by Isaac Wright
When I was a child, faithful and devoted Sunday school teachers frequently reminded the youth at our church to be kind, gentle, and loving in all things because “you are the only Jesus some people may see today.” It was a challenge to be mindful of whose name you bear as a Jesus follower. As a sinner, one quick to resent and slow to forgive, deeply imperfect with countless faults and an admitted love of both corny jokes and sarcasm, I’ve probably failed that standard every day of my life; but I haven’t forgotten it.
Reading about bigotry in the headlines this summer tied to “religious liberty”, those old Sunday school lessons have been prominent in my thoughts.
A Kentucky County Clerk made national news this summer because she wanted to misuse her public office to unlawfully discriminate against law-abiding citizens seeking to affirm a committed and healthy relationship as marriage. That clerk claimed “religious liberty” as cover for a deep prejudice. I was left wondering, what kind of Jesus does the world see when someone claims their “liberty” to be a Christian as the basis for bigotry? Right-wing politicians have jumped onto the bandwagon faster than a voter can shout “demagogue.”
Is this the Jesus people envision when they open newspapers or watch the evening news and witness people invoking a Christian identity?
Whether he said it or not, a frequently attributed quote to Mahatma Ghandi reads: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” For decades, that has been a painful testament to the human failures that plague Jesus followers. But in this environment of an emblazoned zealotry of the religious right matched with profit-motive consumerism amidst a culture of conflict, do most citizens of the world even make that distinction, “your Christians are so unlike your Christ” anymore? Or rather, are onlookers left to conclude that divine messages from a #WWJD bracelet are accurately telling some Christians, “Jesus wants to make sure you know who to discriminate against today”?
It is hard to envision the Jesus who answered the question of what is the greatest commandment with an almost myopic focus on love and devotion instead shaming people who embrace love and devotion by denying them the public affirmation of marriage.
What about the Jesus who, upon seeing the money changers in the temple preying on the poor, grew so angry he overturned their tables to stop the ingrained subjugation of the impoverished?
What about the Jesus who when confronted with the death penalty, as prescribed by the law, intervened and stopped it from happening?
What about the Jesus who used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate that it is not necessarily the religious or the political that are living God’s message, but those who show mercy, selflessness and love above all else?
What about the Jesus follower Phillip, who baptized the Ethiopian eunuch as one of the early Gentile Christian converts on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza? An ethnic minority in Jerusalem, he would have been denied to “enter the assembly of the Lord” based on his sexual otherness (as described in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book “Pastrix”), according to the Old Testament. But Jesus changed that. Jesus changed everything. Jesus changes everything.
Jesus was an ardent critic of organized religion and a radical voice against poverty and for peace.
Can people of the world see Jesus when they see news reports of Christianity being claimed for the justification of prejudice? If you are to be the only Jesus some people may see today, remember the Jesus who blessed the meek, preached loved, fought for the poor, stopped the death penalty, and taught selflessness and equality.
Isaac Wright is a campaign and public affairs strategist and veteran of multiple Presidential, gubernatorial and U.S. Senate campaign efforts. The Tennessee native and former long-time Arkansas resident is a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. In 2015, Wright was honored by the American Association of Political Consultants as one of the 40 best and brightest campaign and public affairs professionals under 40 years old currently working in the United States. Campaigns & Elections magazine named Wright a “Rising Star” of U.S. politics in 2011. Arkansas Business magazine named Wright, previously of Little Rock, to its “40 Under 40” list of the most influential people under the age of 40 in politics and business in the Natural State. He was recently honored as the University of Tennessee Public Relations Alumnus of 2014.
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