I’ve been thinking a lot about the Flannery O’Connor quote I used yesterday: “I’m not afraid that the book will be controversial, I’m afraid it will not be controversial,” and realizing how I am constantly struggling between what is controversial and what is safe. Not to be controversial just for the sake of controversy, but because there is usually something about the truth that rubs the wrong way.
Think of how Jesus was always embroiled in controversy:
He healed people. That upset the social order. Lepers, cripples, the mentally ill and the blind are all supposed to be begging or in chains, not jumping up and down praising the Lord.
He healed people on the Sabbath. He was constantly going up against the petty laws of the religious leaders especially when they usurped some greater law like the law of love.
He forgave sins. Only God can do that, making it a controversial act among those who didn’t believe He was God or came from God.
He reinterpreted the laws of God. First, He made the law intensely personal (i.e., committing adultery in your heart or hating someone as equal to murder), then He summarized the law into loving God and your neighbor. That made it hard on the Pharisees to judge and to measure. (He put them out of business in this regard.)
He hung with sinners instead of saints. Jesus was controversial just because of the company he kept. And what about His disciples? They were not the model of religious purity.
What put Jesus on the cross if He wasn’t controversial in almost every area of life? They didn’t crucify Him for just one thing; they crucified Him for everything.
I am constantly feeling the struggle between what is controversial and what is safe. For instance, grace is highly controversial. It bestows favor on people who don’t deserve it. It treats everyone the same. I will go as far as to say that if God is truly using us, someone is bound to be upset.
But I worry that we have lost this edge — that because we have such a strong Christian presence now in culture and society that we have become more concerned with conforming with what is “Christian” than with the controversial truth.
Does anybody else feel this? Maybe you’d like to write me and tell me where you think you may have lost the controversial edge of truth. Or maybe you think we’re doing just fine. Let me know that too.
John Fischer The Catch 
John, my husband and I are blessed by your devotionals. It seems many of we Christians have gotten confused over the “tools” used by our forefathers and have made them “rules” in today’s churches. i.e., music and order of worship, days and times of worship, altar calls, etc. If it’s in the Bible, then we should by all means follow those teachings. If it’s a “tool”, then perhaps it should be re-examined so we can reach those who feel they are at a STOP sign when they enter church. That’s why many do not attend today is because of so many “rules” that cannot be tied back to the Bible.
I think where I have failed like so many others, I didn’t want to cause problems so I kept my relationship with Christ private. I have reached a stage in my relationship and in my life it no longer matters what others think, the only thing that matters is maintaining my relationship with God. Any relationship we havae with any should be one that we are willing to share with others. We need to shout from the highest rooftop how much God loves us.
I’m thinking about how sometimes we expect from others more than we even expect for ourselves. We expect gay people to become un-gay overnight, we expect rebellious kids to be un-rebellious overnight, we expect people who struggle with addictions to be un-addicts overnight, etc. Do we expect ourselves to become un-judgemental overnight?, un-angry overnight?, un-feraful overnight?, etc. We all tend to say things like, “well God is working on me about that”, or we say, “you know, God’s not done with me yet”, or “I’m just a pot in the Potter’s hands”, etc.The truth is that we need…..strike that…..we are commanded to be patient with other’s, letting the Holy Spirit do His job, in His own time and in His own way. It took me 25+ years to become an un-addict & an un-alcoholic. The two women that I loved with all my heart that went to be with the Lord along my journey never even got to see me sober, but they loved me even in the depth of my sin, & they prayed for God to deliver me. They only got to see my repentance & sobriety from a heavenly view. Maybe some of the people we hope & pray will repent & choose God’s grace we will only get to see from a heavenly view. Let’s keep truly loving them, the same way Christ loves us & let God do His own job.
Mark, you make a profound point. Time is required. Many of us will, in fact, run out of time in this life before the battles you mentioned — including the battle to become un-judgmental — is overcome. Thanks for the reminder. And thanks be to God for your long-awaited victory.
John, grace can be controversial in the church — very true. But grace isn’t controversial at all in the world, where the only thing that won’t be tolerated is intolerance. What is controversial in the world is the idea that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, along with the notion that God actually has standards. So our efforts to keep from being too safe will look different depending on which way we’re facing at the moment. Facing the church, we have to say something like, “Yes, God has standards — and the very good news is that when we fall short, Jesus is sufficient.” Facing the world, we have to say something like, “God has something better for us than we have so far reached. He receives us in our brokenness, but we really need to recognize our brokenness.” Or something like that. And I think you’re exactly right, that when God is truly using us, someone is going to be upset. How well are we doing? Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
You’re also right to point out how Jesus reinterpreted things. It has occurred to me recently that when Jesus gave the parable of the good Samaritan, He was doing some reinterpreting. Essentially, He told the lawyer, “You’re asking the wrong question.” Instead of trying to find the limit of the law (who am I required to love, who may I ignore?), he needed to be questioning himself: to whom am I willing to be a loving neighbor? We are probably often guilty of asking the wrong question. We do it in the church, we do it in the world. Maybe the church asks something like, “How much more do we need to do? Where are we falling short?” But the world is asking, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” In both cases, it’s the wrong question to ask. The church needs to learn (deep down) that we can never do enough — so live for Jesus. The world needs to learn that God isn’t trying to order them around to spoil their fun — He’s trying to get them to understand how they were designed, and that they’re going to suffer by continuing to ignore the “user’s manual”! Perhaps we’ll have better results all around if we learn to get people to ask the right question.
I lived in New Jersey most of my life. I behaved like a Christian…went to church, worked in the church, taught Sunday school, tried to be a good person. I DID it all, but didn’t share my beliefs with others because it was too controversial. I moved south 13 years ago and now I am able to share my beliefs with everyone. Nothing is controversial anymore for me. Location had everything to do with it. Some places are easier to deal with than others. Just my experience…….
I am confronted daily with the essence of the Ghandi quote: “Christianity is a great religion except for all of the Christians.” I find a decided lack of grace within society, at least between christians (with a small ‘c’) and non-Christians. From what I have been able to deduce, Jesus didn’t set out to confront and attack the sanctimonious and the offensive people; he only did so when they confronted and attacked him (well, except for the money changers in the temple). Rather Jesus worked with the broken people, perhaps because moreso than anyone else, they knew they were broken.
Because of your ministry, I find myself confronting my own actions, often finding a unhealthy level of sanctimoniousness there. The commandment is to love. It is not to confront, not to correct, not to admonish, not to show others where they are wrong, not to fight, and not to convince anyone that your beliefs are so much better than theirs. And so I come a little bit closer to loving God when I can love others as I love myself.
I have been reading a book by A.W. Tozer. He is amazing. He felt that our society was so immersed in materialism and immorality that the Church had lost its edge. This was in the 50’s. He would be truly horrified by us now. It is very difficult for me to share and witness, because I am an introvert. It is difficult to bare your soul when you don’t particularly want to be social. But God is working on me and I feel more loving toward people. I just wish I had realized this was so import ant before my 60’s. Anyway, we are so bombarded by technology everyday by wealth, sex, crime, and the Kardashians:) that it is easy to forget that it doesn’t matter that this is the 21st century, God has not changed and he doesn’t like sin of any kind. He wants His people to be pure and holy, kinda sorta like Christ. I hear even Christians say that sex is okay outside marriage, hey that is an obsolete law, and he couldn’t possibly want us to love terrorists or child abusers. So, yes, I think we have lost our edge, but I also believe that we are less judgemental (except for Westboro Bapt.) and more grace-oriented.