Practicing Honesty Regarding Harmful Forms of Christianity (Part 3 of 3)

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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)

Some expressions of Christianity have a long history of not being life-giving to women, both cis and trans, and of all races, cultures, and ethnicities.

I think also of how Christians used the Bible to deal death to Indigenous people during colonialism. I think of Black people and how White Christians used the Bible to support slavery. In so many expressions of Christianity today, people still engage in harmful misunderstandings and actions toward the LGBTQ community. We could go on and on.

I realize this week’s passage may open up uncomfortable conversations for many Christians. But these kinds of discussions are necessary nonetheless. I want to encourage us to lean into these discussions rather than averting our gaze and perpetuating a culture of denial, a false estimation of ourselves, and further death-dealing. I want us to instead practice our faith in life-giving ways.

Admitting guilt for past harms is only a step toward more life-giving actions, and it is not enough. We must also actually take life-giving actions today and in the future.

We need to be honest about the harm we have done in the past, and we also need to do the hard work of practicing more life-giving ways to follow Jesus today. As things in our society change, we can also make changes as part of the transformations every generation of Jesus followers must make to align the story we hold so dear and our faith with the teachings of the Central Figure in our faith who reaffirmed those two Jewish central pillars:

“The most important commandment,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

We’ll lose nothing life-giving with honesty about where we have deeply messed up in the past. As difficult as it may be at times, that is what faithfulness to the teachings of that Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee requires from us.