More than identity

Reports surfaced a few days ago about a church in Germany which has baptized hundreds of refugees in the last two years. It was first brought to my attention by Zack Hunt, whose insightful piece “Why The Report Of Muslim Refugee Conversions In Germany Breaks My Heart” is, itself, heartbreaking.

I know this probably makes me a terrible Christian, but the report of Muslim refugees in Germany converting to Christianity really breaks my heart.

Again, I know that probably sounds bizarre, but let me explain.

Now, of course if they’re really “coming to Jesus” because they sincerely fell in love with the gospel or something along those lines, then that’s wonderful and I say, “Thanks be to God.”

But the way this story is being reported in the Christian press continually glosses over a really, really important factor that’s being treated like nothing more than a throwaway line: “Becoming a Christian also helps migrants’ and refugees’ chances of staying in Germany…”

'This expectation doesn't resemble Christ or what he said our mission is' Share on X

The cost of being a refugee is tremendous. It is enough to break a person’s heart. It is awful, but

They’ve already given up everything they have, and now it seems they believe they have to give up the very last thing they have – their identity – just to survive another day.

The problem isn’t just the conversion, he says, or that this convert or die option is actually what many are fleeing, it is that this expectation doesn’t resemble Christ or what he said our mission is:

There should never ever ever be any prerequisite for Christians helping others and there should never ever ever be anything we ever say or do that would make non-Christians ever think we’re less likely to help them in their time of need if they’re not one of us.

That is indeed, heartbreaking.

More than belief

The other story in the headlines now looks so petty and small in comparison. While Christians are swooning over and mocking at Kim Davis, that nice lady from Kentucky who claims her belief is above her job, and buffoonish presidential candidates court the who-can-be-the-most-horrible-human-being vote, we are left gawking at both the greatest humanitarian crisis of our lifetime and tawdry tabloid fodder.

I bring up the unseemly because it reveals the other side of our defining tradition problem. While we are left to wonder about what to make of religion that may be purely self-identity and membership – the sort of shield of protection from being deported, we are also being forced to confront the belief part. Precisely that we can’t possibly be comfortable with defining our religion purely by belief.

We often speak of religion as personal belief. This is the sort of thing I critiqued when I argued against “deeply held religious beliefs” as actually being a thing we should govern by. Defining religion only by personal belief is simplistic and too individualistic. It is an anachronistic marker in a pluralistic society. How can a religious tradition, followed by literally billions of people be about individual belief only?

Kim Davis is the poster child for why religion as simply an individual’s beliefs is a problem. Kim Davis isn’t the slippery slope to absurdity. She is the direct line to dysfunction.

The Christian life is not a solo journey of personal salvation, but an intricate web of interaction. Is it not that at the core of our belief that we are not alone at all, but in relationship with GOD? That our God, GOD, has been revealed in the form of a trinity, of three at once. How can we turn our own tradition, founded on our relationship to GOD, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, into a selfish and individualistic experience of life?

This is made all the more direct when Jesus says that the greatest Commandment is to love GOD and our neighbors as ourselves. And that wherever 2 or 3 are gathered, Jesus will join us. And that the disciples should keep getting together to eat and remember Jesus. And that they are to go out into the world in pairs. In fact the one thing Jesus never suggests is going it alone!

I actually don’t blame Kim Davis for her belief or for the many more who have such a strange understanding of our faith tradition.

What I do blame is our cultural definition of religion as personal beliefs. For religion is much more than belief, too.

More like behavior

It bothers me that our understanding of religion can be so easily defined as being an official member of a group; regardless of what you believe or how you act. That you can be a Christian and believe that GOD wants you to deny civil marriage to people. Or that you can be a Christian and reject the refugee. It bothers me to think that religion is only the box you check on a form or the box in which you place your self-definition.

It also bothers me that our understanding of religion can be chalked up to the random s#!t you believe or picked up somewhere. You still confuse Ben Franklin for Proverbs and like those parts about not sparing the rod because you sure don’t want to spoil your kids. Or that your belief is more important than mine. And that your religious liberty is supposed to give you the right to deny my religious liberty. That isn’t religion, that is narcissism.

I’d rather define religion more by behavior and practice. That we are a people who act a certain way and share certain things in common. We pray and we give generously. We follow Jesus, carrying our crosses, rather than paint Jesus on things and call them Christian.

As Jesus says (John 13:35):

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

That really ought to be the true marker, form, and defining characteristic of religion: how it leads you to treat other people. At least that’s the definition Jesus uses for his own followers.