"If I Were a Christian"

I love riding the buses around Chapel Hill. There is such an immersion into the people that one is hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Snippets of conversations. Sight of folks entering or ending the day - tired, happy, eager, sad, or remote. It's all rather fascinating. Especially so for me because I love to hear people talk. I love to know what people think. The dichotomy of personalities, beliefs, and opinions is so rich and I, as an observer, do love to have my cake.

Of note was my ride home this past Friday. A young man who had picked up a conservative magazine (how do I never find out about these things?) was chatting with a woman he knew from class. I was sitting beside them, so there conversation was quite clear. He expressed disbelief at some statement on the back of said magazine and she joined him with this statement: "If I were a Christian, I would be so upset that someone told me I couldn't be Christian and a liberal." No freakin' doubt my ears were pricked.

And while I would have loved to join in on the conversation, my taciturn belief that that would have been quite rude leashed such intentions. However, what she said gave me a great deal to think about.

Namely, I thought of how judgmental Christians tend to be. Especially when "their own" are concerned. I am reminded of Lizzie's retort to Miss Bingley's assertion - "You're severe upon your sex, Miss Bennet." To which Elizabeth of course responded in kind: "I must speak as I find."

Surely there are many Christians that feel this. Yet in general, should we not respond with Miss Bingley's reply? "Perhaps you haven't had the advantage of moving in society enough." All digs aside, surely there are good, nonjudgmental Christians around and ready to be found, as long as we look under the right rocks.

But this is the fearful thing. Christ said that those without sin should cast the first stone. God alone has the power to judge. Yet what overwhelms the Christian and Far Right society? Judgment. Moral highground. Dirty old men standing atop their precious mountains of righteousness shouting out, "I'm clearer than you! God loves me! He hates you!" all the while clutching some filty rag just behind his back.

We shouldn't have to root around in the underground to find Christians who defy the tide of righteous indignation and actually seek to live by their God's commands.

Actually, we should be indignant ourselves, that so much of the "wrong sort" defines the cultural expectations of what exactly a Christian is. We should be angry. I know I am.