Conversations: Sharing Our Faith with a Skeptical World
Why Are Christians so Narrow-Minded? (Part I: "On the Truth")
Rev. Richard H. Thompson, November 1, 2009

John 8:32–36

'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

During the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college I made a life commitment to be a follower of Jesus Christ. There was a problem: I had already arranged to share an apartment in Isla Vista with two guys with whom I had established a certain, "different" lifestyle in my freshman year. Now I knew it had to be different. I knew I wanted to develop some new habits, some new patterns for myself. I knew I had to have a conversation with Ken and Danny. So one day, soon after we had moved all our stuff in, I sat down with them at our kitchen table and told them about my summer. "Guys, I'm going to be doing some things differently this year..." Ken just sort of frowned as he thought. Danny spoke up, "That's fine," he said, "Just don't lay your trip on us."

Let me translate: "Trip" means any conviction, any belief, way of life, any course or line of action. By this Danny meant, "You do your thing, we'll do ours." Danny wanted his freedom from any trips. My truth would be my truth. His and theirs would be theirs.

Besides, what is "truth" anyway, really? We touched on this last week. We're still as skeptical about the truth as were my apartment mates back in the 70's. Isn't "truth" really a power play? A "trip" somebody lays on somebody else? Who do you think you are, laying your "trip" on us!

You Christians are so narrow minded.

I had a conversation recently with a friend who was trying to sort this out. To say "Jesus is my Lord and Savior" just seems so exclusive and narrow minded, doesn't it? I think about our new members last week who stood here and said exactly that, "Jesus is my Lord and Savior", just as everyone who has become an intentional member of any Christian community has done. Are they narrow minded? Are we?

So Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free..."

What does Jesus mean by this? Is Jesus being "narrow minded"?

One problem with saying "Your truth is your truth and mine is mine" is that this is itself a claim to truth! It is claiming the ability to "see through" all claims to truth for what they really are, that all truths are relative. Tim Keller quotes C.S. Lewis, "You cannot go on 'explaining away' forever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond is opaque; How if you saw through the garden too?... a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see." (Reason for God, p. 37)

How can someone know that there is nothing to see? It's actually a kind of contradiction, isn't it? "I know there is nothing to know." Really! How do you KNOW that?! This is itself its own kind of "trip", isn't it?

Another problem with your truth being yours and mine being mine is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to have any meaningful experience of "community" without some commonly held convictions - "truths" if you will. At first it sounds good to say, "Everyone is welcome. All are accepted. We have no boundaries." The problem is found in the word "community" itself. The first part, COMMUN, means "common"; the last part of course means what it says, UNITY. Put them together we get unity around what we hold in common. If there is nothing held in common then there really isn't "community", is there? There may be something else: a loose collection of people who do their own thing in each others' presence maybe. Co-existence perhaps. But "community" in any real sense of what that word means, probably not.

Of course not all the things that are held in common are necessarily good things. I think back on the celebrations of the 40^th anniversary of Woodstock and all the songs regaling the community out there on Yasger's farm. I look back on that now, maybe you do too, and realize what everyone out there held in common was sex, drugs and rock and roll. Those themes kept us going for a long, way too long, time.

There really is a "community" called Al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda" means "The Base". I'm not sure what convictions are included in that "base" but I get the impression that they are very strongly held. The same would be true of the KKK. Hitler formed a strong communal identity around truth claims too. So did Jim Jones, if you remember him.

Obviously the "truths" these kinds of communities form around do not lead to "freedom". Quite the opposite. So what we mean by "truth" becomes really important, doesn't it? Not just anything is right and good. Jesus gives us a way to test any community. He says there is a direct connection between the truth and freedom - the truth will make you free.

Which brings us back to the first question. What does Jesus mean by "the truth" without which there is only tyranny, slavery, injustice, lies, half truths, and cover-ups?

But with it, (the truth), there is "freedom".

Is it narrow minded for Jesus to say, "the truth will make you free"?

In the context of John's gospel, what does Jesus mean by "the truth"? He means the whole story John is telling us of Jesus who teaches crowds, washes feet, who heals lepers, talks with women, eats with sinners, who sends his little band of followers out with the news of God's answer to suffering, dehumanizing despair, obsession with material things, and appearance and success. He means Jesus who goes to the cross and dies for every single one of us, no matter our color of skin, our politics, where we live, our income, education, what we've done or left undone, said or left unsaid. He means Jesus who rose for all of us, for the creation itself, to inaugurate a movement that now wraps the globe.

The "truth" that Jesus speaks of is a relationship built solely on trust in God. It is the truth that there is no other way for you and me, for any of us, than to put our confidence in God, because God made us and loves us beyond words. And growing in our confidence that we are greatly loved of God is... freeing, liberating.

Think of all the forces at work on any person, on you, on me, every day, every moment of every day: expectations to measure up, to bend the knee, to conform, to consume, to look and talk in order to feel accepted. There is so much pressing in on us to shape us, define us, to determine our worth. Somebody loses a job and with that job goes self-worth. A relationship ends and we're left with a chasm where our souls used to be. In some places in the world there is an explicit caste system that predetermines a person's life. In other places it is less explicit, but it's there...

Jesus says, "If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." It doesn't happen in an instant. It happens over time as we follow Him on what he calls the "narrow way".

So at the end of the day, one answer to the question, "Aren't Christians narrow minded?" has to be "Yes."

If by "narrow" we mean Jesus' way as opposed to the popular way, because you can't know God's will by taking a public opinion poll. If by "narrow" we mean the hard way, rather than the way of the herd.

If by "narrow" we mean disciplined, prepared and practiced over a long time, like a surgeon or a teacher, or a musician, a judge, a pilot, a missionary, or an athlete.

Imagine a football team that is not narrow minded. Picture the coach saying, "Guys, come to practice when you can. Why don't you decide what you want to do? I'm sure it will all work out fine. If you can show up for the game that would be really nice." Picture the huddle, if they ever get there. "OK", says the quarterback, "You guys run around, do whatever, and I'll do the same. See what happens..." I've played on teams like that!

If by "narrow" we mean "focused" and committed, the way a bride and groom place rings on each other's hands for all the world to see that they have made an "exclusive" commitment. To say "yes" to one, to say "no" to all others is so exclusive, so "narrow minded".

Here's a wonderful irony. That Jesus' "narrow mindedness" blows out our own definitions of "inclusion". Jesus takes us to people and places we'd otherwise never even know existed, that were not even on our screen, or in our windshield. Jesus gives us 20/20 peripheral vision.

Today most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America and Asia. More people pray and worship in the name of Jesus than any other world religion.

Today, Christians will gather for worship in over 2,000 languages all over the world. The Communion Table might look very different than this one. In Haiti I've seen simple wood planks nailed together to make a rough-hewn table for the cup and the bread. In Ankara Christians gather in a nondescript storefront, sitting on folding chairs in front of a simple dining table. In Makobe it's a concrete and brick building with a raised area in the front for a large wood altar. It might be pieces of wood on blocks or stones. It might be someone's living room table.

Wherever we meet there's only one thing that draws us together. One thing we hold in "common", one "truth" that brings us together here, that gathers us as a "community". Lord knows it's not our politics (!), or our achievements, or our looks, (thank God!), or anything else. It's simply this, that in Jesus Christ we have found mercy.

Someone sent this email to my daughter recently.

This is the truth that makes us free.

Thanks be to God.

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Questions for Reflection and recommended reading.