A Standard Easy to Break

Last Wednesday evening, during the discussion time with the youth at my church, I wrote the simple sentences on the dry-erase board. "I am individual. I am community. I am a Christian."
Then I spoke about the difference between community and conformity, and explained that much of the "community" expressed in Christian circles and churches is not true community at all, but conformity.

I have read a lot of blogs lately that have been calling out the American Church on everything from its exclusivity to its politics to its legalism. There are people, Christian and non-Christian, who are fed up with the cliques, the seemingly close-minded acceptance of policy, and the hypocritical standards, to name a few things. Regarding all these issues, I wonder if our view of sin and mercy is deeply skewed, so that the above things are natural outputs from our churches today.

In my youth group (and more broadly, in my church as a whole) growing up, there were several things that could open a chasm between you and other people. The first, and most obvious, was sin, especially committing a sin that was popularly spoken against and avoided. To associate with someone who tripped and fell below the standard became much more difficult - it was almost impossible to view them in the same holy light as you had before. Another way to drive a wedge between yourself and others was to question things - anything from the existence and/or actions of God, to the historicity of Jesus and the science behind his resurrection, to the certain code of morality supposedly upheld in Scripture. To question such things meant you were doubting something, and doubting something meant lack of faith, and wavering faith, in any arena, was yet another way to plummet beneath the standard. Therefore, association with those struggling to accept carte blanche was just as difficult. A third way to divide yourself was to simply be a part of a family that held an overall different political, social, or denominational outlook. The size of this division varied depending on how radically different you family was from the standard, but woe to you if you were on the extreme - you might as well have been living in a leper colony.

The fourth fool-proof way to drive a wedge was to suggest the offering be taken up at a different time or that the pulpit might not be necessary.

I explained to my youth that part of being a Christian - of following Jesus - means that you have come to a place where your individuality should perfectly meet with a community. Hence, becoming part of a church should never challenge who you are as an individual, but you should be able to bring all of who you are - talents, ignorance, resources, questions, skills, fears - to the group without worry that you will be forced to change the way you are and how you think about one thing or another. After all, Jesus never seemed to demand a change of individuality in a person, but simply how they act and associate with others. A friend of mine said it best once: "God glories in diversity." And, I believe, the church is at its healthiest and most loving when it has learned to accept everyone as different - people who are at different places in their journey, struggling with different issues and situations, seeking the best way to personally connect with the God in whom they have placed their trust.

Conformity, on the other hand, is losing your individuality for the sake of the group. Shaving off the parts of you that don't gel with the group so that there are no hiccups, no speed bumps as you cruise to where you're going (even if you're actually going nowhere in particular). Unfortunately, there was a lot of conformity in some of the churches I grew up attending, and it is a deep-rooted problem that pervades many churches today. That is why it is so easy for me to think up the things that would be certain to drive a wedge between a person and the rest of the group.

That is not to say that, growing up, there were not people who lived above such things, who cherished community and did everything they could to preserve it. And I'm sure there are people that are the same way in your church communities as well. But, I wonder, how often do you find yourself working and living toward conformity rather than true community, whether because it is easier, less stressful, or is less likely to cause problems of a foreign nature.

Don't read me wrong - I am not arguing against behavioral, moral change. Salvation does spark change within every part of us, but my understanding of individuality goes much deeper than this. We are the persons God made us, with personalities all our own. The last thing we want to do is bring all of who we are to a group only to have them squint at us as if they are gazing at us from an insurmountable distance, confused or shocked and peering back at us from the other side of their road to eternity.

In third grade we made fun of a kid because he spoke different, had a bit of a mean streak, smelled funny, and didn't socialize in the normal way. He grew up right alongside me and some of my friends, and to this day I struggle to see him for who he is rather than who I once determined him to be.