The Christian church has a history of supporting injustice and destroying cultures. It is a magnet for fanatics and hypocrites. There is not denying any of that and Christians today must address the corporate and individual behavior of Christians that has undermined the plausibility of Christianity for many people.

If Christianity is the truth, why are so many non-Christians living so much more moral lives than Christians? If Christianity is the truth, why has the institutional church supported war, injustice and violence over the centuries? If Christianity is the truth, why would God’s people want to be hanging out with so many smug, self-righteous and dangerous fanatics and hypocrites?

The average professing Christian has character flaws. I have several, some of which I’m working on and some of which you might just want to ignore. Church communities are often characterized by more fighting and hedonism than other voluntary organizations. And, who can forget the moral failings of Christian leaders? The press takes way too much pleasure in reporting them, but honestly, folks, they didn’t create them. Church leaders appear to be as corrupt (sometimes more corrupt) than leaders in the world at large.  Then there are non-churchgoers who live exemplary moral lives. What is wrong with this picture? If Christianity is the truth, shouldn’t Christians on the whole be much better people than everyone else?

First, we must understand the concept of common grace whereby God casts good gifts of wisdom, justice and beauty on all mankind in a completely unmerited way. So beggar, beautician, banker or serial killer, all human beings stand to receive something from God’s great hand-out of gifts. His grace is indiscriminate and inexhaustible.

Christianity further teaches that we can only have a relationship with God by sheer grace. Our moral efforts are too weak and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, has provided salvation for us, but it is not something we have earned. Growth in character and changes in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. We don’t “clean up” our act in order to become Christian. The act of becoming a Christian allows us to start to the process of letting God “clean up” our acts. Unfortunately, that means the church is infested with immature and broken people who have a long way to go emotionally, morally and spiritually. The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Good character is largely attributable to loving, safe and stable family and social environments. Bully for you if you grew up in one of those, but most people don’t get to choose their family of origin or the culture into which they were born.  Oddly, those most broken and struggling humans are often the ones most aware of their sin and most able to recognize the need for something outside of themselves to reform their character defects. Unless you know the starting point of someone’s life, you might find individual Christians to be inconsistent with their own high standards. Of course, we’re not surprised to find the health of hospital patients to be less than the health of those walking around out in the world, but somehow that practical observation is often not applied to churches.

The flesh-and-blood foibles of Christians are no reflection on God, but only on the flesh-and-blood people who inhabit most churches. A better standard of comparison might be to look at where people started before becoming Christians and measure where Christianity has taken them rather than look at the end-point ideal of the Christian standard and note how few Christians actually live up to it. None ever truly attain all that God would have us to be. Perfection is a pretty tough standard.

Christopher Hitchens believes that orthodox religion leads inevitably to violence. Using examples from Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Bethlehem and Baghdad, he argued in god Is Not Great that religion takes racial and cultural differences and aggravates them. To a certain extent, Hitchens is correct. Religion tends to cast ordinary cultural differences into a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Christian nations have institutionalized imperialism, violence and oppression through the Inquisition and the African slave trade. Buddhism and Shintoism deeply influenced the totalitarian and militaristic Japanese empire of the mid-20^th Century. Islam has provided fertile soil for terrorists, which Jewish Israel has dealt with ruthlessly. All this is evidence that indicates that religion aggravates human differences which inevitably boil over into war, violence and oppression of minorities.

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to not note that Communism in Russia, China and Cambodia, finding its roots in the French Revolution, rejected organized religion and belief in God. These societies were all rational and secular, but each produced massive violence against its own people without the influence of religion. Remove God from the equation and people will find something else to put in that cosmic place in order to appear morally and spiritually superior. The Marxists made the state “God”; the Nazis made race and blood “God”. The French revolutionaries used liberty and equality as excuses to do violence to their opponents.

