Being a skeptic, I have the feeling that many people, and especially Christians, like to come up with these amazing quotes that conveniently fit their ideology and then attach them to famous people in an ironic way. For example, if you’ve been an active church-participating Christian for a while, and you spend a lot of time on email or social networking sites, you might have come across that one conversation between this kid and a professor, talking about evil being the absence of good, in the same way that light is the absence of darkness. And this kid totally owns the professor. And in some versions, at the very end, it says that the kid was Albert Einstein. I’ve always been pretty skeptical about that. Would any kid actually confront a teacher in class, and come out correct? And what kind of kids go through lectures about evil disproving the existence of God in the first place? And furthermore, Albert Einstein was a self-proclaimed agnostic.

And so when I see this quotation attributed to Ghandi going around, mostly to Christian circles, I get skeptical.

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christans.” Supposedly, Ghandi said that. But there’s a chance he didn’t. But I don’t know.

Anyway, I probably first came across this in high school. And since then, I’ve seen and heard it a bunch of times, usually complemented by an encouragement to live more like Jesus. In fact, I think that I myself used this several times.

I was talking to this friend today, and he said something pretty interesting. Essentially, it is that many people often equate fundamental disagreement with qualitative judgment. In other words, if you disagree with somebody, and especially if it is a disagreement relevant to the very identity of that person, you are looking down on that somebody. If you think that the government is providing too much social welfare, and you come across a recipient of that social welfare, you look down on that person. If you are all about protecting the environment, and you come across a person who crushes rabbits with Hummers for fun, you look down on that person. If you think that being attracted to somebody of the same gender is morally wrong, and you come across somebody who is attracted to somebody of the same gender, you look down on that person.

However, that’s not how Christianity works. Christianity says that every single person in the world is the worst sinner of all, but some people are given the grace to know God nonetheless. And so there is nothing at all separating me and a part-time stripper and part-time pedophile, except grace. Therefore, I cannot look down on anybody. However, that philosophy is a little difficult to understand for non-Christians, so there naturally is this miscommunication.

I was in a discussion yesterday that involved people in the LGBTQ community and people in the faith community. And one issue that was going around concerned whether it was possible to love somebody who disagreed fundamentally with you. And it seemed like many people in the LGBTQ community found it very difficult to believe that you can fundamentally disagree with somebody without looking down on that person. It is a huge hindrance to building a relationship when you disagree with somebody’s very nature. On the other hand, those in the faith community found it very easy to accept. Many said that it is very possible to believe that somebody’s very identity is morally wrong and to still love them.

I found that interesting. Where does that dichotomy come from?

I think this is how it works. Love without action is worthless. I think that’s the view that most people have. I would probably say that love without action still exists, but that the love is revealed or made known through action. It’s not that God loved the world any less before Jesus died on that cross. However, to regular human beings, that’s impractical. It’s much easier to say that love without action is worthless.

And so the way people determine how much somebody loves them is by how much action they put into it. Consequently, some of the worst people of all are those who talk about love all the time but don’t have any action. They’re walking contradictions. They’re hypocrites.

If you don’t talk about love, and you don’t love, that’s okay. But if you talk about love, and you don’t love, that’s hypocrisy. That’s the philosophy that many people have.

And consequently, Christians, who build their identity on a religion of love, are in a very dangerous position. It is so easy to become a hypocrite. And consequently, people find it hard to believe that you can love somebody even though you think they are living in sin. And consequently, people say, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.”

What’s the fundamental difference between Christ and Christians? It’s that Christ wasn’t a hypocrite. He talked about love, and he actually loved. He said he came to serve, and he washed his disciples feet. He said that he was willing to forgive, and he allowed himself to be killed on a cross.

Christ alone is able to both disagree fundamentally with people and to love those same people to death. He drew moral lines all over the place. Just read the Sermon on the Mount. At the same time, he was often criticized for spending too much time with prostitutes and lepers. He talked love, and he walked love.

Here’s something we as Christians should realize. We can’t do that!

Christians aren’t supposed to talk about their love. They’re supposed to talk about God’s love. Evangelism is not done through pointing to your love but through pointing to God’s love. Evangelism is not done by convincing people of the good that Christians have done for the world but by convincing people of the good that God has done for the world. Christians gave the world orphanages and hospitals, but Christians also gave the world tyranny and war. God gave the world his Son as atonement for our sin.

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.”

That’s the whole point!

If I’m a hungry beggar, and I found this man offering free food down the street, and I tell you about it, don’t refuse the free food because I smell, or because I’m dirty, or even because I punched you in the face yesterday. That’s irrelevant. Just go and get your free food.

– Larry