Politically Correct Me by Brady

This campaign season has been a little too much for me to handle. Both presidential candidates have spent more time and money on this campaign than any other before. They also have had their every move covered by the media. But in the midst of constantly waiting for one of them to slip up, it has become apparent how politically correct our culture has become. We all made fun of China during the Olympics for not allowing the press to report certain issues, but we have instituted our own form of censorship. For example, Larry King asked John McCain if he feels like he has gotten a fair shake from the press, and he answered yes. You could see on his face that he was only saying that so a firestorm was not started 6 days before the election. Barack Obama also was forced last night to tout Bill and Hilary Clinton last night in front of a crowd in Florida even though he blasted her in the primaries. This, however, is not just a political issue, but it has also become a religious one as well.

One of my students a couple of years ago told me a story about when he went to a mall in Dallas around Christmas time and was on a crowded elevator with a mixture of holiday shoppers. There was the inevitable awkwardness of being in close quarters for 30 seconds with complete strangers and standing in complete silence. There is not enough time to start a conversation, but there is just enough time to make you start sweating due to the discomfort in the cabin. In the elevator was a group of thuggish looking guys, and one of them spoke up. He broke the silence by saying, “How’s everyone doing?” Everybody remained silent and stared at the floor feeling the tension of the situation. Not to be denied, the ringleader presses on. What he asks next throws everyone for a loop. He asks, “Y’all go to church?” Again, no response from the crowd, but he and his friends don’t really care that they are breaking all sorts of social rules of political correctness.

This guy and his friends were breaking all sorts of social etiquette rules that are unspoken in today’s world. Rule #1: Do not step into an elevator if you are going to cause people to give up personal space. Rule #2: If you do break rule number one, do not talk on the elevator. Just stand silently until you reach the desired floor. Rule #3: Do not under any circumstance discuss matters of faith in public, especially to complete strangers.

I have not even mentioned the fact that most people had already pre-judged this group of “gangsters” before they opened their mouths. But, the ringleader pressed through the thick air and said something incredible just as the group reached their destination. He said, “I just want y’all to know that God loves you, and you should think about going to church sometime. Merry Christmas.”

This situation, which really happened at a local mall, challenges me personally in so many ways. There are rules which we all follow which can be best described as being “politically correct.” Caucasian, not white; Portly, not fat; Vertically challenged, not short; Mentally challenged, not retarded. I could go on even further, but even my typing of certain examples would raise red flags for some of you. The point is that our society is drowning in a sea of political correctness and we are producing more posers than ever before. People are pulled off of TV for racial or sexual comments all of the time (which they rightly should be), but rappers sing about some of the worst stuff imaginable and no one does a thing to stop them.

The truth is that most Christians are being muzzled by the fear of political correctness. I am not a big proponent of the bullhorn preacher (for all of you Rob Bell disciples out there), but I am also not going to say that he or she does not have an important role to play. To be honest, I hide far too often behind the statement: “It’s not my style.” But in a culture where Sesame Street has hurt people’s feelings, it might be time for a dose of reality. The problem is not people using certain politically incorrect words in public, but it is the mentality behind it. In an age where Christians are usually portrayed as dummies unless they are talking about global warming, it might be time to forget worrying about being politically correct in the sense of American politics.

As one of my professors always says, being a Christian is making a political statement between heaven and earth where you stand. I believe that we are to be more concerned with being Kingdom Citizens than American Citizens. The politics that really matter are not between red or blue, but light and darkness. The more you read Jesus and Paul, the less they seem to fit our mold of political correctness. I think the whole point is that you may start becoming less concerned with being politically correct and more concern with being spiritually correct. Watch less of Fox News or CNN and actually learn the names of the 12 disciples. I am not suggesting that anyone should make racial or sexual degrading comments (if that’s what you heard, you do not read very well), but I am saying that you may think about calling someone out who is living in sin or sharing with a non-believer why you follow Christ.

Just as the guys broke every mold we have created, I pray that we begin to live in such a way where the love of God confronts people enough to shock them out of their comfort zones which are protected by a fence of political correctness. I pray that I say or do something in the next week that someone feels the need to politically correct me.

Are You Emergent? by Brady

“You might be an emergent Christian: if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Winks and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D.A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about they myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naïve, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism—if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian.”
-from Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck