What I'm Not Saying

THE REALITY

I'm not overlooking the reality of others not accepting or tolerating our faith. Jesus said that there would be persecution and trials. However I notice that some people appear to be so focused on persecution that they have overemphasized it, and may in fact be bringing more of it on themselves. We often get what we expect.

If we expect people to be fair and honest, generally we will see more of those positive aspects in people. If we expect other people (traditional stereotypes being the dreaded college professors, evolutionary scientists, liberals, feminists, goth teens, devil-worshipping rock stars, etc...) to be hostile, we will definitely get flak from them. I think often this is partially or totally due to the way we have set our minds to expect them to act.

Personally speaking, when I do encounter "persecution" from people, I would like to have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm getting it in spite of the love and transparency with which I engaged them. Otherwise I don't have a clear conscience about it, since I can be pretty snide, abrasive, and opinionated without God's help. Or so I have been informed by others.

THE LIST

Here is a list of surefire ways to get heat from others, but I'm not sure that it counts as "persecution for righteousness":

1. Be obnoxious after people know about your beliefs
2. Stay in the church ghetto
3. Refuse to develop your social skills any further so that you might not be able to relate to real people and be comfortable in such situations.
4. Fixate yourself on martyrdom complex and unduly ponder eschatological themes (i.e. "Left Behind", end times speculations) so that you become slightly paranoid and jumpy.

And my current favorites

5. Spout off in your favorite indignant old-time country preacher voice just about anything
6. Be sure to use "Christian-ese" language and terminology normal people don't understand
7. Be partisan and out-debate the other guy. Win at all costs!

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

I'm speaking from experience. Coming from a traditional church background, I had to practice the art of going into non-church recreational environments and hanging out, taking a genuine interest in people, and blending in. Whether it was an office party, or watching friends performing in a bar, I spent a couple years on this! I forced myself to go multiple times into an uncomfortable environment because I wanted to be like Jesus, who described himself as the "friend of sinners".

Would it be unbiblical to just learn to be more polite or aware of other people's differences when we talk with them. Is our spiritual mission to convince people that you're right? Or is it to reconcile them to God? We don't need to water anything down, or sell ourselves out, just make sure people are seeing more Jesus than ourselves. This blog will contain some good and bad examples of this concept as seen on TV and elsewhere in the culture.