“Don’t ever take sides against the family.” – Michael Corleone
There’s always a price to pay for talking about stuff that matters, and that’s especially true when doing it in the public arena. You learn pretty quickly out here in Blogville, that if you say anything, there will be people who won’t like what you say, who’ll resent you for saying it, and who will attack you, your motives, and your momma because you said it.
As a naturally opinionated person; one who believes in what he says, I’m really comfortable with conflict. (It’s been said that I have the spiritual gift of Agitation).
I’ve always believed that honest, open, respectful confrontation brings about really great things, even if the two sides are quite far apart, both at the beginning, and even at the end of it all.
Real conversation always stretches you.
It forces you to see things with fresh lenses, it yields a new understanding of another, and it helps you see the blind spots in your own thinking. Engaging differing opinions and confronting the power-holders has always been the catalyst for transformation; whether in business, or politics, or social issues, or religion.
On the other hand, silence in those matters has often nurtured oppression, inequality, and terrible abuses of power.
Sadly, far too many followers of Jesus seem to believe that Christians criticizing the Church is a mortal sin; that when it comes to openly and publicly critiquing churches, their pastors, or their practices; you don’t ever go against the Family.
The Jesus Mafia.
These church folk become very loud and vocally violent whenever a Christian brings any kind of public challenge to the Church, especially in social media.
There’s a familiar go-to response that The Jesus Mafia brandishes, whenever they feel that one of their own isn’t towing the company line. It’s a self-righteous expression of feigned shock and sadness that this person has, chosen to “cause dissension” in God’s people, that they’re “tearing-down” His Church, (and in essence, that they’re just making Jesus look really bad out there).
Baloney.
The truth is, the Church has survived for 2,000 years and has perpetually rediscovered and renovated itself, precisely because of passionate objection within its own ranks; when people of the faith have had the courage to question what The Church had become, to ask whether we’ve drifted too far from our center, and to demand the best from those who lead it.
Criticize the Church these days though, and it’s horse heads in the bed and concrete sneakers.
People of belief and conscience can never, and should never refrain from speaking out; from using any means necessary, (and that includes technology) to confront corruption, to address broken systems, and stand for those who are being marginalized in any way, regardless of where it happens.
We’re called as Christians by that very definition, to stand for the hurting and the disadvantaged, to lavishly love the least, and to take on the bullies wherever we find them; even if it’s in our own house.
The Jesus Mafia disagrees vehemently. It demands unity and conformity at any cost. It expects obedience and compliance and silence, or it will try to take the offenders out.
The JM will invariably trot out an oft-misused passage of Scripture, while chiding someone in the public arena for not taking their grievances directly to the person or ministry in question. The words in those verses however, are essentially the instructions of Jesus to his first followers on confronting bad behavior within their communities. The context of those words, is a small group of people who were already in close relationship with one another in small extended families; people who lived and served together, and who were deeply invested in each other’s lives.
These verses were never meant to address something as large as the global Church has become, never intended to refer to massive, multi-site megachurch communities with isolated superstar pastors, and they certainly never anticipated believers being able to reach people across the world, and to bring about radical change in such a powerful way.
Probably the saddest thing about the Jesus Mafia, is that when they try to shout down criticism in the Church as a way of not damaging onlookers; of not hurting Jesus’ PR in the “unbelieving world”, they don’t realize they’re actually doing just the opposite.
People outside of Christianity aren’t stupid, and they aren’t simple-minded. They want more than sugary, religious window dressing from us. They seek substance and strength, and a religion that can hold the weight of scrutiny. They’re looking intently at this faith, they’re asking tough, smart questions, and they’re watching us carefully to see if we’re able to police our own when something breaks down.
They don’t want a homogenous, phony, Kumbaya religion where no one pushes back and no one makes waves, because they know where that mindset always leads, regardless of the places it happens.
People outside of Christianity deserve to see us disagree with, as well as love one another.
When we who claim Christ can navigate internal conflict with decency and respect for those who oppose us; when we can debate matters of faith without “killing” one another, we give one of our most powerful testimonies to the world.
Keep speaking, friends, when you feel the conviction in your soul compelling you to do so. Pray, reflect, seek advice, study, of course; but don’t assume that all of that must yield silence.
Sometimes you have to stand up to the Jesus Mafia, even if they try to shut you-up and send you sleeping with the fishes.
Sometimes, as kindly and gently as you can, you have to love God the Father enough, to go against the Family.
