A popular slogan amongst us Christians. One of those bumper sticker sayings that's nowhere to be found in The Bible, kind of like "hate the sin, love the sinner;" it's easy to see where they got the idea from, but never explicitly stated.
I grew up hearing it, as I'm sure anyone else growing up in church did, as well. To the uninitiated it simply means that Christians exist in the world, but they are not to imitate the culture around them; they should imitate God, instead.
Whatever the intention of the saying was originally, it has seemed to morph into a mandate for Christians to remain pure in a depraved world.
The thought goes, Christians have to exist in the world, true, but we don't have to be a part of mainstream culture! As a Christian culture, we, for purity's sake, separate ourselves and create our own subculture in relationships, education, politics, art, music, film, and pretty much everything you can think of.
As a youth it became easier to only have friends that were Christians. After all, they would be a better influence on me anyway, right?
Since personal and corporate holiness was the goal of my heart, isolation from the world made perfect sense.
Then I did something crazy. I actually read The Bible. It seemed to tell me a different story.
Jesus, Friend of Sinners
Whatever our priority as a Christian culture is these days: corporate holiness, personal purity, a self-contained Christian sub-culture, a Christian political state, it is very clear these were not Jesus's primary goals in his ministry (these were ACTUALLY the goals of the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day...remember them? The people responsible for murdering Jesus?).
What was Jesus's priority? Simple. The everyday needs of everyday people.
This is all we see Jesus doing. He preached one pretty memorable sermon, and the rest of the time he's helping meet the needs of the people around him.
Please, chew on this for a second; I want this to really sink in. As Christians, we believe God, the creator of the universe and all of humanity, came to Earth as a human. That literally makes no sense.
Okay, swallow that pill and move on when you're ready.
So God, the holiest, most pure thing that exists, is on Earth as a human person. How does he choose to spend his time? Apparently, becoming friends with the tax collectors and sinners the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with.
Jesus did not separate himself from his culture for purity's sake; he befriended it and engaged it, and openly rebuked those who did not do the same.
What Would Jesus Do?
It's easy to pass judgment on something you're not an intimate part of.
God chose not to do that with us.
Rather than casting judgment on us and condemning us, he became one of us. He felt our fears, our hopes, our dreams, and our deepest desires; not as some distant deity, but as a human being among us.
I used to wear one of those WWJD bracelets as a kid, mostly because it was trendy, but also because I always wanted to be sure I was pleasing God. What that meant to me was remaining pure and separate from the world.
Never did I think of it as a call to empty myself of my own desires, and look to meet the everyday needs of those around me. Never did I think of it as a call to enter into the lives of people who were messy and imperfect.
Wasn't I supposed to avoid people like that in order to remain pure, myself?
The number one indicator of a Christian is not meant to be their personal piety or their acquiescence to corporate holiness; it's the love that they have for their brother.
We must remove the plank from our own eyes, and become the incarnate Jesus to his world. We must becoming less concerned with purifying this world, and more concerning with loving it, and meeting its everyday needs.
Brenden Bell is working as a full-time missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) a non-profit organization in Brisbane. He works as a screenwriter, editor and teacher with their film production team.
Brenden Bell's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/brenden-bell.html