In Clear Winter Nights, Chris and Gil have a lengthy conversation about the failures of Christianity through the years and the reasons we need God’s grace.
Here’s a snippet:
“Whenever you tell someone they should become a Christian, you’re saying that whatever they already believe is deficient somehow. They’re inferior for not believing what you do.”
“You’re right on the first statement but wrong on the second.”
“Okay. So…”
“You’re right that evangelism means whatever the other person believes is deficient. But you’re wrong that it means they are inferior for not believing the way you do.”
“Don’t they go together?”
“You tell me. Do you believe that no religious belief has any deficiency? That every religion is equally good? Equally valid—just different?”
“I didn’t say they’re all the same.”
“Well, it sure sounded that way last night. But never mind. I’m glad you see they’re different. To say all religions are the same is disrespectful. Buddhists know they’re not Christians. Christians know they’re not Muslims. Never downplay the differences between these faiths.”
“Sometimes it wouldn’t hurt us to be a little more like other religions,” Chris put in. “After all, Christianity produced the Crusades, the Inquisition. Lots of Christians supported slavery. People around here, even in your church, wanted segregation.”
The words stung. There was a tone in Chris’s voice that seemed to make Lewisville out to be an ignorant, backwater town full of racists. Gil wondered if he should give some of his own personal history of that time and how his church had responded.He groaned, partly from the exercises, partly from the memory. Lost church members over how I handled that. He decided to let it go.
“Oh, we’ve got our dark moments in history, that’s for sure.” Gil said. “But we fess up. Not to mention we can offer a good explanation for them.”
“There is no justification for all that.”
“Not a justification, mind you,” Gil said. “But an explanation, yes.”
“And what is that?”
“Sin, of course. Human wickedness. Evil. Even when we have the best intentions, we muddle things up.”
Gil could tell that Chris didn’t like that answer. Too simplistic? When in doubt, keep talking.
“We sure look like a hopeless lot, don’t we? A bungling bunch of believers. It’s only through grace we’ve made it two thousand years. Heresy threatening us from inside the walls, persecution from outside. Compromise with powers and principalities. Damaging our witness. Diluting our influence. And still we venture on, this disheveled bride, this disabled body, this unruly flock. Christ hasn’t given up on us yet.”
“That’s a cop-out,” Chris said.
Gil loved it when Chris got feisty. Gil could wax eloquently about lots of things, but Chris had a knack for peeling back the layers and getting to the nub of what he didn’t like. A lot like his granddad, I must say.
“You’re taking all those times of Christian failure and chalking them up to sin. That doesn’t do justice to just how bad things were, does it?”
“I am not justifying the Christians in the past, just like I don’t try and justify my own personal sins in the present. There’s only one kind of justification that matters, and it’s not brought about by ourselves. That’s why no Christian who truly understands grace can feel superior to anyone else. Grace shatters any sense of superiority.”
