One of the most discouraging things to me about our current environment isn't the way the world behaves. The backbiting and betrayals, backstabbing and badmouthing are precisely what should be expected from those whose moral compass is calibrated by whatever urge or cause is currently captivating them.
But Christians, we have to be better. We have every reason to be better.
This last week I was reflecting on the words Jesus used to comfort His disciples before choosing the nails: "This is my command: Love each other. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."
He couldn't have said it clearer than that: if you belong to Christ, love your fellow Christian because they will be hated by the world just as Jesus was hated. Instead, this is the kind of friendly fire that has come to illustrate the modern American church:
If you don't know who Raymond Chang is, he is a sought-after speaker in churches around the country. He pastors, serves as the president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative, and served as the campus minister at the prestigious Wheaton College – which at one point was considered by some to be among the most esteemed and respected of all Christian universities in America.
And here is Chang, comparing a group of his fellow brothers-in-Christ to a bloodthirsty lynch mob. It seems impossible that someone like Chang, who touts his own proficiency in understanding and speaking to cultural issues facing the church, would not be familiar with the routine parallel made by the pro-life movement between slavery (one human exercising unjust authority over the life of another) and abortion (one human exercising unjust authority over the life of another).
But even if the metaphor somehow managed to escape him, a simple zoom on the offending shirt reveals tiny little baby feet underneath the image. Not to mention the obvious reference to the decades-old "my body, my choice" mantra of the abortion lobby. In other words, the message of the shirt was self-evident: We all recognize how abhorrent and offensive slavery was, so we should recognize that those advocating for legal abortion are using the same argument as the slaveholders. You would think that would be a message all Christians could get behind.
Instead, Chang saw an opportunity to inject identity politics into the discussion and accuse his fellow Christians who disagreed with him of being racists:
While believers should be giving one another the benefit of the doubt, looking first to love one another in all things, Chang has chosen to belittle his brothers as racists. To call that uncharitable would be the understatement of the century. Intentionally slanderous seems far more appropriate.
Even when black Christians like author Samuel Sey weighed in to rebuke Chang's loutish and dense (the shirt obviously wasn't making a mockery of slavery, it was highlighting the evil of slavery!) Twitter tantrum, Chang was ready with another dose of not-so-veiled contempt for his brother:
This type of conduct may be increasingly commonplace within the "sophisticated" circles of academia that Chang appears so desperate to run in. But as a professing Christian, I'd urge the pastor professor, and all of us, to remember we are called to a higher standard. One where we "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit," but "in humility value others above [ourselves]."
Maybe the most persuasive thing Christians can do before a watching world isn't earning fancy degrees and pursuing the applause of men, but simply loving one another as Jesus commanded.
