Believe whatever you want as long as you don’t tell anyone else what to believe or that they are wrong for believing what they do.  In this, we can live at peace with all faiths, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Atheist, Agnostic or whatever you can come up with on your own.  It’s all OK because we essentially are all good people at the core and we should just get along with each other so the world will be a better place.  This is basically what the members in the Unitarian Universalist (UU) church believe.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a woman (Sandy) who is married to a man that had been hurt or upset by a Christian and so now they are UU.  Sandy claims to have no bitterness or ill feelings towards the Christian church, she even grew up in one and said it was great, but her husband was, in her words, “burned” by the church.

This seems, at least from my experience, to be a common thread in the UU church.  Sandy knows that I am a Christian musician, in a somewhat successful band (Caedmon’s Call).  She approached me to get my suggestions for some good Christian music that she could play for the UU youth group kids, ages 13 to 18 roughly.  It seems that some vandalism had been done in their youth building by some of the kids that were angry with Christians.  “We are not Christians, we are UU” was painted on the walls.  Sandy said that many of the parents of these kids have been “burned” in one way or another by the Christian church and have a lot of bitterness and anger towards Christians.  Inevitably, the children of these adults inherit this bitterness and anger.  And because they are at an age where they are trying to impress their friends and parents, they basically hate Christians to be cool.

Sandy feels that the kids don’t really know what Christianity is because the only picture they have of it is through the eyes of their bitter parents.  Her hope is to give them a better picture of the Christian faith to show that the problems that they have with Christians are because the people are flawed not the Christian faith.  So I recommended some artists that I know and/or respect that make good music that is thought provoking and from a Christian perspective.

So what is so interesting about this conversation?  I have a lot of problems with Christians too.  I hate that our stance on political issues defines our level of faith somehow or an affiliation with one political party or another determines whether or not we are true Christians.  We avoid talking to those that don’t agree with us unless there is some indication that they might be interested in becoming a Christian.  We only forgive someone if we see that some penalty has been paid or they have shown an appropriate amount of remorse.  The list goes on…

What keeps coming to mind is the phrase “I wouldn’t be a Christian if it weren’t for Jesus”.  I have heard and repeated this many times over the years and it never seems to lose its impact.  Thank the Lord that our identity is solely found in the person of Jesus Christ and not in how well or not well Christians live out their lives.  This is good news; there is freedom in this truth, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am free to dialogue with Sandy and not feel guilty that I didn’t point out all of the problems with the UU church.  I can rejoice that the state of this country, whether its run by elephants, donkeys, or monkeys for that matter, doesn’t change who I am in Christ or more importantly who Christ is.