Violence done in the name of Christianity cannot be excused. It is a terrible reality that must be addressed and redressed. However, the 20^th century saw as much violence inspired by secularism as by moral absolutism. From this, we can only conclude that some violence is deeply rooted in the human heart and will express itself regardless of the particular beliefs of a society. Violence isn’t a Christian thing, a Buddhist thing, an Islamic thing, a secular thing – it’s a human thing.

Many outside observers look at Christianity and make certain assumptions. We see it in movies and television programs and portrayals by the Democratic Party. The world believes that Christians are fanatical and therefore dangerous. In most people’s estimation, religious faith exists on a continuum. At one end of the spectrum, there are nominal Christians who go to church on Sunday, but live and work pretty much like the rest of the world. At the other end of the spectrum are the fanatics, those who over-believe and over-practice Christianity. The idea most promoted is that someone in the middle is the best kind of Christian. They believe it, but they aren’t overly devoted to it. Of course, this makes the assumption that Christianity is essentially a form of moral improvement. Intense Christians would be Pharisaical, assuming they are right with God because of their moral behavior and right doctrine. This is not, however, what Christianity teaches.

The essence of Biblical Christianity is salvation by grace, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ did on our behalf. Belief that you are accepted by God by sheer grace is profoundly humbling. Therefore, those who seem smug and self-assured in their faith are not that way because they are too committed to their faith, but because they are not committed enough.  Overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive and harsh, these fanatics are zealous and courageous, but not humble, sensitive, loving, empathetic, forgiving or understanding like their role model, Jesus. Because they think of Christianity as a self-improvement program, they emulate the Jesus Who took whips to the money changers, but not the Jesus Who said “Let the one with no sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). What the world deems fanatical is actually a failure to fully commit to Christ and His gospel. This leads to injustice and oppression and it is a constant danger within any body of religious believers. For Christians, however, the solution is not to tone down and moderate our faith, but rather to fully grasp true faith in Christ.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), Jesus did not criticize irreligious people. The people He found fault with prayed, gave to the poor, and sought to live according to the Bible. They did so, however, in order to gain acclaim and power for themselves. This made them judgmental and condemning, quick to criticize and unwilling to be critiqued. They were religious fanatics. Like the prophets before Him, Jesus wasn’t against prayer or obedience to Biblical direction. He opposed the use of spiritual and ethical observance as a lever to gain power over others and over God. This led to an emphasis on external forms of religion (rituals and good works).  God cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance; He is moved only by repentance, through giving up of power. If we are saved by grace alone, we can only turn to God in gratitude. We have no cause to be proud because our status in Christ is completely not of our doing.

The church has inexcusably been party to the oppression of people at times, but the Bible provided and continues to provide tools for critique of religiously supported injustice. Many who criticize the church for being power-hungry and greedy fail to realize that these are Christian precepts. Many other cultures consider power and respect to be good things in society and do not understand why Western culture frowns on these behaviors.  The typical criticisms by secular people concerning the oppressiveness and injustices of the Christian church actually come from Christianity, leaking into society during previous generations when the culture was steeped in Christianity. The shortcomings of the church are due to the imperfect adoption and practice of Christian principles. The answer to this hypocrisy is not to abandon the faith for this would leave us with neither the standards nor the resources to correct our corporate behavior. Instead, it is for us to move to a fuller and deeper grasp of what Christianity is. The Bible warned there would be abuses of religion, but it also told us what to do about them. For this reason, Christianity has, historically, given us remarkable examples of self-correction.

For example, the African slave trade was a deep stain on European culture. Christianity, being the dominant religion in those nations that bought and sold slaves during that time, bears a responsibility for what happened. Slavery has existed in almost every human society at one time or another, but Christians were the first to conclude that it was wrong. Anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the fall of the Roman Empire and slavery eventually dwindled to virtual non-existence in Europe. When Europeans instituted slavery in the New World, the Catholic Church strongly protested. The abolition of New World slavery grew from and was achieved by Christian activists. Men like William Wilberforce protested against slavery not because of some general understanding of human rights, but because they saw it as a violation of God’s will. Race-based, life-long chattel slavery could not be squared with Biblical teaching. The wealth brought by the slave trade made the abolition efforts difficult. Many church leaders defended the institution because their fortunes rested upon it, but eventually Christianity self-corrected.

