{"id":654,"date":"2010-08-02T00:09:42","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T07:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2010-08-02T00:09:42","modified_gmt":"2010-08-02T07:09:42","slug":"why-i-call-myself-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/08\/why-i-call-myself-a-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I call myself a “Christian.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Since Anne Rice\u2019s declaration of her rejection of \u201cChristianity\u201d<\/a> last week, the blogs I read can\u2019t stop talking about it. (See proof here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.) It\u2019s not that Anne Rice is (or was?) such a superstar Christian and that the believing world is devastated, it\u2019s that she brought up what many in my generation have been struggling with for years.<\/p>\n

How many times have I heard someone say: \u201cI follow Jesus but I can\u2019t refer to myself as a Christian\u201d? Or, to quote Ms. Rice, \u201cfollowing Christ does not mean following His followers\u201d?<\/p>\n

Anne Rice, I understand. How many times have I cringed inside when conversations with new people in my life turn spiritual and I have to define myself through my beliefs? I\u2019m not ashamed to confess my belief in Jesus Christ. But I am often ashamed to use the word: \u201cChristian.\u201d What baggage does it carry in the minds of my nonbelieving friends? I assume (or fear?) that their first thought is is of anti abortion demonstraters shouting \u201cMurderers!\u201d outside Planned Parenthood buildings, or homophobic slurs spouted from the pulpit, or Catholic priests abusing children then covering their tracks.\u00a0 Anne Rice called Christians: \u201canti-gay\u2026anti-feminist\u2026anti-artificial birth control\u2026anti-science\u2026anti-life.\u201d And the truth is, that is an adequate description of what Christians are a lot of the time.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what Christians are all of time. Last Thursday night, I sat in room with some of the saints of San Francisco who work for a ministry called City Team<\/a>. They serve the most broken of the poor on the streets of San Francisco, providing them with food, clothes and opportunities for new lives. They bring drug addicts through an entire year of rehab, offering them purpose and hope and fulfillment outside of the lives they\u2019ve known before. Then, graduates of the program are partnered with professionals who mentor them and walk with through the process of the job search.<\/p>\n

I listened to a young man my age share his heartbreaking childhood of abuse and neglect, his spiral into heroin, his time in prison, and his discovery of both Christ and insects. (Yes, I said insects.) It turns out he\u2019s a genius whose passion for insects has carried him out of his former life and into college and graduate work and now into an incredible opportunity to study with entomologists in Madagascar.<\/p>\n

Just as I encountered the Christians who have given their lives to healing to the broken of San Francisco, my dear friends in Young Life<\/a> outside Philadelphia were on their way home from a week at camp. Yesterday, I talked on the phone with my friend Cat, who walked me through the stories of all twenty-two kids who went on the trip with Radnor High School. No, their stories are not as dramatic as those of rescued lives off the street, but they are just as powerful. I know the \u201cEvery-girl\u201d in suburban high school girl who believes her only value is in her own success (whether it\u2019s in the classroom, in athletics, in the eyes of her demanding parents, or in the label she\u2019s given by the boys she longs to impress). I also know the beauty of the moment when that girl recognizes that she is loved unconditionally by a God who knows her deepest longings. The achingly heavy weight on her back falls to the ground and she actually believes she is valuable simply because her Creator knows her and chooses her.<\/p>\n

Who told her that such a love exists? Christians did.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I refuse to remove that name from my title. As much as there is judgment and hatred and false pretensions in the Church, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that when I was thirteen and our dishwasher broke in the midst of a particularly difficult financial season for my parents, an anonymous member of our church had a dishwasher delivered to our house.<\/p>\n

Community is beautiful and it is broken. And the Church was Jesus\u2019 idea, in spite of what he must have known of its failures.\u00a0 Am I proud of the Inquisition, the mistreatment of women, the present day hatred of homosexuals? No, I\u2019m ashamed. But to remove the Christian from my definition and replace it with \u201cChrist follower\u201d or \u201cJesus lover\u201d or whatever term is most trendy among progressive \u201cChristianity,\u201d is nothing more than wordplay.<\/p>\n

I am a Christian. See me and make every assumption you want to make. Because the truth is, I\u2019m just as screwed up as the rest of my clan who calls themselves by the name. But, understand this: there is beauty \u00a0in the Church and that beauty is what I cannot resist.<\/p>\n

This morning, my pastor said: \u201cI refuse to be cynical about Christians, because I am not cynical about Christ.\u201d In that vein, all I can do is pray with the tax collector who beat his chest, \u201cLord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Anne Rice\u2019s declaration of her rejection of \u201cChristianity\u201d last week, the blogs I read can\u2019t stop talking about it. (See proof here, here, and here.) It\u2019s not that Anne Rice is (or was?) such a superstar Christian and that the believing world is devastated, it\u2019s that she brought up what many in my generation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,130],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hope","tag-the-church"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I call myself a "Christian." - Micha Boyett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since Anne Rice\u2019s declaration of her rejection of \u201cChristianity\u201d last week, the blogs I read can\u2019t stop talking about it. 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