who are your friends?

{I wrote this yesterday, I didn’t have an internet connection so I just used a text editor. I tend to be a bit more longer winded when I use a text editor instead of using wordpress’ post editor.}

The question was raised in my “Jim & Casper Go to Church” class, can we as Christians have good friends as Atheists/NonChristians or do they always have to be our ‘project’. This isn’t exactly how it was phrased, but is the heart of the question and ensuing discussion.

I have thought a lot about this topic, previous to the class. I have previously known and even currently know and have strong relationships with people who are affiliated with a church. This has always been an issue for me—not because I don’t love them or desire the relationship with them—going up I was taught to keep away from anyone not in the Church. I was, as many Christian-Americans, ingrained to believe in a us & them mentality—much like the Pharisees taught during the period of Jesus’ time.

I never really questioned this until my later teenage years. This was largely a result of the separation of myself from the closed community of the church during those years. During these years I lived like a heathen in many different ways. I don’t excuse this behavior, but it was the opportunity for me to experience life with those without Christ. They aren’t all that different from ‘us’ Christians. The real confusion happened for me, after getting my life back together, I didn’t know how to treat these people whom I had befriended and whom had befriended me. I wanted to continue to love these people but also I was still hearing how one needs to run from sin on Sundays.

I lost most all of those old friends, but it wasn’t from my lack of effort. I attempted to keep in contact, but my life was changed and their’s wasn’t & wouldn’t change. It is hard to stay connected to someone when you are working early in the morning whereas they are partying until early in the morning. You just simply never have time for each other.

I started college. By this time I had formed a good group of friends through church. Although after the second year of school, most of the group had moved away or simply faded away. This coincided with a movement more towards an involvement with school and my studies and less with church activities. Even though I wasn’t around Christians as much, I know that God was not less on my mind or heart. I began much mind/soul/heart searching. While working through my philosophy classes I came across a gang of churched-Atheists. These people became much of what I would consider my community for those couple of years. I came back into contact with the woman who would later on be my wife during this period.

She was much like me in where we were spiritually. We had both become disconnected from the church because of odd situations, some dramatic occurrences, some simply the change of social dynamics within groups, or the fading away of relationships. We found ourselves within a group of people who denied the Christian church and it’s values, but that was the only community we had. We spent much time attempting to find a church home, some place other to connect, but we failed to integrate with anyone.

Things have changed slightly since then but they are still very much the same. We don’t have a strong Christian community which we are integrated into. We have found a church to call home, and we are going through the process to be members, but we haven’t made many people connections—still none to the point of a true communal interaction. The friends we have now, are still not Christians. It is a strange no-man’s-land to be in. You believe in Christ and have aligned your life as such, but you don’t feel like your really a part of a Christian Community of any sort—But you are still definitely not a non Christian, even though you have more friends who aren’t than are. I wonder if this may be is a since of what it was like for Christ or any of the prophets. Although that seems like a gross overstatement seeing as it is that I don’t have anyone threatening my life as a result.

I have been reading Intuitive Leadership by Tim Keel; he describes at one point how the church where he pastors received their name, Jacob’s Well. It comes from the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the well, Jacob’s well of Sychar. As he describes the story, the way he describes the ending struck me. “And at the conclusion of that encounter; the woman leaves, rejoins her former community, and then brings them back to Jesus.” I was so drawn to the fact that she goes back to her people, then brings them back to Jesus. After I read this, I couldn’t help but think of all the other times that Jesus so changes someone’s life. He tells them to go back to that people and tell them what Christ has done for them. He doesn’t tell them to flee from the sinning community from which they are embedded.

It seems that today, when we have people who come to Christ, we think too lowly of the change which Christ is capable of doing in people’s lives. We think they need to be secluded from anything evil, because they are too weak to repel the “enemy’s attack.” This is only true because of the weak community which they are attempting to live within. It is obvious that we will all stumble, especially a new believer. I know that I stumbled quite a bit early on. Isolation is not an answer though. Isolation only creates more isolation for those within that bubble. We can clearly see the trouble which it will create by looking at the news.

Jesus was never afraid to befriend the lowly and outcasts of society—a society which was centered around Jewish beliefs and practices. This should have been a place where nothing like this was happening. But Jesus got in major trouble with the Pharisees for hanging out out with the tax collectors and defending prostitutes. Many use the words of Paul—to not be of this world, flee from sin, etc…—in defense of exiting society for their lot in the Christian subculture. I completely agree with the words of Paul on this, but wouldn’t you say that Jesus’ example of this was the best for us to model?

There seems like there is so much more here that I need to hash on this topic. Hopefully soon I will have another chance to discuss this topic.