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Humility, Unity, and the Overly Opinionated Christian

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If Americans are known for one thing globally, it’s that we’re a bunch of opinionated cusses. And if anything, social media and the Internet have not only made us more so, they have made us militant about ensuring we express those opinions in public spaces.

Take the recently concluded legal case of George Zimmerman, accused of shooting black teenager Trayvon Martin. My Facebook Wall had a number of people commenting on this case. In addition, the Internet practically swelled with opinions on the verdict.

Here’s the breakdown:

Whites = Justice was done. Now let’s move on.

Blacks = Justice was stymied. The verdict needs to be thrown out.

I happen to know the religious affiliation of many of those with an opinion, and here is what I noted:

White Christians = Justice was done. Now let’s move on.

Black Christians = Justice was stymied. The verdict needs to be thrown out.

If I were not a Christian, the only conclusion I could draw from that outcome is Christianity makes no difference in the way people think. Their upbringing, race, viewpoints—whatever—are untouched by their faith. Being “born again” doesn’t really change anything.

What a terrible witness!

The problem as I see it is that we Christians too often let our opinions overwhelm our Christianity. The average unsaved person sees this happen so often that they immediately form “antibodies” against the truth of the Bible and, ultimately, against Jesus. That’s not the fault of the Lord, but it is the fault of us who bear His name.

There’s a second problem. In the case of the Zimmerman trial, neither you nor I were privy to all the details of that trial, yet we are commenting on it like we are experts. We offer an opinion based on incomplete facts, and then we spout that ill-informed opinion to the world and draw our line in the sand for everyone to see.

And that’s a sin.

What the Bible says:

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
—Matthew 5:37 ESV

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
—Titus 3:9-11 ESV

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
—Colossians 3:12-15 ESV

There is something in the American Collective Experience that makes it a crime not to have an opinion about this topic or that. Christians cannot fall for that lie. If we are to be salt and light to a dying world, our response must always be 180 degrees from the prevailing wisdom of the world. Always.

If we are to truly let our yes be yes and our no no, then there are times when our only response to situations in which we lack all the facts is to say:

“I don’t have all the facts, so I’m going to refrain from speculating rather than potentially dishonoring the Lord by offering my unenlightened opinion.”

Blasting our opinionWhat if each of us who claims to be a Christian started responding that way?

Feels a little humbling, doesn’t it? Suddenly, we’re not a subject matter expert on every little topic that comes down the pike. In addition to humility, not having an opinion all the time may actually cut down on the dissension that is ripping apart our society and even our churches. Did you spot that word in the list of things Paul said Titus should avoid? Well, are we avoiding dissension or not? Or is letting others know our opinion more important than unity?

This is not to say that we cannot speak truth when it needs to be spoken. However, much of what we pass off as truth is just our fact-deficient opinion about something we probably know less about than we think we do.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
—1 Corinthians 2:1-6 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
—2 Corinthians 5:17-20 ESV

Christians are to know Christ alone and Him crucified. Our charge is to be ambassadors for Christ. Our message is to be one of reconciliation.

Which is more important then, our opinion about some topic about which we most probably lack many of the facts, or reconciling people to Jesus?

Are we driving away people from Jesus because we feel compelled to comment on some political happening? Is our identity in Christ that weak that we must ensure people know where we stand on issues we actually know little about? Are we that arrogant that we think our input is the deciding factor? Are we drawing lines in the sand over some opinion based on grains within that sand rather than the truth of God?

I’m going to start defaulting to this more often:

“I don’t have all the facts, so I’m going to refrain from speculating rather than potentially dishonoring the Lord by offering my unenlightened opinion.”

How about you?

Here’s a Crazy Idea–And It Will Change Your Life!

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Read the Bible together out loudHere’s a “crazy” idea that will change your life:

1. Find an easy-to-read Bible translation such as the New Living Translation, Common English Bible, or Holman Christian Standard Version (I’d avoid The Message for this).

