Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Christian Issues

Dear American Conservative Church

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Christian Issues

This guest post is by Sheri Faye Rosendahl.

Dear American Conservative Church,

I know I can be pretty hard on you and you deserve an explanation.

I am trying to follow the ways of Jesus, I’m sure you are too. My struggle is with the contradictions I see between your speech and actions, and the ways of your savior. The red letters are not aligning.

Our world is a mess right now, I bet you would agree. But I don’t quite understand your response to the chaos–the self-protection approach doesn’t make sense when it overrides Love.

I’m sure you know this, but do you really understand that Jesus is not American, nor is he campaigning for American greatness? He does not value white children more than any other hue, nor does he value any nationality over another. I promise you, I checked all of his teachings, it’s not there.

Bear with me if you can–I am going to be blunt because I don’t know if you understand what the world sees and experiences through your actions.

To the world, the outward purpose of American Christianity looks like a numbers game. The goal being to “save” (convert) as many souls as possible, then maybe you win or something, I am honestly not quite sure what, maybe points in heaven?

It looks like a weird competition and its players are often aggressive and uncomfortable to be around. The message sounds something like, “Convert to save your soul! And to save your soul from eternal hellfire where there is gnashing of teeth,… [Read more…] about Dear American Conservative Church

It's Time to Rethink Judgment

by Russ Shumaker in Christian Issues

In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis points out that westerners have been largely spared an age-old experience regarding our legal system:

​In most places and times it has been very difficult for the “small man” to get his case heard. The judge (and doubtless, one or two of his underlings) has to be bribed. If you can’t afford to “oil his palm” your case will never reach court. Our judges do not receive bribes. (We probably take this blessing too much for granted; it will not remain with us automatically). We need not therefore be surprised if the Psalms, and the Prophets, are full of the longing for judgment, and regard the announcement that “judgment” is coming as good news. Hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have the right entirely on their side will at last be heard. They know their case is unanswerable–if only it could be heard. When God comes to judge, at last it will.
Evangelical Christians (and I’m sure others as well) often focus on the idea of God’s judgment as a terribly frightening event that will bring about the end of the world or condemn people to hell for their misdeeds. But Lewis notes that when Jesus talked about judgment He tended to paint a very different picture, of the type that is reflected in the Psalms. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, judgment comes not on those who have committed wrong acts or believed the wrong thing but on those who failed to act with compassion toward the… [Read more…] about It's Time to Rethink Judgment

The Rapture, Hell and Salvation: How Our Doctrines Can Breed Fear, Suspicion and Judgment

by Belinda Croft in Christian Issues

The Clean Out
Apprehension overwhelmed me this morning as I entered into a personal clothes clean-out flurry. What if, all of a sudden, I want to wear the top or jeans I had just ejected from my cupboard? Had I made an immense fashion mistake getting rid of them?

I managed to productively remove two bags of clothing from my life. However, it’s a little scary now as I analyze what I have left.

The clothes in my wardrobe bring a mysterious segue …

Lately I have been considering the practicality of fervently holding to doctrines and beliefs.

Locked up within many of our doctrines are misinformation and misunderstandings that have been passed on through generations of religion and denominations, and in some cases mistranslation of the original text.
What Doctrines Do You Adhere To?
Our beliefs regarding “Hell” can affect how we deal with people and how we view God. For example: “I’m right, and they are going to Hell” or  “I’m going to Hell, so who cares how I live” or “You need to confess otherwise you are going to Hell” or even “A God who condemns people to Hell–what kind of God is that?”

Beliefs about the “End Times” and “The Rapture” can dictate steps that Christians must take to prepare themselves for those events.

Strong procedural beliefs about baptism can create judgements and impose requirements on the journeys of others.

Our understanding of “sin” plays out in our observation and treatment of non-Christians and Christians (including… [Read more…] about The Rapture, Hell and Salvation: How Our Doctrines Can Breed Fear, Suspicion and Judgment

The Incompetent God

by Russell Croft in Christian Issues

‎This guest post is by Russell Croft.

Much is made of our free will, our ability to choose good or evil, to accept God or reject him. The adage, “If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?” is still said frequently at youth rallies, revival meetings, and on street corners, with the implication that the hearer needs to make a decision for Jesus in order to lock in the assurance of salvation.

