Facing our Fears and Feeding our Enemies
"What is truth?" Pilate asked. John 18:38 (NIV)
Photo by Stacy Richardson from Christmas at the Caroline House
In our last Bible Bits, I shared a few challenging insights and a personal application from reading Rosaria Butterfield's newest book The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post Christian World. Butterfield's book is not your ordinary "how to" hospitality book. To be sure, she has some personal and helpful tips on the practical aspects of Christian hospitality. But Butterfield is at her best sharing her insights into two very different worldviews: Christianity and our post Christian culture. Butterfield's personal testimony is compelling. She writes:
July 1997, Syracuse, New York
Going to dinner at the home of Christians was not high on my list of longed-for activities. As an out-lesbian feminist, a leader in LGBTQ rights, the recent co-author of the first domestic partnership policy at Syracuse University, and a soon to be tenured radical, my heart's desire was not to become friends with the enemy. Christians seemed like a small-minded, uncharitable, immoral bunch. They ate meat, believed in corporal punishment, violated human and environmental rights at a fevered pitch, denied a woman's right to choose, and believed that the whole world should fall under the totalitarian obedience to the Bible, an ancient book fraught with racism, sexism, and homophobia....I wanted to learn why Christians hated me so much."(p. 47)
After accepting a dinner invitation from Christian pastor Ken Smith and his wife Floy:
"Nothing about that night unfolded according to my confident script. Nothing happened in the way I expected. Not that night, or the years after...Nothing prepared me for this openness and truth. Nothing prepared me for the unstoppable gospel and for the love of Jesus, made manifest by the daily practices of hospitality undertaken in one simple home. The threshold to their life was like none other. The threshold to their life brought me to the foot of the cross."(p.50)
Rosaria Butterfield understands the world in which we're living for she was once a part of that culture. But she also now understands, lives, and practices hospitality from a Christian world view. With that background, here are some of my favorite Butterfield quotes on Christianity & our post Christian world:
Hospitality renders our houses hospitals and incubators. When I was in the lesbian community, this is how we thought of our homes. I learned a lot in that community about how to shore up a distinctive culture within and to live as a despised but hospitable and compassionate outsider in a transparent and visible way. I learned how to create a habitus that reflected my values to a world that despised me. I learned to face my fears and feed my enemies.
Truth matters. It can be measured and known. The truth about ourselves is laid bare in the pages of Scripture.
Words make worlds and the only word that can navigate truth is the Word made flesh- Jesus. When we change the language, we change the logic.
3 marks of a moral revolution:
What was universally condemned is now celebrated
What was universally celebrated is now condemned
Those who refuse to celebrate are condemned (credited to Theo Hobson's book Reinventing Liberal Christianity)
We have become unwanted guests in this post Christian world.
We live in a post Christian world that is sick and tired of hearing from Christians. But who could argue with mercy-driven hospitality? What a potential witness Christians have, untapped and right here at our fingertips.
Start somewhere. Start today.
Religious liberty reflects biblical kindness- Best practices:
1. Respect the reality of your neighbors’ lives & households
2. Pray that you will be a safe person to hear the burdens of your neighbors’ hearts
3. Understand the difference between holiness and goodness and don’ t be afraid to celebrate the goodness of your unbelieving neighbors
4. Don’t accuse of ill will people who hold to a different theology
5. Know why it matters most that we are made in God’s image.
There is no doubt that we're living in a post Christian culture. We are the ones who are now unwanted guests. Our challenge is the same as Rosaria Butterfield's: We must learn to face our fears and feed our enemies. May we do so with the courage of Paul who wrote: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1:16-17 (NIV)
Start somewhere. Start today, for God's glory!