Fellow Saints and Sinners, I am re-posting the following response to the video I just shared with you, which poses the question, “Can prayer be social justice?” When I shared the video with the Facebook community, “Christians tired of being misrepresented,” which describes itself as “progressive” and “NOT a right-wing, fundamentalist” group, and to which I belong precisely because I thought it would be an “open-minded” place in which to share questions and reflections about life and God, I received the following post from the owners of the page:
“Hi Kristina – thank you for sharing this blog post and video with us. Although heart stirring and sincere, the statements in this video saying “Our God” and “His People” do not fit well with our page. CToBM does not put a claim on God as …”Christian”. The owners of this page do choose to follow Jesus Christ and His teachings, but we do not claim to own him or restrict him from moving in other faith systems or even non-believers. This video is too exclusive for this inclusive Page and it’s members. Thank You.”
Hmm…Is there irony here? I think so. Is it “progressive” to be close-minded about how God might be at work in a new and different way in other parts of the world such as the global South, just because our brothers and sisters’ language for describing God’s work doesn’t fit within our own “politically correct” conceptions? Is an exclusion of other varieties of religious experience that don’t reinforce our own really consistent with the notion that we don’t “own” God? I don’t think so. By welcoming the fact that God can act in non-Christian faiths, do we have to then exclude how God might choose to act within the system of Christianity that we belong to?So…What do you think? Is “progressive” Christianity just another veiled attempt at excluding those whose experiences of God in Jesus Christ differ from ours? Do our labels stop being helpful for the very reason that they invite us to close-mindedness about the work of the Spirit wherever She decides to manifest Herself? All opinions, including those that passionately differ from my own, are welcome!
[By way of update, I was promptly “unfriended” by “Christians tired of being misrepresented after responding to their note. So much for open cyber spats.]
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