Do you remember Joe “I am Canadian!!!”? Joe was the exuberant character in the Molson beer ad, untypically Canadian in his extroverted pride in our country. Several knock-offs, mostly satirical, have appeared since. But I’d like someone to create an exuberant and untypically Canadian Christian version.
It would go something like this.
Hey
I am not a Bible-thumper
or a hate-monger.
I don’t think the world
I live in is evil,
or that my wife should obey me,
I don’t believe Jesus came to bludgeon people about their failings or heal them like a showman,
And I don’t think Satan is hiding around every corner.
I believe Jesus came to
spread peace not hatred.
I believe other people are good and not simply sinners waiting
to be saved.
I believe humans are created in the image of a loving God, not corrupted and inherently wicked.
God is a God of overflowing
love that cannot be contained.
Grace is God’s gift freely offered to everyone — it is inherently cheap;
Fear is expensive and costs us
our souls, it fuels anger,
hatred and ignorance:
God weeps over our rejection
of His love, yearns to draw us close, searches us out in the
darkest recesses of our self-hatred, loathing and fear.
Jesus came not with a long list
of rules but a simple message
of hope and love.
The Spirit moves throughout
the world, across time and
in the midst of all people,
Seeking to embrace them
and to dry away their tears.
We are called to be Christ in
the world: to comfort the sad,
to care for the sick, to be family
to those with no friends.
My name is _____,
and I am Christian!!!
Now that won’t win a prize for poetry or advertising, but the recent scandal of the pastor threatening to burn Qur’ans left me feeling, not for the first time, that my identity as a Christian had been hijacked. It’s happened so many times over the past several years; Christianity is being defined by people on its fringes.
Interestingly, I had a discussio with the local imam about this on Sept. 11 — the day the Florida pastor planned to fan the flames of ignorance. The imam had been invited by my home church as a sign of solidarity in peacemaking and reconciliation.
In a wide-ranging discussion about our faiths in the contemporary world, the imam raised the point that moderate Muslims needed to speak up and condemn acts of terrorism planned or carried out in the name of Islam.
That is why he had accepted the invitation: he wanted to build bridges, to show that he was on the side of peace.
But in this case, it was actually I, as a member of the majority Christian community, who was feeling defensive about another Christian’s deplorable behaviour.
There is nothing new in this, of course. St. Paul also saw his faith hijacked, and he sharply challenged several early church communities for doing things in the name of the new way that were clearly far off track, whether claiming to follow various other leaders through baptism or through lawless behaviour.
Fortunately, many Christian leaders sent messages to would-be Qur’an burner, Mr. Jones, telling him that what he was doing was far from Christian. Unfortunately, we live in a day when mainstream media really don’t understand any religion. And they will also give time and space to bizarre positions on just about any subject under the guise of fairness.
Perhaps what is needed is a flood of letters to newspapers and comments to online media decrying this caricaturizing of our faith. One thing is for sure, the Terry Joneses of the world will always get their 15 minutes of fame.
If mainstream Christians want others to know the true message of our faith, they need to speak up. Otherwise, we shall all be marked as destructive, manipulative fanatics. The love of Christ deserves better.
