I’m not interested in making more Christians.
Maybe that seems surprising to you. It was certainly surprising to me when I realized it.
I grew up a Christian who believed the best thing I could possibly do as a Christian was make other people Christians. I was taught and believed that people who weren’t Christian would go to Hell when they died and spend eternity in conscious torment for believing the wrong thing while on earth. If I could just make someone Christian then I would be saving them from an endless loop of torturous agony. What’s more, these previously damned souls would now get to experience the nameless eternal joys of Heaven all because of me! What could be a higher aspiration?
Many Christians believe saving others from going to Hell is the purpose of life. And I think this is where it helps to have a real understanding of what Jesus asks of his followers. Jesus’ instructions to those who would act in his name is to serve others, to love others, to forgive the debts of others. Jesus is less interested in his followers trying to convince people something about God then he is in them embodying the loving presence of God. In other words, your job is not to save people, it’s to love them.
There is a world of difference between saving others and serving others. When I am trying to save someone, I am operating from an assumption that I am somehow in better shape than they are, that I myself am safe and can use what I have to help them. The power dynamic of that relationship places me above them. Telling someone you’re just trying to help them because you love them and you know what’s best for them is condescending garbage – and you know it, and I know it.
It’s also exactly the opposite of how Jesus tells his disciples to orient themselves: “Whoever desires to be great among you must be your servant,” he says. “Love one another as I have loved you,” he says immediately after literally getting down on his knees and washing their feet. Jesus is remarkably clear and consistent in his teachings about this.
Interestingly, so are our Scriptures. Apart from the narratives about Jesus’ life, the large majority of the New Testament comprises epistles to first century Christian communities. To a letter, their primary concern is how people who call themselves Christian treat each other. There is no energy given to teaching the churches how to make new Christians. We often see the Bible used as a tool of conversion, when it was created as a collection of writings for those who already believed.
The Christian preoccupation with saving others by getting them to think, act, and believe like us is not Christlike. We should not be fretting about making more Christians. And we certainly have no business passing laws that force our beliefs upon others – especially when we as Christians are not always on the same page about what our beliefs are. My stomach curdles when I hear Christians speak against LGBTQ+ people in Jesus’ name. I am convinced not only that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people but in fact that God made them as they are and that their lives are a blessing to the world. I am horrified by the many Christian leaders who teach that women exist only as wives and mothers – their value found only in subservience and fertility. I don’t see Jesus in that at all. I shudder in thinking of the lawmakers who knelt on the floor of the House of Representatives in celebratory prayer after voting to gut Medicare and SNAP benefits for the poorest among us. “Whatever you did to the least of my children,” Jesus says, “that’s what you did to me.”
So I don’t want to make more Christians. I want to help Christians act like Christ.
That’s all.
I dream of a world where Christians are known primarily for being merciful, forgiving, non-judgmental, humble servants of all people. You know: Like Jesus – the one whom we purport to follow. I dream of a world where Christians are looked at as radicals for our insistence in the dignity of every human being, who spend our time energy and power seeking to lift up others. I dream of us being known for loving people as they are, rather than trying to remake them in our image.
I am not less of a Christian than I was when I believed in trying to save your soul. I believe in Jesus today. I love Jesus today. I seek to serve and honor Jesus in my life and work today. I’m just done thinking that the way I do that is by trying to fix, save, assimilate non-Christians. Frankly, I don’t think they need me to save them. I don’t at all believe that God will send everyone who believes differently than me to Hell. That doesn’t make sense. It is not consistent with the life and witness of Jesus, not consistent with his message and ministry, not consistent with the God I know, love, and serve.
Throughout my life, I have learned so much from non-Christians about how God loves, how God works, how God saves. I don’t want to save non-Christians, I want to love and serve them in Jesus’ name.
And I want to focus my energy on helping those of us who call ourselves Christian to actually walk in love. Because, for Jesus, it really is all about love. And it’s worth saying again and again: You don’t have to be Christian to love. But you do have to love to be Christian. I want a Christianity that acts like that’s true. In the meantime, no more Christians. Let’s work on the Christians we already have.
Next week we will be baptizing a few folks at the Church of the Redeemer. Which in fact means that there will be some more Christians. And to be clear, I am over the moon about it. I love it. I am so excited. Maybe I’m full of it when I say that I don’t want to make new Christians. But when I think about the joy I feel in anticipation of those baptisms, it is not the joy of having won souls who would otherwise be dangling over the eternal inferno of God’s rejection. Lord, have mercy.
I am overjoyed because we are bringing new people into our community who, in their way of living and being, can teach us something about who God is, because loving these people will transform my heart, because I will have the honor of serving them, because together we will practice loving and being loved, because together we will get to figure out how God is sending us into the world to serve all people with humility, compassion and faithfulness.
Christians, we aren’t here to make everyone Christian. We are here to love like Jesus loves. The point is not for us to make others believe in Jesus. The point is for us to live like we actually believe in Jesus. Imagine that.
