Distancing ourselves

I personally find the idea of distancing myself from the culture out of which extremist Christian groups such as Westboro Baptist have emerged as quite enticing.  The kinds of arguments that emerge from those kinds of extreme (and even milder) groups who claim Christianity are many of the reasons my friends would claim as their reason for rejecting Christianity.

I thought this piece from The Onion was quite a cool idea, if not quite implemented as funnily as I'd have hoped from such a promising idea.  Its concept has Almighty God holding a press conference in which he distances himself from the Christian right in the US, and several of their intolerant policies.

I'd like nothing better than to have my totally legit and logically airtight reasons for my faith totally distanced from the lame arguments that my friends ridicule (read into that as much bravado and/or tongue-in-cheek humility as you see fit).  And I often do so when talking to said friends.

Further, some of my friends have been hurt by a 'ask no questions, just submit to these rules' type of Christianity that seems to find greater traction within that culture.  I'd like to distance what I think is a right expression of following Christ from that perspective also.

And yet, I'm not sure that I want to distance myself from the Christian right in the way 'God' does in this article.  In fact, I'm not sure if I can.

Doesn't that sound scandalous?  I think it is.  But it's the scandal of grace.

Not because I'm supposed to show them grace or anything noble like that, but because I am equally in need of grace.  I have no moral advantage over the worst of the Westboro lot that would give me any sort of 'in' with God.  I have in common with them the need to be rescued from my perverse views and foul actions.  And for many people who are part of that culture I also share with them a connection as we are both connected to Christ, sinners made righteous in Him.

Ultimately, to distance myself from the Christian right, while very tempting, is to distance myself from the God of grace who embraces foul people.

In the cross, God didn't distance himself from foul people.  He came near to them.  And when he did, we were so foul that we killed him. And Jesus knew we would.  And yet he says of foul people who killed him:

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."  (John 12:32)

Now, this post could contain many caveats about how we practically deal with such massive differences, the calling out of false shepherds, discussion of genuineness of conversion based on evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, etc.  But we can discuss those in the crumbs, cos this crumb is about God not distancing himself from me, when the moral gap between me and God makes the moral gap between me and Westboro look pretty darn insignificant.