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March 24, 2006

Anti-Christian Fundamentalism is Dangerous, Too

I would suppose that I am not the only former fundamentalist Christian who, when I first left Christianity behind, didn't let go of the fundamentalist part - meaning I retained my black/white, good/evil, literalist view of the world. It has taken some hard work to move away from that mindset - after all, I was raised to be a fundamentalist from early childhood. It distresses me.

This moving editorial comments on the anti-Christian fundamentalism that is borne out of ignorance of Christianity, having never shared that worldview. It speaks to Christians of their important role in changing the perceptions of the growing number of anti-Christian fundamentalists:

The connection between Christianity and political power is enough to make this believer hang her head. And yet to attack this Christianity as all of Christianity is, of course, an error. It ignores the fact that medieval Christianity was reformed — by Martin Luther and the Church of England, among others. But most of all, it neglects a history that includes someone such as the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who organized the Confessing Church to resist Nazi exclusion laws, joined the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and paid for it with his life.

Bonhoeffer believed that the heart of what it meant to be a Christian was to act on behalf of the marginalized — the helpless, the sick, the poor, the friendless. He distinguished between what he called "cheap grace," that form of lip service I think we can all identify with, and "costly grace," meaning the kind that gets you into trouble.

If I think of costly grace, I remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks; the abolitionists; the Christians of Jubilee 2000 who successfully pressured Britain and the United States to forgive the developing world's crippling debt; the Quakers who protect and advise pacifists; the women and men who work daily in soup kitchens, for living-wage ordinances, against torture at Guantanamo Bay. None of us have done enough, and that is partly why so many people only know about the Christianity that cozies up to power.

The best of the recent critiques of religion suggest that we should lift the taboo against conversation about religion at our dinner tables. I agree. Christians who see the world differently from George W. Bush and James Dobson must find a way to speak up and not only defend but fully describe our faith.

Many more Christians must show the secular world that there is another face to our religion, by following Bonhoeffer's and King's examples. It's a good time for a new Confessing Church.

Posted by Becky at March 24, 2006 05:55 PM