Ignorant Christianity

I had a really interesting experience yesterday afternoon. It took place at a bookstore called Koorong. Koorong is a Christian bookstore and if you've ever been inside you'll notice that the atmosphere is one of contemplation and reflection, in other words its quiet. We'd only been in the store for five minutes when my friend Aaron showed me a DVD titled 'The Hidden Dangers in Harry Potter'. He did this as a joke because he knew I liked Harry Potter and he also knew that not all Christians shared my opinion. We returned to our shopping for only a minute before a man in his mid twenties started to rebuke me for reading, enjoying, and considering Harry Potter acceptable. What I heard was another typical premeditated Christian response to Harry Potter. Nothing changes, if it's not Harry Potter, it's the Matrix or the Da Vinci Code, it's all the same, it's merely ignorant and scared Christians who use the bible to justify their beliefs and satisfy their fear by concluding that these things are evil and of the devil.

Throughout his compilation of crap, which I must say included comments like, the joy people receive from both watching porn and masturbating is fundamentally the same as the joy young kids receive when they read Harry Potter, he did however reveal that he was happy to hear my opinion and discuss what he'd had said. It was at this point that an old man who was sitting near by reading a book said, 'Mate I don't think you are'. The gentlemen was right, the young man was not interested in having a conversation, on the contrary he was acting like the Jehovah witnesses who arrive on your doorstep, in that, he had a premeditated response to every question. The young man was not discussing Harry Potter for his own personal growth but rather to convert me to his beliefs. Therefore anything I said would have been disregarded until I was depleted on responses.

As I left Koorong that afternoon I felt a sense of frustration and anger because if we as Christians continue to confront these issues in that way to not-yet-Christians, it won't be long before people begin to treat Christians the way they do Jehovah witnesses, and that is, to shut the door in their face before they even have a chance to speak. In doing this Christians are removed and unable to partake in spiritual conversations. There can be no greater tragedy in the 21st century then for Christians and the Church to be removed from the spiritual conversations that take place everyday. Another comment he made which may prove to be useful at this point is the fact that J.K. Rowling has been quoted to say that she dislikes Christianity. I can't help but put myself in her shoes and wonder how I would respond if a Christian spoke to me the way I was spoken to in Koorong that day. If I'm to be honest with myself I think I'd hate Christians too. The end result is that J.K. Rowling the women who influences millions of young people throughout the world through her books, has shut the door to Christianity.

It's important at this point to stress the fact that I'm in no way suggesting that Christians adopt a mindset that accepts everything and challenges nothing; rather I'm suggesting that Christians discuss these topics with people from the standpoint that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In order to do this we must have strength/faith to allow others to challenge our core beliefs.

The common response I've witnessed among Christians is to avoid this much honesty and openness for fear of losing or damaging their faith. When this happens Christians become scared, and when fear sets in they retreat into their Bibles and thereby into biblical theology. In other words, they start to search the Bible for passages that enable then to create a bullet proof doctrine, a safe house. It's out of fear that we use the Word of God to create irrelevant and pointless doctrines, and these doctrines are created to protect our core beliefs. The problem with this approach is that when not-yet-Christians come and enter into spiritual conversations with us all their attempts to enter into our core beliefs merely bounce of the walls of the fortress we've created. When this happens they begin to consider Christians irrelevant and unhelpful to their spiritual journey. More then not doctrines are created out of fear not love, they are created to keep people out not let people in. The moment doctrines create premeditated responses and prevent others from challenges our core beliefs they become a hindrance to the gospel.

I'll admit I'm terrified of breaking down the fortress and allowing not-yet-Christians to challenge my core beliefs but in the end my faith is in a person not a passage. It's in Jesus Christ and my personal relationship with the Father, through the Son. It's in the participation that I experience everyday as I live within the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. This relationship can't be bound within doctrines because it's like any other relationship in that it grows and matures. It's this relationship that shapes my core beliefs and when I begin to realize this I'm able to allow people to enter into my core beliefs, and in so doing, my relationship with the Father. It's through this that they will witness the beauty of the relationship shared between the Father, Son and Spirit, a beauty in which all creation is already included, and is participating.