Conversely, during the Civil Rights movement, northern white liberals, with their secular belief in the innate goodness of human nature, disagreed with civil disobedience or direct attacks on segregation, believing that education and enlightenment would inevitably bring about social and racial progress. They counseled black leaders against taking direct action to bring about integration. Black leaders were more rooted in the Biblical understanding of the sinfulness of the human heart. They knew that segregation would always remain unless it was directly confronted. Through vibrant faith they empowered themselves and rank-and-file African Americans to insist upon justice despite the violent opposition they faced. In many ways, the American Civil Rights movement was a product of a religious revival. Martin Luther King did not call upon white churches in the South to become more secular. In his sermons and “Letters from Birmingham Jail” he called white Christians to be more true to their own beliefs and to live out what the Bible really teaches.

Similarly, Dietrich Bonheoffer refused to stay in the safety of London after Hitler came to power. He returned to his native Germany to head an illegal seminary of Christian congregations that refused to sign an oath of allegiance to the Nazis. Eventually arrested for his activities and executed, Bonheoffer spent his time in prison writing letters in which he revealed how his Christian faith gave him vast resources to give up everything for the sake of others. Marx argued that if you believe in a life after this one, you won’t be concerned to make this world a better place. Bonheoffer, however, had a joy and hope in God that made it possible for him to do what he did. He stated that it was not a religious act that made a Christian, but “participation in the suffering of God in the secular life.” He advocated “allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ” that embraces pain as a pathway to joy.

When people have done injustice in the name of Jesus Christ, they have failed to live up to the example of the One Who died as a victim of injustice and Who called for forgiveness of His enemies. When people give their lives to liberate others as Jesus did, they are realizing the true Christianity of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonheoffer and other Christian voices. Fanaticism is a symptom of incomplete faith, a lack of true contact with the Savior God. Only by fully embracing Jesus and Biblical principles can the Christian truly live a God-centered life that values every human life as if it were his own.

Ted Stevens: An innocent man

By Lanny Davis

Washington Post

August 18, 2008 

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Just the headline of this piece alone, I'll bet, shocks a number of people.

Most people assume, or have concluded, that Sen. Ted Stevens is guilty. After all, didn't a D.C. grand jury indict Mr. Stevens on seven felony counts? Haven't the U.S. government and its federal prosecutors concluded that Mr. Stevens failed to disclose taking more than $250,000 worth of gifts on his Senate financial-disclosure forms?

Of course the media hype and Page One, above-the-fold headlines about these charges lead to the public impression that Sen. Stevens must be guilty of ... well ... something.

But just suppose all these media stories began with the following paragraph:

"Sen. Ted Stevens, who must be presumed to be an innocent man until he is proven guilty by the U.S. government beyond a reasonable doubt, today was indicted on charges of filing false statements in Senate financial-disclosure forms. As is normal, the grand jury voted the indictment based on one-sided evidence presented by prosecutors, without Sen. Stevens or his attorneys having an opportunity to be present, to cross-examine witnesses, or to present contrary evidence that could have created a reasonable doubt regarding his guilt."

Most media people and government prosecutors would probably say such a lead would be naive and ridiculous. What they couldn't say is that a single word of the above paragraph is untrue.

Actually, the "presumption of innocence" appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court in Coffin v. U.S. held that such a presumption must be inferred from the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments and guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ironically, the very same conservative "strict constructionists" who insist that Roe v. Wade should be overturned because the right to privacy appears nowhere in the Constitution do not challenge inferring the "presumption of innocence" as a fundamental constitutional right.)

