I FEEL I HAVE TO SAY THIS: I apologise

I feel I have to say this:  I want to issue a public apology to all people who witnessed the knee-jerk reaction of so many Christians after the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games.

Sometimes I’m just plain ashamed of being a Christian.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ashamed of Christ, but I am ashamed how we, including myself, sometimes portray the One who came to seek, embrace, and save the lost.  Sometimes we suffer a lapse of consecration – sorry, I mean concentration – as we forget that Jesus, in His own words, was not sent into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Yes, I apologise.  I apologise for the bitter taste of judgment and anger that remained after the dust of discourse settled down.  As Christians we are called to season our speech with the saltiness of grace, because we are people of grace.  We acknowledge that we are called to flavour our words with kindness, because we are recipients of the kindness of God.  But we failed to do it.  I am sorry.

It’s not THAT we responded – even non-Christians felt some of the scenes to be distasteful– but it’s HOW we responded that made me feel ashamed.  We failed to represent the One who would have invited everyone at the “table of offense”, to the “table of redemption” – even the little blue man who was so scantly dressed.  I want to publicly state that the Christ of the Bible was not the Christ that you witnessed on Social Media.

And I will tell you three reasons why I say that. 

Firstly, in His own words, Jesus’s mission on earth was never to judge or condemn but to save and redeem (John 3:17).  This is the GOOD NEWS that we as Christians refer to.  As Christians we know quite well, according to scripture,  that Christ was consecrated to fulfil the prophesies of Isaiah 61:1-4 which starts with these words… The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me (consecrated me—set me apart) to proclaim good news to the poor (redemption).

I realised anew that good news is not only good according to the content of WHAT is communicated, but in the attitude of HOW it is communicated.  Have you ever tried convincing someone that you bring good news by condemning them and shouting at them?  This is simply not possible, and yet social media was saturated with these kinds of messages.  Sorry about that!  Sadly, the aggressive way we reacted to the opening ceremony was unkind and offensive and revealed more about us than we wanted to show.  We portrayed Jesus in an insulting way and not an insalting way.  I apologise

Secondly, just by reading how Jesus was embraced in His community reveals how extremely – and I mean extremely – approachable He must have been.  The children came to him, the lepers wanted to touch Him, the tax collectors climbed trees just to be with Him, the sick queued in the streets for healing, the Roman soldiers came to Him, the blind came to Him.  Ironically, and you would love this, the only people who did not come to Him were the religious elite.  Ouch.  They took offense by His inclusivity, non-dualism and grace.  Quite ironically, if we place this in the context of a pagan scene at the Olympics and a religious audience on Social Media, we find the same result – a crucified Saviour.  Double ouch.

The third reason why I say Jesus would have responded differently is because He was kind – so kind that He gave Himself as ransom for those who mocked Him.  Yes, He gave himself for every person at the table, every athlete and every onlooker.  No, He would not have approved of the ceremony, but He certainly would have reached out and not pushed away those who participated.

To be approachable you must be kind.  Nobody approaches an unkind person, especially not children who sat on His lap and found peace in His embrace.  Oh, He was, still is, and always will be kind.  Not because He has to be kind , but because that is the kind of God that He is.

Yes, I acknowledge, and once again apologise, that, as Francis Schaeffer summed it up :  “As Christians we sometimes rush in, being very, very pleased, it would seem at times, to find other men’s mistakes. We build ourselves up by tearing other men down… we love the smell of blood, the smell of the arena, the smell of the bullfight… We may be pleased, but we are not being Christian.”

David Aikman, in an editorial in Christianity Today, also described the unkindness of my kind as follows:  “As Christians, we sometimes turn ourselves into the… self-appointed attack dogs of Christendom. We seem determined to savage not only opponents of Christianity, but also fellow believers of whose doctrinal positions they disapprove. A troll through the Internet reveals websites so drenched in sarcasm and animosity that an agnostic, or a follower of another faith tradition interested in what it means to become a Christian, might be permanently disillusioned.”

I apologise. I am sorry for what has been done in the name of Jesus.

In closing, let me confirm that I am Not Ashamed of Christ

Even though I may be ashamed of how Christians sometimes respond I still value the community of believers I belong to and recognise that we are only human too.  We all sometimes betray the core values we hold dear and as Christians we are no different than any other human being on earth. With one exception:  We are forgiven.