I Once Was A Bully

 

For not ashamed am I of the evangel, for it is Gods power for salvation to everyone who is believing - to the Jew first, and to the Greek as well. 

Romans 1: 16, Concordant New Testament 

I read with some interest this morning a Wayne Jacobsen The God Journey post speaking to religious bullies.  This is a subject which I am pretty well acquainted because I was a pretty decent bully for the church back in the day.  We've all seen them, those holier than thou church goers who at times seem like members of some Christian gestapo purging the world of all non believers.  Not only that, these Christian soldiers work tirelessly to ensure that all believers that encounter are towing the line of the mainstream church.  Like I said, I once counted myself among this group before the revelation of Christ in me.  If anyone dared to challenge the sanctity of the Lord I served, they were worthy of my wrath.  There is no doubt that I alienated more than my share of believers by being a Christian bully, but I was defending what I truly believed in at the time.  God was holy, and it was my job to ensure everyone understood that.  Never once did I consider the consequences on the church body by my actions.  After all, I was defending God.  I was a good soldier.  In an age where we are seeing a good deal of discontent among believers with the mainstream church, I can only imagine how much of this discontent has been fomented by the actions of over zealous believers.  The funny thing is, the entire time that I was defending God, I bristled at the thought of some other believer treating me as I treated others.  Was I a hypocrite?  Perhaps.  But, I was defending God.  It did not enter my mind until much later that I had it all wrong.  For instead of defending God from others around me, it was God who had been defending me all along.  

Jesus is saying to him, "I am the Way the Truth and the Life.  No one is coming to the Father except through Me" 

John 14: 6, Concordant New Testament 

It was a few years after I stopped attending my local church that I ran headlong into a Christian bully.  During a weekly men's group discussion, a brother from the church we once attended would often speak up in defense of the Lord as if his life depended on it.  This mans crusade followed the strict church and religious guidelines which are still active today in many of our mainstream churches.  Scripture is taken literally and the gospel is defended at all costs.  This man was, in fact, a religious bully in his own right.  I will say that it feels a lot different being confronted by a Christian bully than it does actually being one.  I'm not at all proud of the way which I treated others in the name of Jesus, and Jesus has since showed me that there is indeed a better way.  See, Jesus has already done the groundwork for us.  He gave Himself that we would be free {2 Corinthians 5:21}.  If anything, our opportunity is not to compel those around us into following Jesus.  Our one and only opportunity is to tell those around us of the truth of Christ Jesus in us {Galatians 2:20}.  Freedom in Jesus has never been meant to force others unto Him.  True freedom in Christ comes when we realize that through Jesus we are free of the religious traditions and institutions which the Christian bullies push upon us.  

For everyone, whoever shall be invoking the name of the Lord, shall be saved.  How, then, should they be invoking One in whom they do not believe?  Yet, how should they be believing One of Whom they do not hear?  Yet how should they be hearing apart from one heralding?  Yet how should they be heralding if ever they should not be commissioned?  According as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those bringing an evangel of good! 

Romans 10: 13-15, Concordant New Testament 

~Scott~