Here are a few examples to remember, in case anyone forgets the importance of this presumption:

• Remember the three Duke lacrosse team players indicted on rape charges in the spring of 2006 by Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong? There was Nancy Grace on CNN proclaiming guilt before trial when she said, "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape."

But then in 2007 came the findings of the North Carolina attorney general, who completely exonerated the indicted players and caused all charges to be dropped, accusing the since retired and disbarred Mr. Nifong of a "tragic rush to accuse."

• Remember Richard Jewell? During the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he was publicly accused by the media in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing after having been lauded as a hero for having helped evacuate the park. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing anonymous law-enforcement officials, reported that he fit an FBI profile of a lone bomber and that the U.S. government was investigating him on that basis. He faced 24/7 media stakeouts in front of his home and news coverage every day that assumed his guilt. He was never even indicted.

Then, in April 2005, Eric Robert Rudolph pled guilty to planting the bomb, and Mr. Jewell was completely exonerated. But not before his life was ruined and his heart broken long before he died, just last year, of diabetes and kidney failure at the age of 44.

• In recent days, there is Steven J. Hatfill, a former scientist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Mr. Hatfill was named through anonymous leaks from "law-enforcement sources" as a prime suspect in the anthrax scare. His life, too, was virtually ruined, his reputation forever tarnished by law-enforcement leaks to the media rather than by evidence heard under the rules of due process.

And then: In the past several weeks, the FBI has identified another suspect, Bruce E. Ivins, as the virtually certain source of the anthrax mailings at the same time it "settled" a civil case with Mr. Hatfill for a reported $5 million.

Mr. Hatfill could be asking the same question as was once famously asked by former Republican Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan after a Bronx, N.Y., jury quickly acquitted him of multiple felony charges.

Mr. Donovan had suffered years of media innuendo fed largely by partisan Democrats making what turned out to be false charges of Mafia ties and corruption. When a reporter congratulated him after his quick acquittal on all charges, Mr. Donovan answered:

"Thank you. Now where do I go to get my reputation back?"

So whatever happens to Sen. Stevens, we all should learn and repeat the following Latin words: "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui egat." ("The burden of proof rests on he who asserts, not he who denies.")

OK, OK ... if you can't remember those Latin words, then at least remember Mr. Jewell and the Duke lacrosse team before you convict Sen. Stevens in your mind based on a grand jury indicting, or the law enforcement authorities accusing.

Give the man his day in court. That's the least we can do in this presumption-of-guilt culture in which we live and with which we are all complicit.

• Lanny Davis is a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst for Fox News. From 1996 to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton. From 2005 to 2006, he served on President Bush's five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

From the larger cultural picture of Christianity, we step down to the more individual aspects of the faith. Supposedly, Christianity limits personal growth and potential because it constrains our freedom to choose our own beliefs and practices. Immanuel Kant defined an enlightened human being as one who trusts his or her own power of thinking rather than authority or tradition. Our culture has a deep current of resistance to authority in moral matters. Freedom to determine our own moral standards is deemed necessary for healthy personhood.

Yes, that is an oversimplification. I only have a short space to deal with this. The idea of Christianity as an intellectual and emotional straitjacket is also an oversimplification. Freedom cannot be defined in strictly negative terms. It is not merely the absence of confinement and constraint. In fact, confinement and constraint may at times be a means to liberation.

My daughter is a dancer. She has spent years practicing, practicing and practicing to get good at what she does. This is a restriction of her freedom. It takes time away from activities in which she might otherwise wish to participate. She had natural talent before the lessons, so why spend so much time honing her craft? Well, last semester a role in the school play Grease became unexpectedly available, but whomever stepped into this vacated role had to be a good dancer because they had only three weeks to learn to jitterbug. The lead playing Danny requested Bri, a mere freshman, to take the role because, as a ballet dancer himself, he recognized that she had the honed skills that would allow her to quickly learn the moves of a dance genre she had never before learned. There were girls in the supporting cast who dearly would have loved to play ChaCha, but all recognized as opening night rolled around that Bri had the skills to do so on short notice. Her restriction of freedom in pursuit of her craft allowed her a greater liberality of roles.