On the surface it seems very orthodox, yet this “decision for Christ” takes the onus for salvation out of God’s hands and puts it into ours. He may want to save us, but what He has accomplished to this end through Jesus can only go so far. It is ultimately up to the actions we have taken or the decisions we have made. Salvation is completely dependent on our own abilities and efforts.

Is this right? Are we more able to effect our own salvation than God is? Is salvation that dependent on us? As much as God wants to bring us into salvation, is He completely powerless without our say so? Or worse, does He really only love a few of us?

Following the Script

A lot of Church culture these days certainly seems to hinge on our ability to procure salvation. Unless we have spoken specific words, or believed a set of doctrines particular to our chosen denomination, it seems we cannot hope to have the “fullness of the Spirit” or the acceptance of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is up to us to make the right choices, to follow the script.

This has carried over into… [Read more…] about The Incompetent God

Not Your White Jesus

by Sheri Faye Rosendahl in Christian Issues

This guest post is by Sheri Faye Rosendahl.

Jesus is not a white guy. I hate to break it to you, but all those pictures you grew up seeing on the walls of your church or in your grandma’s dining room showcasing the fair skinned, blue eyed, handsome white Jesus, are fabrications. They lied to you. Jesus isn’t American; he’s not even campaigning for America’s greatness!

He actually doesn’t care more about Americans than any other humans in the entire world (including Muslims and Communists). I’m serious–I checked the entire Bible and couldn’t find one sentence pertaining to America being the most amazing nation ever in existence. I know, I was shocked too.

Blatant sarcasm aside, if you are like me, raised in a “typical” American Christian home and going to church every Sunday as a child, you know what I am talking about. If you didn’t grow up in this cookie-cutter context, but you grew up virtually anywhere in the United States, chances are you know what I’m talking about. If you grew up in a completely different culture and country, but you have seen Americans on TV, chances are you know what I’m talking about.

Growing up in “the Christian Nation,” it took me a quarter of a century to figure out who Jesus actually was. Western Christianity really screwed this one up. We have become a self-serving, money-driven, achievement-based, all-too-fearful nation, and the American church as a whole has followed right along, loud and proud. It almost seems as… [Read more…] about Not Your White Jesus

People, Not Projects: Re-Thinking Evangelism

by Darrell Lackey in Christian Issues

We need to re-think evangelism—what it means and what it should look like. The common Christian understanding of evangelism sees the world in a stark black-and-white of “saved” and “unsaved.” We are “saved” and everyone outside our understanding of what that term means is “lost.” (Notice what I did there?) This view of evangelism is both destructive and un-Biblical.

When we view people as part of a black-and-white world, they become “projects” rather than people, who are, in many ways, just like us: people on a journey. It can make us approach people differently. In our consumer driven world, it can turn us into sales people rather than friends. It can also engender a sense of superiority. We can begin to develop the attitude that the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, had toward Gentiles—the notion of them being “unclean” and less than God’s “chosen” people.

The person we approach with this sensibility (project rather than person) immediately, or sometimes slowly, begins to sense a hidden agenda. It’s not that we really want to get to know them, or just befriend them regardless, or that we are acting out of an innocent and pure display of love and caring. They begin to sense that we want to “sell” them something, and that our “friendship” is just a ruse to tell them about our religious beliefs. Often, if they are not ready or not interested, we soon drop them. We no longer call or show much interest in them. We move on to the next “project.”

This is not to say that we… [Read more…] about People, Not Projects: Re-Thinking Evangelism

God-Breathed: Questioning Inerrancy

by Daniel Verona in Christian Issues

Growing up, I was taught that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is therefore inerrant, infallible, and authoritative.

The verse used to support this idea was 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

The general assumption was that “God-breathed” meant that God had told human beings what to write down and that the Bible was thus free from error and authoritative because it came straight from the mind of the Creator.

But is this a good reading of that text?

What does it mean for something to be God-breathed? Is this the metaphor that the author would have used if the author had really meant to say that all Scripture is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative? I highly doubt it.

My assumption is that the author was Jewish and would have thus been very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. So the question I ask is: do the Hebrew Scriptures have anything to say about the breath of God?

