Talking to Saison
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : December 26, 2006
The other day at Hard Times Cafe, I had a conversation with a 30 year old African American man named Saison. The conversation stayed mostly on politics and race issues in the United States. At one point he brought up the complicity of American Christianity with all-things-bad in American life.
Saison shared from his own experience (I paraphrase): “When I was walking the streets of my home town, I’d run into drug dealers all the time who would try to get me to trust in Jesus–they knew that I had left the church. One day, they’d be pushing drugs. The next day, they’d be in church, dressed in a suit. That’s f***ed up.” He continued to link it to the current situation: “The same thing is happening with the United States. George W. goes to church every Sunday, and so do so many millions of others in America, but then he pushes a war and oil and gets rich off of others.”
Our conversation at that point went on to how most people in America may call themselves Christians, but most folks don’t act like Jesus. Saison isn’t a Christian–not even close. But he seemed to respect Jesus. But every experience of Christianity he’s had has been disconnected from regular life and lack the power to challenge or transform the injustices and/or banality around him. Around that point, he asked me what I did for a living. I said to him: “I guess you could call me a pastor.” He grimaced and then smiled. Then he asked me a valid question: “If most Christians don’t do what Jesus did, and you think that real Christianity is about being like Jesus, then why do you call yourself a ‘Christian’…you should call yourself something else.”
What do you think? Should I (like my blog friend Graham) stop calling myself a Christian in an effort to differentiate myself from mainstream vapid Christianity? Or is it better to redeem the name and make sure folks know what SORT of Christian I am?
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my friend kip recently asked me, “don’t you walk with the jesus feet?” and i thought that was a good way to describe the way i’m trying to live. i don’t like the label christian, so i guess i’ll just tell people that i walk with the jesus feet.
Mark, what your friend described is YOU living incarnationally in the world. How can you say “incarnational” is a fad when that is how you live?
I found you on fitch site.
What am I missing here?
Bob. I certainly don’t think being “incarnational” (in its truest and best sense) is a fad. However, the way many people use the term is faddish.