Us versus Them

I read a tragic story today on Yahoo news. The article told the account of an evangelical church planning on burning copies of the Quran to commemorate September eleventh. How devastating. Where is Jesus in that? Now I understand that this church is fanatical and not representative of most churches, but I do believe it is an extreme example of something that has gone terribly wrong. For decades the church has pitted itself in a battle of "us versus them" rather than being proponents of the love of Christ. It does not take more than a cursory view of history to see Christians verses Muslims, Catholics verses Protestants, Christians versus homosexuality, evolution, intellectualism, and the list never ends.

I find myself torn because often it is imperative to take a stance, but what the church has come to be seen for is what we are against rather than what we are for.

John 4:1-42
In this poignant passage we have Jesus, a Jew, asking for water from a Samaritan woman. Not only does this make him unclean because she was a Samaritan, but she had multiple husbands and lived with a man who was not her husband! Jesus, in typical religious fashion, could have removed himself from the presence of this repeat sinner but instead he built a relationship. A relationship so powerful, the text says this sinful woman’s testimony caused many Samaritans to see the power of Christ. Jesus could have taken many different approaches towards this woman. He could have ignored her like the other religious leaders, gone around preaching about how wrong adultery is, or demonized her for her sins, but he did none of these. He built a relationship that instigated eternal change.

The "religious" of Jesus' day constantly condemned him for dealing with sinners, like this Samaritan woman. Not only was he seen with sinners, but in their view he made himself unclean by being with sinners - it was THAT important to him. The interesting thing is that it was the very same people the religious so often push away that could not help but run to Jesus. The thiefs, adulterors, even murderers were drawn like flies into the light of Christ.

So what has gone wrong? Why do these people now run from the Truth that only the church can offer? Why do we not draw them in?

We, as Christians, are blessed because we are all the benefactors of the greatest gift of grace - due to this reality it should never be us versus them. Our opinions should only come second to the abundant story of love Christ offers.

Rather than burning Qurans, maybe we could build relationships - show people the story of love we have to offer rather than the list of "cannot" we have created.

Here is where I come to a crossroad. I know I am no better than anyone - a wretched sinner saved by the undeserving grace of the cross. But what do we do? When what the world sees is Christians who shoot abortion doctors, or burn Qurans, how do we draw people in? Why would they want to come in? The only conclusion I can come to is the example Christ set. Maybe we can build relationships with "outsiders" so strong that they run back to their villages spreading the Truth of Christ as they go.