Ana Marie Cox on Coming Out as a Christian

Over at The Daily Beast, journalist Ana Marie Cox has a piece on Coming Out as a Christian, where she wrestles with how to tell people she’s a Christian while worrying how the anti-Obama constituency will receive the news. She writes:

My hesitancy to flaunt my faith has nothing to do with fear of judgment by non-believers. My mother was an angry, agnostic ex-Baptist; my father is a casual atheist. (I asked him once why he didn’t believe in God, and he replied easily, “Because He doesn’t exist.” … No, I’m nervous to come out as a Christian because I worry I’m not good enough of one. I’m not scared that non-believers will make me feel an outcast. I’m scared that Christians will.

And note these poignant words:

Here is why I believe I am a Christian: I believe I have a personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. I believe in the grace offered by the Resurrection. I believe that whatever spiritual rewards I may reap come directly from trying to live the example set by Christ. Whether or not I succeed in living up to that example is primarily between Him and me. My understanding of Christianity is that it doesn’t require me to prove my faith to anyone on this plane of existence. It is about a direct relationship with the divine and freely offered salvation. That’s one of the reasons that when my generic “there must be something out there” gut feeling blossomed into a desire for a personal connection to that “something,” it was Christianity that I choose to explore. They’ll let anyone in.

What I love about Cox’s story is that she understands the scandalous grace of Christianity, because it will literally accept “anyone.”

Cox’s fear are against a type of Christianity that simply provides religious capital to an economic, social, and political conservatism. As if being a Christian means supporting big corporations, trickle down economics, guns on demand, and telling the poor to try stop being poor because God helps those who help themselves. But that type of Christianity – just like Liberal Christianity may I add – is not a real Christianity, its a cheap parody of the real thing! We have to be forever vigilant that cultural forces – to the left and right- are not allowed to simply try to use Christianity as a kind of stamp of divine approval for its agendas.