When Church Says, “I Love You, But…”

Back in 2013, The Barna Group decided to study the accusation that the church is full of hypocrites.

They didn’t look at the question of whether church people are perfect or not, because that answer is already known.  (Spoiler alert: you won’t find perfection under any steeple, anywhere.)

Instead, Barna put together a poll that examined the attributes of Jesus against the attributes of the Pharisees and tried it out on self-identified Christians.

It turned out, according to Barna, 14% of Christians were like Jesus in actions and attitudes (e.g., God is for everyone, every person has God-given value), while the largest group, 51%, were caught up in self-righteous actions and attitudes like the Pharisees (e.g., I like to point out wrong doctrine and theology, the most important thing is following God’s rules).

Rather than offering the unconditional Love of Jesus, Pharisees have a list of requirements that must be met before acceptability is achieved.

The attitudes and actions of Jesus can be summed up in this way: “I love you.”

This is rest for our souls.

The attitudes and actions of the Pharisees add one fatal word: “I love you, BUT.”

This is an exhausting eternity of trying to measure up.

So you’re probably thinking about your church at this point.

Is it a Jesus-church, or a Pharisee-church?

I’m guessing that if you go there on a regular basis and don’t completely hate it, then it probably feels fairly loving toward you, and restful to your soul.

Here’s the thing, though.

I have a feeling that most of my readers are like me: straight, white, and cis-gender.  If that’s you, like it is me, the evangelical church in America was created just for us.  (If we’d happened to be male as well, we’d have that extra cherry on the sundae.)

Lucky, lucky us.

But what does church offer to the less-privileged?

What does church offer to people who are not straight, white, male, and cis-gender?

Does church offer rest to the souls of the LGBTQ community?

Or does church say, “I love you, BUT you need to be straight/act straight before you can be a part of our community?”

Does church offer rest to the souls of people of color?

Or does church say, “I love you, BUT y’all need to forgive. Stop being so angry. Stop being so sensitive. Let’s just all be reconciled and move on.”

Does church offer rest to the souls of women?

Or does church say, “I love you, BUT you have to stay with your abusive/porn-addicted/neglectful husband, and why were you speaking anyway?  We do not allow a woman to speak.”

Does church offer rest to the souls of the gender non-conforming?