Bruce Wilson is an Anglican...
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Bruce Wilson is an Anglican theologian from Australia. He has a little experiment he likes to try out on groups when he's asked to give a lecture. "First," he says, "I ask people to say what comes immediately to their minds when they are asked to think of someone who is very religious. The answers I receive most often are 'churchy,' 'rigid,' 'pious,' 'other-worldly,' 'judgmental,' 'Bible-basher' ... The next part of the exercise is to ask people the first thing that comes into their minds when they think of someone who could be described as very human."
Here's what Wilson typically hears: "Once again, the answers I receive are always similar. People say 'caring,' 'understanding,' 'warm,' 'kind,' 'forgiving,' 'helpful.' "
Not a very flattering comparison for us church folk, is it? It's like Dana Carvey's old comic character, "the Church Lady." What makes the Church Lady so funny is the stereotype she embodies: rigid, judgmental, unforgiving -- even nasty.
Sinclair Lewis, in his novel, Elmer Gantry, tells how the young evangelist met plenty of this sort of Christian: "solemn and whiskery persons whose only pleasure aside from not doing agreeable things was keeping others from doing them." (Panther, 1927, 1961, p. 319.)
Now here's what's really surprising. Bruce Wilson says he's tried this little two-question quiz on all kinds of groups, both within the church and in completely secular settings. The answers he gets -- comparing those who are "very religious" to those who are "very human" -- are pretty much the same, whether his audience is composed of church folk or of those who rarely darken the door. The church people, he says -- the ones you'd expect to be comfortable with the label, "very religious" -- typically express surprise when we hear this. If anything, we who profess to follow Jesus Christ ought to fit the mold of being deeply human: kindly, caring, understanding. So why do we, just as much as those outside the church, tend to link judgmentalism with being "very religious"? (Cited by Joseph G. Donders, Risen Life: Healing a Broken World [Maryknoll: Orbis, 1990], p. 92.)
Here's what Wilson typically hears: "Once again, the answers I receive are always similar. People say 'caring,' 'understanding,' 'warm,' 'kind,' 'forgiving,' 'helpful.' "
Not a very flattering comparison for us church folk, is it? It's like Dana Carvey's old comic character, "the Church Lady." What makes the Church Lady so funny is the stereotype she embodies: rigid, judgmental, unforgiving -- even nasty.
Sinclair Lewis, in his novel, Elmer Gantry, tells how the young evangelist met plenty of this sort of Christian: "solemn and whiskery persons whose only pleasure aside from not doing agreeable things was keeping others from doing them." (Panther, 1927, 1961, p. 319.)
Now here's what's really surprising. Bruce Wilson says he's tried this little two-question quiz on all kinds of groups, both within the church and in completely secular settings. The answers he gets -- comparing those who are "very religious" to those who are "very human" -- are pretty much the same, whether his audience is composed of church folk or of those who rarely darken the door. The church people, he says -- the ones you'd expect to be comfortable with the label, "very religious" -- typically express surprise when we hear this. If anything, we who profess to follow Jesus Christ ought to fit the mold of being deeply human: kindly, caring, understanding. So why do we, just as much as those outside the church, tend to link judgmentalism with being "very religious"? (Cited by Joseph G. Donders, Risen Life: Healing a Broken World [Maryknoll: Orbis, 1990], p. 92.)
