It’s getting weirder living with you, as a Christian. Is it us, or is it you?

It’s weird like I imagine it might have felt back in the days of the Roman Empire, with Nero lighting us up on posts and tearing us limb from limb for a bit of fun. Weird in an “I think they are trying to get rid of us” way. Weird in the sense that we are starting to think that you may genuinely have no idea what we are on about.

The American theologian, Stanley Hauerwas said near the end of the last century, “My own view is that within a hundred years, Christians may be known as those odd people who don’t kill their children or their elderly”. He seems to have been right, except for the timeframe. He said it in 1998; it’s starting to sound accurate now, just two decades on.

The strangeness of Christianity is becoming more obvious. Strangely, we extend the hand of friendship to those who are against us (or, at least, we should). Strangely, we persist in believing there is more going on than our eyes can see and hands can touch. Strangely, we argue that human beings need help to thrive, and we can’t just look after ourselves. Strangely, we keep supporting the chronically ill, the dementing, the hopelessly disabled, the untouchable (again, I add, at least we should).

Christians keep denying the priority of economic rationalism, instead exceeding our quotas on altruistic resource use, abundantly loving and exorbitantly caring. We don’t account for time in six minute lots. We ‘waste’ ourselves on lost causes. We keep telling Nietzsche he was wickedly mad when he said we were pitiable because we “have preserved too much of what ought to perish”.

Most days we are the butt of jokes; that’s been the case since antiquity. But some of us around the globe are suffering much worse assaults than that. Driven out of our homes, tortured, forced to recant our faith or die. I guess that has happened on and off for centuries, too, depending on where you live. But the stakes seem very high at the moment.

That kind of suffering isn’t happening to us here in Australia (is it?) but we certainly have a growing sense of not being all that welcome. We are getting talked about as if we are somehow ‘the problem’ and that society would be far better off if we could be removed from public view.

Some say we have no place in the classroom, as if learning about Christianity is too dangerous for children. Others are worried about our influence on social institutions such as marriage, where our way of doing things doesn’t seem as attractive as it once may have been. Still others want to take our special celebrations out of the public calendar—Christmas, Easter, that kind of thing. It’s a pretty clear way of telling us that you don’t really want what we have to offer.

But I have to admit it is confusing. The messages are mixed.

It’s confusing, because so many Aussies still seem to love the impact that Christianity has had on the nation overall. We love our charities, the vast majority with Christian roots. We love to emphasize the “fair go” and “mateship”, both deriving to some extent from the Christian social tradition. We thinking loving thy neighbor makes good sense, and we will soon on Anzac Day remember the value of laying down one’s life for one’s friends. Aussies still seem to love these christianised values.

Confusingly for some, many of us do in fact hold respected positions of influence in Australian society. We are Army Generals, Governors, university Vice Chancellors, business leaders, mining magnates, premiers and prime ministers. We are novelists, musicians, artists and poets. And yet, to acknowledge the faith that shapes us is considered unacceptable for those in positions of power. It is as if our faith is something that needs to be hidden away, lest it stop us doing our job ‘properly’. But many of us are motivated to service and good deeds by that very faith. It’s frustrating to be silenced about the very thing that matters to us most.

And although lots of young people really don’t know who Jesus is, or what the Bible says, or what it means to call yourself a Christian, they are nevertheless interested in the things we are interested in. They talk about justice, or ending poverty; about forgiveness and redemption. They feel that there must be “someone up there”; they look to the heavens for guidance. These are our kinds of things.

It’s confusing to be silenced and rejected, but appreciated at the same time. Dear 21^st Century, it leaves our relationship status reading, “It’s complicated”.

Thanks for having us, anyway, 21^st Century world. We like you, much of the time. We like this world, because we think of it as God’s good creation, just in need of a lot of TLC to get back to where we started (maybe even better). We are frustrated that the goodness of the world doesn’t get acknowledged, and the good Creator doesn’t get thanked. And we are baffled that we seem so unwelcome now, when we really do have your best interests at heart and we think we can help you with your (our) problems.

Could it be that we Christians just need to explain ourselves better? Are we the problem after all? Or is being perplexed strangers just our biblically-appointed lot, and it is time we accepted it as normal?

I guess it is both us and you, dear 21^st Century world.

Image: Jason Cowling on Flickr, used under CC License.