I was recently reading a blog by a guy named Dave Griffin, who details his eventful journey from the model evangelical Christian kid (who voiced Jimmy Barclay on the Christian audiodrama Adventures in Odyssey, for those who know the series) to a young adult dealing with mental health struggles, suicide, disability, leaving the faith, and becoming anti-evangelical. It was a long, fascinating, gripping, and difficult read.
One thing that stood out to me from Dave’s story was the lack of empathy and compassion for people in addictions, crime, mental health struggles, poverty, suicide etc from the church and even himself. The church and Christian’s general responses to Dave and others’ struggles, whether out of ignorance, fear, and/or malice, was to shy away, ignore, blame, and/or dehumanize them.
For Dave, his worldview started changing when he became the people he was taught from a young age to fear and revile, and got to see and experience another side of the world than the comfortable one he grew up in. He got to see first hand the humanity in the broken that the church couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge and didn’t try to support. Behind Dave’s vilified mental health struggles, addictions, etc was a scared kid who wanted to follow his dream but couldn’t and didn’t have anyone to talk it over and work it out with.
The thing that bugged and scared me was that in some ways I am very much like the church that Dave talks about. I also tend to judge people’s actions without giving thought to the cirumstances they came from, and often, the last thing on my mind is Jesus in them. But, as Jesus said,
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
– Matthew 25:30-40
Who are these “least of these brothers and sisters of mine”? Some that I think who would fit the above description are people that are refugees, homeless, on government assistance, physically and mentally ill, poor, in broken families/marriages, disabled, LGBTQ, in prison, and the marginalized, and I’m sure there are many others. Regardless of whether we agree with them or not, they are still very much the brothers and sisters of God. Let’s not forget that in our very polarized and politicized world, and let’s do our best to love them.