Over the past several years, I have been going through my old journals in order to create one extended, centralized narrative documenting my journey of life: what I believe, why I believe it, and how I’ve gotten to this point. This project started as an attempt at authenticity; I called myself a Christian but I was having trouble articulating why. Did I actually believe the things I claimed I believed? Or had they always just been the answers I knew the people around me wanted to hear?

Despite my (admittedly concerning) tendency to simply believe everything I hear is true, (ask me about the 10 years I spent confidently telling people that you can eat Crocs if you boil them) the existential realities of the universe have always been the one realm that I have constantly questioned, where my skepticism has come out in full force. Jesus makes some pretty bold claims and if I’m supposed to share them with others, then I sure as hell (ha, get it?) better believe what I’m saying. So, over the past five years, I’ve been intermittently reading through my old journals and reflecting on the journey of my life. It has also served as great source material for the memoir I will inevitably be asked to write when I someday become overwhelmingly famous and influential. 

I recently entered November 2017, notably one of the darkest eras of my life. These pages are filled with the angry cries of fear and desperation that defined my existence as tragedy struck and both my body and my spirit withered away. Amidst this maelstrom of anxiety, I came across the following note I had written down:

Concrete way to be more like Jesus: listen to people, no matter what they say, and truly focus on understanding, empathizing, forgiving, and loving them without judgment or blame. (11/19/17)

Reading this excerpt over six years later, in my bed on the other side of the world, I paused. It felt so simple. 

Which is not typically the first word that comes to mind when I think of Christianity.

In my experience, churches and other religious institutions that tout the name of Jesus tend to rely upon rules and regulations, complicated structures that lead to shame for those who don’t conform exacerbated by judgment from those who do. The parable of the prodigal son illustrates this dichotomy quite distinctly: you either run off with your inheritance and squander it on the ways of the world or you stick around, follow the rules, and grow increasingly cynical about the grace bestowed upon those less virtuous than you.

The church is filled with both of these characters and tends to be led by many of the latter, those who have been so deeply immersed in the culture of Christianese that they are unable to empathize with those outside the bubble of Bible studies in which they exist. These communities often operate in social isolation, effectively detached from any external influences with the potential to challenge the ideas and traditions they have normalized as truth. 

This sheltered existence creates a warped sense of reality, leading to sermons and conversations dominated by unwavering principles and black and white ultimatums: if you’re gay, you’re “struggling”; if you have sex before marriage, you’re broken; if you disagree, you’re incorrect. Preaching “Biblical truths” often looks a lot like refusing to consider alternative perspectives in order to maintain the status quo of whatever feels safe for those in charge, resulting in a culture of blind obedience fueled by the fear of being wrong. Or rather, the fear of being ostracized.

This reality primarily manifests, not in outrageous displays of explicit hatred (although those do exist), but rather implicit attitudes of superiority, the idea that “we are right and we will pray for everyone else until they agree and conform.” Belonging often requires submission and disagreement often condemned as misled naivety.

However, Jesus never required conformity before welcoming and befriending those on the margins, the people seen as “other” or “lesser” by the rest of his community. He approached lepers, tax collectors, and promiscuous women (because of course, only the women were promiscuous) with an open heart and a listening ear,* intentionally seeking out the very people the church leaders had written off as unworthy of their time and attention. He didn’t explain to them why they were wrong or shame their way of life; he simply listened to them, loved them, and led them towards healing.

Loving our neighbors doesn’t mean pushing an agenda or promoting submission to our particular ideology. It also doesn’t require agreeing with their views or assimilating to their ways of life. Rather, authentically loving our neighbors means setting aside our own priorities in order to listen to and learn from their lived realities. It means understanding that what they most need might be completely different from what we think it is or what we might want it to be, and doing it anyway.

Living like this is neither easy nor intuitive, which is why we as a society tend to get it wrong so often. Truly loving like Jesus requires deep humility, the ability to lay down our egos, our agendas, and our inherent assumptions that our way is best or right or complete.

I’ve found that the more I listen to voices that are different from my own, the easier it is for me to empathize with and love those around me, even when we completely disagree. Approaching these conversations with humility and curiosity about another perspective, and biting my tongue when tempted to simply share my own, has deeply expanded my understanding of the world and challenged my own norms that may not be as self-evident and universal as I would like to believe.

The church is filled with hypocrites because the world is filled with hypocrites and all human institutions are made up of broken people. The church’s brokenness just happens to feel particularly egregious because it has so distorted the intentions of its initial creation and so deeply wounded so many of the people it was established to help heal. 

I can be cynical about the church.

I tend to be skeptical of cultural Christianity.

But I quite like the idea of living a life that looks like Jesus.

Listen to people, no matter what they say, and truly focus on understanding, empathizing, forgiving, and loving them without judgment or blame.

aight. I'll do my best.