This week in my What If… series I want to agi­tate the waters of judg­men­tal­ism and mean spir­ited doc­trine police. Read on and then let me know what you think the church would look like if Chris­tians were nice to each other even when we disagree.

               Yester­day I read a scathing review of a new book out on the Chris­t­ian mar­ket. The blog­ger not only didn’t like the book, but didn’t like the writer. The flurry of com­ments that flooded his post were also unkind. The author’s motives were ques­tioned, her beliefs scru­ti­nized. The doc­trine police came out with guns blaz­ing as they took aim at their sis­ter in Christ and shot her down.

Chris­tians are famous for shoot­ing at one another. Our rep­u­ta­tion for being judg­men­tal has been long estab­lished and it seems that there remains con­claves that are intent on pre­serv­ing that rep­u­ta­tion. It dis­heart­ens me how mean we can become when some­one doesn’t believe the way that we do.

Photo credit by Stephen Davies. Graph­ics added by me at PicMonkey

A few years ago I men­tioned in an email to an old friend I knew from my Hong Kong YWAM days that my daugh­ter and I would be attend­ing a same-​​sex cer­e­mony. Her response star­tled me.  She ques­tioned my sal­va­tion and likened my atten­dance to such an event on par with drink­ing blood at a satanic rit­ual. I wish I were kidding.

I attempted dia­log with her. Why did this rouse her so much? I wasn’t demand­ing that she accept my view of same-​​sex unions, why did she reduce it to a Bible war with me as an infi­del in need of repen­tance or shunning?

Dia­log could not hap­pen. This became appar­ent as her next flurry of emails sliced and diced me with a litany of Bible verses that kept a real con­ver­sa­tion between friends from devel­op­ing. That is how a friend­ship that spanned two decades abruptly came to an end. My side of the street is clean with this breakup, but what has trou­bled me ever since is how this kind­hearted woman I knew who is full of com­pas­sion for the poor and a cham­pion for chil­dren could have this mean streak when it came to some­one close to her hav­ing a dif­fer­ent point of view.

My run-​​in with the mean spirit of beliefism (as my friend Jim Hen­der­son calls it) is noth­ing com­pared to what many oth­ers over the cor­ri­dors of time have had to endure. Any­body remem­ber a lit­tle era known as the Inqui­si­tion?  And they used to burn heretics at the stake, too.  Shun­ning is  also an age-​​old reac­tion to deal­ing with those who believe dif­fer­ently than we do.

Which makes me wonder :

Who did Jesus shun?

How dif­fer­ent the his­tory of Chris­ten­dom would be if Christ fol­low­ers were rad­i­cally kind to one another in the face of dis­agree­ment and dif­fer­ences. Imag­ine! It reminds me of the last prayer of Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel.  Remem­ber that one? What did he pray for as he con­sid­ered the fol­low­ers of The Way?  He prayed for unity, and for love. May they be one even as we are one, cried out Jesus on the night before his exe­cu­tion. The last recorded prayer of the Son of God was for you and me to get along.

I know I risk sound­ing ide­al­ist here, but it is ingrained in my bones, this desire to see the peo­ple of God treat one another justly and with respect. I dis­agree with com­ple­men­tar­i­an­ism with all my heart and mind, yet I try hard to not be mean about it. There is a dif­fer­ence in defend­ing your con­vic­tion and attack­ing those you dis­agree with. I don’t want to spend my energy being mean and ugly to those who inter­pret the Bible from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than I do. I try to take that last prayer of Jesus to heart.

What would the church look like if we got along? What kind of rep­u­ta­tion would the church have if we were kind to each other in the midst of doc­tri­nal ten­sion? Imag­ine if we were known for our com­mit­ment to unity and fel­low­ship?  What a mind blower that would be to the world. As it is right now, we are as frac­tured as every other world reli­gion and sys­tem. We are not liv­ing set apart. Jesus said If you love your friends so what? Even the pagans do that, but I say to you Love your enemies.   

An enemy is some­one who is in oppo­si­tion to our way of life, our point of view, our beliefs. In the house­hold of faith, our enemy sits a pew away. We do not love our ene­mies. We hurl insults and slan­der just like every­body else. Where then is Jesus in all of our doc­trines and creeds?

I’m a dreamer. I imag­ine a church where kind­ness is not just a virtue but a dis­tinc­tive. That’s the kind of unity I think Jesus was pray­ing for. Unity does not mean we all agree on every­thing at the same time. Unity is a unit­ing of heart and mind despite our dif­fer­ences. Unity is a para­dox, of oppos­ing ideas liv­ing in har­mony.  I hope for the day when fol­low­ers of Jesus are more famous for our absurd kind­ness to one another than our mean spir­ited doc­tri­nal inspections.