In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the liberating ones. By this I mean the restrictions that fit with the reality of our nature and the world to produce greater power and scope for our abilities. Experimentation and risk bring growth only if, over time, they show us our limits as well as our abilities. If we grow intellectually, vocationally and physically through judicious constraints why should we also not grow spiritually and morally through the same means? Instead of insisting upon freedom to create our own spiritual reality, should we be seeking to discover what true spiritual reality is and disciplining ourselves to live according to that reality?

The popular concept that belief in the spiritual realm is nothing like the rest of reality and therefore we should be free to determine our own morality fails because reality does exist on the spiritual plane and we must acknowledge that reality in order to thrive. For example, love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all. You must lose independence to attain greater intimacy in a love relationship.  You cannot enter into a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow your lover no say in how you live your life. To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy. I know people who would disagree with that, but I would note that the majority of them have been married and divorced multiple times. Similarly, a relationship with God seems inherently dehumanizing because God says “there is one way, it is My way, you must adjust to My reality.” Yet, God adjusted to our reality in a most radical way when He took on human flesh and died for our sins. God became a limited human being, vulnerable to suffering and death. He adjusted to us for our sakes.

CS Lewis asked the question “Is it easy to love God?” and answered “It is easy for those who do it.” When you fall in love, you want to please your beloved. Your efforts to please that person may seem oppressive to those on the outside of the relationship, but to you, it doesn’t feel oppressive at all. It feels like you’re feeding the relationship and making it stronger. For the Christian, it is the same with Jesus. The love of Christ constrains us to please Him. Jesus changed His very nature for us, even dying for us, so why would we be afraid to give up our freedom in order to fully love Him? It is through that love that we experience true freedom.

Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints, but the discovery of those freedoms and restraints that best fit our nature and liberate us to be all that we can be. Christianity gives Christians a framework for defining our natures and being the best people that we can be within the restraints and freedoms afforded by the Christian framework. Rather than being a straitjacket for our individual emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth, Christianity serves as a channel for disciplined emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth.

Is a belief in absolute truth the enemy of freedom?

Christianity names some beliefs “heresy” and some practices “immoral”, therefore barring from its community those who transgress its doctrinal and moral boundaries. That would appear to endanger civil freedom, dividing rather than uniting the population. It is culturally narrow, failing to recognize that diverse cultures will hold different perspectives on reality. Observers reason that Christians are enslaved to a belief system that tells them who they are and how to live, denying individuality, creativity, and emotional and spiritual growth. Emma Goldman, an early 20^th-century social activist, called Christianity “the leveler of the human race, the breaker of man’s will to dare and to do … an iron net, a straitjacket which does not let him expand or grow.” (Goldman, The Failure of Christianity, 1913, Goldman’s Mother Earth Journal)

To many people “true” freedom is liberty to create your own meaning and purpose. In that view, Christianity appears an enemy to social cohesion, cultural adaptability and authentic personhood. Its truth claims sound suspiciously like power plays, attempts to control others and get power for yourself.  Of course, that suspicion in itself is a power play. CS Lewis explained that quite nicely in The Abolition of Man. Some kind of truth-claim is inevitable and unavoidable.  To make any sort of moral judgment in the absence of an objective standard of morality is inconsistent, yet we do it all the time. We state the Chinese are violating human rights, but who defines human rights for the entire human race? The West? China? China sees our call for the protection of human rights interference in their governmental sovereignty and therefore a violation of human rights. They want to know why our definition of human rights should apply to them, but not theirs to us. Truth claims are untenable in a world without objective standards for morality, yet we all recognize certain truth claims as “right”. For the postmodern thinker, such questions inevitably lead to an inability to judge reality on any sort of objective basis. CS Lewis noted that the transparency of a window is a good thing, because it allows us to see the garden beyond, but if we also insist upon looking “through” the garden, then we find the world to be invisible and ultimately completely unknowable. To insist upon “seeing through” everything means to see nothing.

