The dominant impression of Christians conveyed in popular media isn’t very flattering. They are often represented as mindlessly dogmatic, harshly judgmental, and openly antagonistic toward those who don’t share their view of things. This impression can be challenged, of course. It is typically the most extreme examples who grab our attention, and Christians come in many varieties.
When I was a young boy, I asked my parents about the biblical teaching not to judge others. I think that I was puzzled because I regularly observed plenty of judgment from people in the church. They had firm beliefs that particular actions were wrong, and they weren’t at all reluctant to pronounce the people who did these things guilty.
In contrast to the common response of retaliating against those who have wronged you, Jesus urged his followers to forgive. In contrast with loving your friends and hating your enemies, he told his disciples to love their enemies. Needless to say, most people, including most people who say they are Christians, do not live that way.
In the last couple of years, I rewatched the Star Wars films. I had remembered enjoying these films for their humor and exciting action. But as I watched them again, I found myself uncomfortable with portrayals of violence that I had previously been cheering on.
Some Christians recognize the problem when another religion is using coercive power to promote its goals, but find it less objectionable when their own religion does so. But, as the saying goes, power corrupts.
One of the central reasons that Jesus was criticized by the religious elite of his day was his willingness to welcome people who fell outside their circle of respectability. Jesus associated with the common people who didn’t have the time or resources to devote themselves to studying and observing scriptural prescriptions of proper behavior.
More than once, I have begun watching a movie and realized part way into it that I had seen it before. Some movies are worth watching again, and some are not. But there is a kind of movie that definitely loses something on subsequent viewings.
In this “upside down” kingdom Jesus announces that one achieves greatness not by advancing to the top of the social hierarchy, but by acts of service to the community. Given this kind of message, it is not surprising that the wealthy and privileged of Jewish society opposed Jesus and ultimately killed him.
The earliest critics of Christianity saw this movement as a threat to the established order. Central to that threat was the way Christians insisted on affirming that all persons have great worth, regardless of their social class, ethnic heritage, or gender.
For many years I have been in churches that reject the idea of female subordination. In these churches there are two general approaches to dealing with biblical texts that might suggest otherwise.