As it turns out, yes they do.

In Genesis 2, God takes the dirt and forms the man and breathes into him the breath of life. In Ezekiel 37, there are four mentions of God restoring the people of Israel and breathing life into them once again.

The Hebrew word for “breath” is the word ruach, and it is also the word for “spirit.” The same is true in Greek, the language of the New Testament, where the Greek word pneuma is the word for both breath and spirit. In the ancient world, people… [Read more…] about God-Breathed: Questioning Inerrancy

​An Open Letter to Anyone Who Has Left a Church

by Alisha Walston in Christian Issues

To anyone who has left a church, especially those who left a church I’ve attended–I understand now my role in your story.

I left a church. It was a church I attended, and very much loved, for nearly a decade.  It didn’t happen the way I planned.
In the time since I attended my last service at that church I’ve had a lot of time to learn, reflect, and get a new perspective. I’d like to extend an olive branch to anyone who has left a church before–because now, I understand what it may have been like.

I apologize for any time I judged your relationship with God based solely by your attendance at my place of worship. 
I understand now that church attendance is not a golden ticket into heaven, and if you choose to worship somewhere besides where I attend Sunday mornings, that’s ok.

I apologize for assuming that you don’t attend church any more.
I understand now that just because you didn’t give me a play by play, doesn’t mean you didn’t find another place to go to church weekly.

I apologize for considering you a “backslider” if your convictions no longer align themselves with mine.
I understand now that my lifestyle isn’t meant to be your moral compass–quite honestly, we would probably be in a heap of trouble if it were.

I apologize for any texts, phone calls, remarks or questions that were judgmental or demeaning.
I understand now just how much… [Read more…] about ​An Open Letter to Anyone Who Has Left a Church

When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

I am sometimes asked, “How can you be a Christian and not support the death penalty?” The answer I usually give is quite simple: when Jesus said “Love your enemies,” I think he meant “Don’t kill them.”

I never really understood how important this issue was until I became a Jesus follower, and even then it took me a few years to really get my mind around it. During my time as a sociology and criminology student, I came to find that there really was no evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters murder rates where it is practiced. The death penalty obviously kills people who are not guilty, it is also incredibly expensive, and it is a long and drawn out process that is very painful for anyone involved with trials and hearings.

While statistical data as well as more subjective and anecdotal accounts have steered me away from the death penalty in the past, I eventually reached the impasse where I had to ask: How can someone worship a God who dies for his enemies and then proceed to kill their own enemies? This was an idea that I could not harmonize. I also had to face the fact that if human beings are made in the image of God, then that means they possess innate dignity, are intrinsically sacred, and hold irrevocable significance.

What cheapens or increases the value of a human life? Is it what someone does or doesn’t do? Is it what they say? What they believe? What the color of their skin is? What their sexual orientation is? How much they possess materially? What vices… [Read more…] about When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

An Underlying Issue with the Letter Signed by Evangelical Leaders

by Rich Rosendahl in Christian Issues

Recently, over 500 Evangelical Christian leaders signed a letter that was sent to the current president and vice president expressing their opposition to the Executive Order effectively banning travel to the United States by many Muslims and refugees. This is great, it really is. Seeing Evangelical leaders rise up and speak out is awesome, necessary, and helpful. Thanks to all who participated in this initiative!

But before we celebrate and move forward, I want to ask you to pause and reflect with me about some of the things that led us to this point. Remember, Evangelical Christians are an incredibly powerful group in America and played a significant role in electing the administration that promised, and then enacted this Muslim ban …

Over the years, my involvement with Muslim refugees through my organization, The Nations, has led to many interactions with Evangelical Christians and pastors. These experiences have taught me a lot, like how much I love our Evangelical Christian neighbors and how I admire their remarkable impact on American culture.

But I have also noticed a common thread that I believe, in part, is why we saw such overwhelming support by Evangelicals for a candidate that consistently campaigned on the promise of implementing a Muslim ban that some now (rightly) reject.

The simplest way I can describe it is this: much of Evangelical Christianity has (often unknowingly) dehumanized Muslims by treating them as a project rather than neighbors. This is… [Read more…] about An Underlying Issue with the Letter Signed by Evangelical Leaders