Both Wretched and Brilliant.

I'm reading a book by Shane Claiborne right now called 'The Irresistible Revolution.' I'd actually set the book down for a couple of weeks. It's a relatively hard read.....not the words themselves, but the ideas. For the most part, I feel like any christian would be challenged to some extent by Shane's words. The following is an 'idea' that has challenged me most recently. Thought I'd share it here, because maybe it will challenge you too:

Growing up, I was told that good people go to church. And then I looked around and watched the news and found a church full of sick people and a world that had some decent pagans. And I studied sociology. My studies taught me that the higher a person's frequency of church attendance, the more likely they are to be sexist, racist, anti-gay, promilitary, and committed to their local church. And I figured if that's what it means to be a christian, I wasn't sure I wanted to be one, or whether Jesus would want to be one, for that matter. I wondered why Jesus didn't take back his religion. As I've heard my old mentor Tony Campolo say, "If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beautitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America."

A friend and I prepared a video clip once for a worship service. Our goal was to capture people's responses to the word 'Christian,' so we took a video camera and hit the streets, from the trendy arts district to the suburbs. We asked people to say the first word that came to mind in response to each word we said: "snow," "eagles," (it's philly), "teenagers," and finally "Christian." When people heard the word Christian, they stopped in their tracks. I will never forget their responses: "fake," "hypocrites," "church," "boring." One guy even said "used to be one" (sort of one word). I will also never forget what they didn't say. Not one of the people we asked that day said "love." No one said "grace." No one said "community."

May I be a better witness of the grace and love that Christ has given to me, a sinner. I'm both wretched and brilliant....but only because of grace.