She's nice and white and middle class and conservative, and our politics are very much not aligned. In a nutshell, I think she represents the nice, well-intentioned yet oblivious surface of modern western Christianity.
It's like a comment I saw today in response to the discovery that the Melbourne/Victorian outbreaks may have been spurred by a hotel employee, not the security guard who had sex with a COVID-19 positive patient: "I see people calling for an apology to the Victorian Premier, but I don't think that he should be immune from criticism."
Criticism is one thing; dogpiling is another.
George Pell vs the media is dogpiling.
The Victorian Premier (centrist party, up against a conservative party with a 'Christian' leader) vs the media is "appropriate criticism".
I feel like Christians are so busy defending Scott Morrison from any bad press, that they're failing to understand just how bad is the press around their 'good Christian witness'. Nobody wants to just hear the gospel anymore - not when it's not accompanied by any other expression of love. So many Christians behave like not being able to talk about the gospel is a horrific thing. But what people want is to experience the love of God as shown through his people. They want to know that God loves them in all their broken misery - not that he's going to preach to them or tell them they're dirtybadwrong or their way or life is dirtybadwrong or that they need to improve and then God will love them...
And yes, what people hear with 'hate the sin, love the sinner' is that they and their lives are dirtybadwrong. Maybe it's technically correct, but in a society where you are what you eat and you are how you identify, WE NEED TO STOP USING THAT PHRASE OR WE'RE JUST SCREWING PEOPLE UP WHEN IT COMES TO FAITH.
"But eventually, you have to talk to them about the gospel!"
Yes. Yes, you do. But I wonder if Christians haven't gotten downright lazy once secular humanitarianism took over social justice, instead of thinking about what it meant to be 'made in the image of God' and what other things that might mean.
When Christians talk about social justice like it's dirty, when they back away into their spiritual enclaves in order to remain pure, when we're so busy pursuing political validity via our country's leadership - "Scott Morrison's doing such a good job! (offering marginal support and only to certain people, setting up a group to promote economic growth at the cost of social and environmental security, doing nothing to promote unity in leadership during the pandemic)" - that we can't really love our fellow people...
IDK. I'm just so tired. And sometimes I worry that sooner or later, the church I presently attend will no longer fit me when it comes to social justice concerns and facing outwards beyond the structures that we've become accustomed to as a church body and church culture.
Although we had a good talk about that at bible study the other week - largely related to Michael Frost's 'when you're alone at church' - I think we forget that loneliness is the expected separation from humanity, and while we can mitigate that in the church, sometimes becoming a clique isn't the answer.
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