively by my generation. The study found, not surprisingly, that many people in their teens, twenties, and thirties have had a bad experience with a person, group, or church, and view Christians mainly as judgmental, hypocritical, and more concerned with the rules they are governed by than the love they are infused with. Though I don’t find the bad experiences people have had with Christians shocking, as I have had them myself, I did find the percentages in the study shocking, as showing a less than a quarter of those decades as being neutral or feeling positively towards Christians. Evangelical Christians especially were seen as some of the most negative representation of the faith.

Oy. I’m not Greek, but that’s the only word for it. On the one hand – I don’t think anyone or anything should ever be judged by one small encounter that left you wondering why they don’t practice what they preach. No one does that 24/7. Everyone hates traffic, crowds of noisy, rushing shoppers, in-you-face you’re-not-good-enough speeches, etc. On the other hand, the large majority of the people interviewed by the Barna group in that study did not list a general feeling towards Christians based on heresay, but on multiple personal experiences with Christians. Most identifying factor of Christians according to three-quarters of the “young people” population? Rejection of homosexuals. MOST identifying position.

Now, along that note, I do not and never will believe that homosexuality is anything but a choice, brought on by any number of legitimate or non nurturing, situations, and misunderstandings. However, “rejection?” Christians should never, ever, reject someone for being a sinner. Because that is what we are. Paul is so clear about this in one of his letters: “judge not, lest ye be judged.” A reality to his life, once converted. Paul realized that as someone who had spent his early life passionately trying to extinguish the church by any brutal means possible, he had no right to judge the prostitutes, gays, liars, manipulators, politicians, lawyers, frauds, step-fathers, abusers, or anyone else.

Not that he accepted what we’ve done and told us to go on doing those things. But Paul, and many others in the Bible, knew this fundamental fact: the sin is not the sinner.

It’s a pretty basic understanding that somehow gets shoved under the carpet in our everyday interactions – mine included. And yet – it is the foundation of Jesus’ ministry on earth. If we are to live like Jesus, full of the love and kindness that I’m sure must have just surrounded Him like a cloud (mixed, I’m sure, with the smell of dirt and sweat and sawdust), then we have to separate sinners from the sin. You can love a person and not like what they’re doing. Parents treat their children like that. Friends treat their friends like that. God treats us like that. He never stops loving us. He never quits, pauses, or momentarily steps out of the office. He can see us as his children through the veil of our many, many mistakes.

We see how Jesus demonstrated that time and time again. The prostitute who poured perfume on his feet. The one who he saved from a death by stones. The untouchables he healed, tax collectors he ate with, thieves he conversed with. Like no one else in history, Jesus is able to separate the sin from the sinner, and be neither condemning people nor encouraging sinful behavior.

Yet, today. Christians are viewed according to what they reject, not what they embrace. Do they know we are Christians by our love? That’s how Jesus was recognized. No crown, no big white horse, no whip, no priest’s garb or three piece suit or receipts from all the charities He’d donated to. By His love.

By His wounds, we all are healed.

By His love, we all can live.

By His love, we should be known.