Lord, I don't want to be a "Christian"

 Lord, I don't want to be a “Christian”                                         

 I live in a small late-19th-century house in a small fictional town not far from where Woodrow Wilson

“Who are you looking at, boy?”

was born. These days I want to hasten to add: he wasn’t brought up around here. “He’s really from South Carolina,” I want to say, as if no Valley-of-Virginian of his generation could possibly think the way he did, who said about reconstruction that it was detested “not because the Republican Party was . . . but because the dominance of an ignorant and inferior race was justly dreaded,” and who believed that segregation was “not humiliating but a benefit,” no “distinctly to the advantage of” any belonging to that ignorant and inferior people.

     I live in a small late-19th-century house in a small fictional town not much farther from where Jerry Falwell, Jr. was born and brought up, who said recently (jokingly!) that if “some of those people in that community center [in San Bernardino] had what I have in my back pocket right now [meaning a handgun] . . . Well . . . I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.”

Wilson’s father was a Presbyterian preacherman. Falwell’s father was a Baptist preacherman. Wilson was president of a great Christian university; so is the younger Falwell.

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I am declaring here and now that I no longer want to be a Christian if Wilson was one, if Falwell is one. I am assuming they were/are, taking them at their word. In which case, I am from now on reserving the term “Christian” for those that proclaim they are, profess they are, professing, professional Christians - institutional Christians, graduates of Christian colleges certain about their God’s race and nationality and their own righteousness and the triumphal futures such a God has reserved for them.

     I am taking the term “follower of Jesus” for any that try to do that, follow Jesus, whatever their claims. However, I will assume none of these followers have concealed weapons permits, since the purpose of a concealed weapon is not to have to turn the other cheek; I will assume that none of these followers despise anyone Jesus would not despise, rather they will try with all might and main to love all Jesus would love.

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So, to paraphrase the old spiritual,

Lord, I don’t want to be a Christian . . .

Lord, I don’t want to be more holy . . .

Lord I want to be more loving . . .

Lord, I want to be like Jesus . . .

. . . not like Woodrow or Jerry or Pat or Billy – or Aimee or Tammy Faye – or anyone else. But knowing, Lord, I will fail, I will not judge anyone. Only, over there, please put your damned gun down and your hateful tongue back in your mouth.

12.07.15