2. Set aside a half hour and sit down with someone else.

3. Starting in the New Testament, read the Bible out loud with that other person for a half hour every day.

And do it right by getting into your best acting voice, so that when pompous people are speaking in the text, give them a nicely pompous voice. When someone is yelling, then yell. (Really, this is heady stuff and demands some effort.)

We tend to relegate the Scriptures to quiet, personal reading, but for most of Christian history, they were verbalized for others to hear—”he who has ears to hear, let him hear,” right?

No “I” in “CHURCH”–How American Evangelicalism Gets Its Pronouns Wrong

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Lonely in a crowdI listened to a message recently that told me all the things I had to do so I could be godly.

For the most part, the words went sailing past me. Perhaps I’m like the hard soil and the birds are coming to eat up the message seeds.

Or maybe I’ve just reached a saturation point for being told what I need to be doing so everything will be perfect in my Christian life.

There’s a big problem with the approach so much of American Evangelicalism uses when speaking to people: It’s all I and you (singular) pronoun use. It’s as if there is no message to the collected Body of Christ. The plural you, we, and us continue to go missing. And with them goes most of the New Testament.

You hear the singular you used a lot in sermons. Someone is preaching at me what I need to do as an individual.

But if you read the New Testament, the you in it, almost all nearly 4,000 uses, refers to a group of people—a plural you. In almost all cases outside the Gospels, that you is the Church.

How is it then that so many messages directed at us aren’t to the genuine plural us, but solely to individuals sitting in one place? We somehow avoid all sense of a collected group of believers.

One problem with this is that it automatically creates legalism and moralism. Individuals are told to do this or that, but there is no greater sense of collected purpose in those admonitions. Whatever it is that I should do is relegated to me alone. It then becomes a personal performance issue. My success as a Christian is solely because of what I do; the greater Body has no influence at all in this—nor do I truly influence that greater Body.

Which is one major reason why the Church in America isn’t advancing the way it should be. We are in a state of every man for himself.

An example of how this individual focus fails…

Take the subject of giving. From an individual perspective, you (singular) and I are told biblical principles on how to give and save money. To live below our means so as to be able to give to others. To tithe. To be cheerful givers.

But when we take this up to the level of what the Church as a collected whole is supposed to do, a vast silence emerges. What is the Church’s financial responsibility?

The Scriptures make it plain in many places that the Church should ensure that no one within the Church body is in need. Goods are to be collected and dispersed to people in the local church body to ensure no state of want.

That asks something of the Church/church though. And you just don’t hear messages and sermons on what the whole Church responsibility is in a given situation.

In short, there is no you (plural), we, or us. There is no vision for anything beyond what the individual is asked to do.

The Bible says that you have died. Your life is now hidden in Christ. And His life is expressed in this world through His Body, the Church.

To the person who has died, the law says that he or she has lost the right to own. In the Church, there is no my or mine. There is ours. Jesus abolishes all personal claims. You are not even your own. All that remains is the collected Body. I, my, mine, you (singular), yours—these are remnants of what we must leave behind when we choose to follow Jesus.

What would happen if American Evangelicals, instead of devolving into what I or you (singular) should be doing as a Christian, focused instead on how the group of believers that comprise the local church and the greater Church operates as it is intended to function—as a unified whole? What if we stopped with the relentless granularity and started thinking of Christianity not as a personal belief but as one that achieves its vitality only within full community? What if we stopped preaching individual works and started focusing on collected works? What if we believed that sanctification wasn’t solely for the individual but for the group? What if we truly believed Jesus in His admonition that the herd of sheep was no longer complete in the eyes of the shepherd if even one was missing?

What if we Christians shifted all our pronouns toward you (plural), we, ours, and us, while moving away from I, me, mine, and you (singular)?

Can we at least start to think outside of the individual? Perhaps if we did, we’d actually live out the biblical plan for the Body of Christ.

UPDATE: See also the follow-up post, God of the Group.