Jesus Wants Disciples, Not Religious Performers

I’ve learned a lot over the years by listening to people different than me. About ten years ago, I made it a point to follow people on social media: outspoken women, people of color, gay and trans people, disabled people, and people from other religions. Watching their interactions and conversations, I saw a lot of performative allyship: someone outside of that group (i.e., someone who’s a lot like me) makes a big deal about being an ally—“one of the good ones.” For the most part, they do a pretty good job, but they wrap their identity up in being an ally. If they do something problematic, and someone points this out, performative allies don’t always respond well. Because they’ve self-identified as allies, standing against the “bad ones,” it can be crushing to hear that they exhibit some of the behaviors and views they’ve vilified.

I grew up in an Evangelical church in the deep South, and learned a lot of positive things, but found something similar. A lot of us (myself included) built our identity around being Christians, so we often assumed that when we thought something, God thought the same thing. We’d often say, “God really thinks…” and then state our own opinion.

My favorite: at the end of a week-long summer camp in high school, a girl I’d connected with said, “I just feel like God’s calling us to date.” That caught me off guard, because God talked to me, too, and I hadn’t heard anything about this. I wish I could say I had a clever comeback, but I was 15 and had no idea how to handle uncomfortable social situations, so I just ignored her calls for the rest of the summer.

All of this to say: the people Jesus talks about in Matthew 7 often don’t realize they’re in the wrong. For a lot of people, association and self-identification are the most important parts of their faith. These aren’t bad things, but if we’re not willing to hear about our own problematic behavior—if we’re not humble enough to re-evaluate how we act and think—we risk creating God in our own image rather than the other way around.

The most problematic Christians I met over the years were utterly convinced that they were 100% right and God agreed with them on everything. I’m not saying this as some sort of enlightened man of faith; I have often been the problematic Christian who thought I could do no wrong. Problematic Christians don’t see themselves as villains; they think they’re heroes. I’m hoping you all can learn from my failure here. Looking back, the times I believed my thoughts and actions were 100% in line with God’s were the times I was most at risk of doing something harmful. Being a bit skeptical of myself and taking a step back to consider if I was doing the right thing—that usually put me in a better spot to really do something good.