Mark D. Baker - Centered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community Without Judgmentalism

While riding home from church when I was six years old, I looked disdainfully at people who were mowing their lawns because I had learned that Christians did not work on Sunday. Though I dont recall anyone at church actually telling me that people who mowed their lawns on Sundays were reprobates, I viewed them that way. Not only did they perform forbidden tasks on the Lords day, they obviously had not gone to church. This provided me a clear way of labeling some people as non-Christians.

By observing those who mowed lawns on Sunday, I could distinguish those who belonged to my religion from those who did not. At the age of six I had already absorbed and applied a line-drawing approach to Christianity, and I had the security of knowing that I was on the right side of the line. I was in. As I grew older I continued to derive security from the lines I drew. As a teenager I felt morally superior because, in contrast to those around me, I did not cheat on tests, steal on the job, drink, dance, swear, smoke, or do drugs.

After I left home to go to a Christian college, two different encounters led me to rethink using rules to draw lines. First, I happened to visit a church that had a longer list of rules than mine. Sitting in a pew in the back, I became increasingly uncomfortable as the church filled up. All the males had on white shirts and ties. I did not. My hair was 1970s stylishly long; theirs was 1950s short. I felt shame for standing out and not complying with their rules. I was on the wrong side of their line. I imagined them looking at me and thinking just what I thought of people on the wrong side of lines I had drawn. Had I made others feel like this? I did not like it.

And, around the same time, I met some Christians who had a shorter list of rules than I did. They drank occasionally and enjoyed dancing. I faced a dilemma. My definition of Christianity told me that these people could not be Christians. In other ways, though, I recognized their faith to be more mature than my own. I either had to change my definition of a Christian or refuse to accept these friends as Christians. I concluded that legalism was the problem. I began to step away from my focus on rules, and I fully embraced my friends as Christians. I also began to see legalists as the ones who were not good Christians.

Over the next seven years I continued changing and embraced new expressions of Christian discipleship: a simple lifestyle, total commitment to Jesus, openness to gifts of the Spirit, and commitment to social justice. I thought I had come a long way from my high school legalism until I sat in a Bible study and watched the teacher draw two diagrams on the board.

He drew a line that angled uphill and said: Many evangelical students see their life as a progression from the legalism of their youth to a more mature Christianity, which stresses issues of lifestyle and justice and explores authentic Christianity. It appears they have moved forward. I thought, Yes, thats me. Then he drew a circle and at different points wrote legalism, simple lifestyle, freedom to drink, and issues of justice. He pointed to the circle. They move along, but they are not going anywhere. They just change one means of judging themselves as superior for another. I felt stunned. Perhaps I had not progressed as far as I had thought.

Stunned, yes, but I did not feel attacked because it was a gracious revelationgracious in the spirit in which he did it and full of grace because it was a first step in my becoming more gracious toward myself and others. His observations led me to look at my life with new eyes. I saw that I had used the broadening of my faith perspective in the same way I had used the legalism of my youth: to draw lines between myself and others. Just as I had looked down on those who mowed their lawns on Sunday, I now looked down on those who did not share my new perspectives. Though I was self-righteously judging others, I also often felt judged by some people for things I did or believed. For instance, although my stance on US foreign policy in Central America caused some Christians to see me as a good Christian, other Christians critiqued me. One church I attended maintained that, regarding social issues, opposing abortion should be the priority for all Christians. I agreed it was an important issue, but because I put more time and energy into other causes, I felt like I did not measure up to their standard. I was on the wrong side of their line.