Christianity requires particular beliefs in order to be a member of its community. Critics argue that such exclusivity is socially divisive. They point to diverse ethnic neighborhoods where members respect one another’s privacy and rights and participate in a “liberal democracy” without any common moral beliefs and say this is proof that common moral beliefs are not necessary.

Liberal democracy is based upon an extensive list of assumptions – a preference for individual to community rights, a division between private and public morality, and that sanctity of personal choice. Many other cultures find such ideas utterly foreign. Communities (whether a liberal democracy or some other form of governance) share a common set of very particular beliefs. Western society is based upon a shared commitment to reason, rights and justice, even though we may have no universal definition for these. Yet, we must be honest and recognize that other cultures do not share this same commitment. Therefore, a completely inclusive community is an illusion. Beliefs create boundaries within every human community, including some people and excluding others.

Don’t believe that? What would happen if the board member of the local Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Community Center announced he had become a Christian and now believed that homosexuality is a sin. Trust me, he would be asked to step down from the board because he no longer shares a common commitment with the rest of the organization. No one would find that odd and most if not all members of the homosexual community would applaud their actions as protecting the integrity of their organization. Yet, when a church insists that an actively homosexual person cannot be a Sunday School teacher or pastor, that is labeled “exclusive” and deemed harmful to society. Neither community is being “narrow” – they are just protecting the specific boundaries of their community. One aspect of community is that we hold members of that community accountable for specific beliefs and practices that define our corporate identity. Standards for members do not define the openness of a community so much as the way that that community treats those outside of their circle.  We should criticize Christians when they ungraciously condemn unbelievers in unfair and cruel ways, yet why do we not complain when the local GLTC group excludes vocal homophobes from their meetings? We should not criticize churches when they maintain standards for membership in accord with their beliefs. Every community must and generally does do the same.

As for the charge that Christianity is a cultural straitjacket, a quick look around the world will put this lie to the rest. Christianity has been more adaptive of diverse cultures than secularism and many other worldviews.

Islam remains centered in the place of its origin – the Middle East. The historical lands of Hinduism and Buddhism remain India and China/Southeast Asia. Christianity was first dominated by Jews and centered in Jerusalem, then it was dominated by Hellenists and centered in the Mediterranean. Later the center shifted to Northern Europe and the United States. Today, most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Christians comprised 9 percent of the African population in 1900 when they were outnumbers four to one by Muslims.  Today, Christians comprise 44 percent of the population and passed Muslims in number in the 1960s.  Africans have a strong traditional belief in the supernatural that secularism has failed to address. Christianity allows them to critique their traditions without completely rejecting them as Islam had demanded they do.

Cultural diversity is built into the Christian faith. In Acts 15, the Jerusalem church declared that the new Gentile Christians did not have to enter Jewish culture in order to have full standing before God. No one owns the Christian faith for there is no Christian culture in the same manner as there is an Islamic culture that you may find in any Islamic country you visit. Chinese Christians look and act, even worship, in significantly different ways from African Christians who look, act and worship in significantly different ways than South American Christians, and all diverge from European Christianity. Christianity is not a “Western” religion that destroys local cultures. It has taken on more culturally diverse forms than any other faith, gathering deep layers of insight from Hebrew, Greek and European cultures of the past and now being further shaped by African, Latin American and Asian cultures of today.

The false accusation that Christianity is a cultural straitjacket has been laid to rest by the example of its diversity throughout the world’s cultures. Christians bring Christianity into their culture; critiquing their culture through the lens of Christianity, but ultimately keeping those aspects of their culture that work within a framework of Christianity.  Rather than being destructive of ethnic cultures, Christianity has proved to be remarkably adaptable to native cultures.