What’s wrong with Christianity in the Y? Christians, of course!
All the complaints and frustrations and hurts and even injustices experienced in the Y via Christians is less about Christianity and more about actual people stumbling and bumbling, sometimes being mean jerks and leaving wounds in their path.
But Christianity as a religion is not above reproach; there is plenty to criticize.
Interestingly, embedded within Christianity is a vibrant tradition of self-critique.
The Hebrew Scriptures and tradition are a formative foundation for Christianity. Have you ever read the Torah? It’s full of robust self-critique. The Psalms? David is brutal on himself, as he ought to be. The Prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah and the others evoke powerful lyrics of self-critique regarding the children of Israel, God’s people.
Christianity is ideally built on the commands of Christ Jesus, a religion of cruciform love that includes devastating self-critique. Jesus’ first sermon required self-critique to understand it and accept it: “repent, for the Kingdom of God is come near.”
I could go on, my point being that Christianity is a critiqueable religion, it invites criticism, it requires self-critique, it ought to be critiqued.
Obviously Christ Jesus could handle it without getting defensive or sullen.
If you pay close enough attention to Christianity, you’ll notice most of its literature is either grounded in self-criticism or a response to it.
Almost all of Paul’s epistles include critique of sin in the early churches, and him responding to critics of him and his ministry. Augustine’s Confessions is the longest prayer in recorded history, all of it grounded in a searing self-critique that also soars with redemptive eloquence.
Martin Luther is famous for his 95 critiques of the church; the whole Protestant Christian tradition is founded on the premise of self-criticism!
When it comes to the world criticizing Christianity, whether people of various faith traditions, or political or secular, most of it is probably warranted, and ought to be taken seriously. Whatever the critiques are, they probably already echo the self-criticism that is already being generated.
Christianity gets a triple whammy when it comes to criticism (this is not about garnering sympathy): there is the self-criticism that is foundational to our religion, there is the criticism of the world, and there is the omnipresent Scriptural critique of God. Yikes!
Add to this the perfection we see modeled in our founder, the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. According to our traditions, he is 100% human and 100% God, without sin in any way, though fully tempted in every way. That’s the standard set before Christians!
Obviously every single Christan who has ever lived never came close to perfectly following his commands. It’s obvious to fellow Christians, the world, and God.
This then points to the painfully obvious fact that churches are even worse examples, as the sinfulness of the congregants tends to mestatisize over time, despite the best of intentions (the law of entropy is always at work…).
It’s a glum picture, for sure.
So what’s a way forward for Christians in the YMCA who are sensitive to the realities of self-criticism but also yearn to follow Christ Jesus as faithfully as possible in this world?
1. Humility is crucial for moving forward. The willingness to lament where mistakes were made, to listen well, the openness to confession and repentance are essential realities of becoming a Christian in the first place, it’s the narrow way of receiving the Good News, of experiencing Jesus drawing near to the lost and broken-hearted.
2. Mutuality is key to our hearing and receiving critique. The broken relationships are what necessitates criticism, an unmooring of mutuality is both a cause of critique and can also undermine the ability to receive it in love and wisdom. A resilient commitment to seeing diverse and often divisive Christian’s as brothers and sisters in Christ fuels our capacity to immerse ourselves in self-critique for the sake of reconciliation and future fellowship.
3. Obedience is also foundational to our engaging in rigorous and thorough self-criticism. Jesus says this many ways, different versions of: “my new command is this, you must love one another as I have loved you.” This is an impossible standard to meet on any kind of consistent basis. Its an inspiring command that also opens everyone to criticism for all the ways they fall short. Yet this also can reframe our self-criticism as a form of love, rather then vipurative complaints of victimization.
Christian principles in the YMCA, for example, ought to excel at self-criticism – in the way of love, humility, obedience. When the world criticizes us then, we ought to take it in stride, absorbing all that is true within it and lovingly, humbly, faithfully, penitently, and in mutuality, do better. And so on principle the cycle continues…
Unfortunately within Christianity are many different dimensions of diversity that mistrust and misunderstand each other, abuse and abandon one another, disregard and defame, shun and excommunicate.
The prayer of Jesus in John 17 seems less and less likely of ever being answered, “…that they all may be one…”
The world does Christians a favor when they critique us, when they criticize our sins and shortcomings, our self-righteous protesting and prejudicing.
They remind us of our need to repent and abide in Christ Jesus, to confess our sins to one another and make amends as much as we are able.
The prayer of Jesus that we might be one gets resisted by humans; it can only be made real in us through the actual presence of Christ at work through us.
Our humility, mutuality with Christ Jesus and our obedience is our experience of redemption and the ground upon which we stand to do the ministry of reconciliation work we are called to participate in.
How could this play out in the Young Men’s Christian Association? What could be a way forward for Christianity in the YMCA in light of what is wrong with us?
When members and staff criticize, the opportunity is laid before us as Christian’s to hear it in humility, to respond out of mutuality, a sense of urgency and duty as promised in the terms of membership and employment as well as in the realities of being an association. And underneath that for Christians is the command to respond with loving patience and kindness.
When Christians make prejudiced remarks about each other, instead of letting the deragatorive comment go unchallenged, gently find a way to turn a corner with then and open up a space for more gracious humility towards brothers and sisters in Christ that you disagree with politically, economically, socially, racially, ethnically, etc.
When disagreements are emerging between people in a board meeting about the role of religion one must be attentive to the power dynamics in the room, the trauma that’s likely been experienced due to participation in a faith community, and lack of skills in forging ecumenical or interfaith collaborations.
The more pluralist our community becomes, the more investment is needed in mutual understandings, humble respectfulness to what you don’t understand, and patient dialogue that flows from the command to love one another including your “enemies.”
This means having the courage to be present in the moment, the tensions, the misunderstandings but also the hopes for a faith and love that truly heals, that are part of the answer to Jesus’ own prayer, “that they all may be one.”
“My prayer is not for them alone.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Jesus’ Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Gospel of John 17:20-23 NIV
