Biggest Problem in Christianity: “I’m better than you” thinking. How and when to pick fights.

When I said the American church must repent of its white supremacy & its colonialism, I got howls of resistance of two kinds. First was the individual  response, They said, "Should I be responsible 4 what my ancestors did?" My answer was tough was tough, it was simply yes. As long as you are pushing ignorance & avoidance then you part of the problem. So yes in this case you must repent. The other thing was people saying, "Why do you talk about white supremacy and slavery so much? I'm not a racist," they say. I say we don’t talk about it enough. Because at its core is the idea when Christians think, “I’m better than you” that is so built into American culture.  When they hear this they say, "Well, we are all sinners!" But this is just an excuse and it masks what they are really thinking. Because people will say "I'm saved and those other people aren't." They will say, "I have the blood of Jesus and those non-believers don’t." 

In this helpful episode, I explain the problems with this kind of thinking. I tell a personal story of opposition and pain. Then I explain 1 Peter 3:18 and how it can get us out of this thinking. Finally, I give some wise advice on when to pick fights and when to be silent. Choosing wisely will really help you with your Christian witness. 

1 Peter 3:13 Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? 14 But happy are you, even if you suffer because of righteousness! Don’t be terrified or upset by them. 15 Instead, regard Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it. 16 Yet do this with respectful humility, maintaining a good conscience. Act in this way so that those who malign your good lifestyle in Christ may be ashamed when they slander you. 17 It is better to suffer for doing good (if this could possibly be God’s will) than for doing evil. 18 Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to the Real Bible Rob teencast. One of the biggest problems in Christianity today is I'm better than you thinking, and this may be very familiar to you if, you know, especially when you're dealing with other people who are, you know, pushy or arrogant or they get into clicks, you know, uh, you might be very familiar with this because I mean it happens in school all the time, but it also happens uh in the work world. It happens in churches all the time where people get into clicks where they think, well, I'm part of the group that's better than everyone else. I that's very familiar too, isn't it? Well, one of the biggest problems that Christians have is that we don't seem to get out of that thinking. You know, one of the things that you're supposed to do as an adult and you get more mature and you become uh a little bit more aware of other people, um, you're supposed to kind of give up on that. And you're you're supposed to kind of see people as they are and um and believe in them as uh true images of God. That's something that um is really hard for us. This idea of a mago day, which is a Latin way of saying image of God. Um, it's this very uh great way of saying, you know, I don't every person you meet, no matter what level of society they are, whether they're rich, they're poor, whether they're black or white or um Asian or or Hispanic, whatever, uh wherever they're from, whether they're male or female, whether they're educated or not educated, are all made in the image of God. And that we should always start with that assumption. We should always start with, now they may have bad behaviors. We don't, we're not compelled to like everybody. There are people we don't like or don't get along with, but it's important to then always respect the fact that God made them, uh, and even if they made them in uh a way that it doesn't, you don't get along with, but still you say, I'm not better than them. And this is something we really truly believe, or at least we say but we believe, but a lot of times we don't act like it. So um I said did a video recently, and uh I I it got a lot of response. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that. Then from after this, I'll tell you a little bit more about um the problems of the kind of thinking that I I describe here, and then I'll tell you some uh some difficulty that I had where people really opposed me, um, really uh you know walked away from me. And that hurts, doesn't it? Uh, you know, when you stand up for something that you believe in, sometimes that happens and it really hurts. Um, and then I'll explain a little bit about 1 Peter chapter 3, especially verse 18, and how if we look at that closely, we can get out of that kind of thinking. And then what I'll do is I'll wrap up by telling you, giving you some wise advice on when to pick fights, when to stand up for your beliefs, when it's better just to um to keep quiet or keep, you know, not do it. It it's very important. One thing you learn in a lot of things, whether it's in your Christian walk, but also in things like school and business and getting along with people, there are you choose wisely um what you say and when you say it, because then you can um, you know, then it'll be received in the right way and you can uh work with it in the right way. And this was a great lesson for me as a pastor. You really have to do this because you don't want to alienate people just because they're in different parts of the walk. Some people are very mature, um, some people uh have dealt with a lot of things and learned a lot, and other people just haven't. And it it doesn't relate to age. I mean, sometimes I meet teenagers who just have it together, you know, young people that just really have uh have an old soul, they say, you know, who who uh uh really understand where they are. And then I meet people who are um, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old, and they just seem just never seem to grow up in this kind of thinking. So it's not your age, it's really more about how you see the world and how you see God and you see your place relative to other people. So let me begin a little bit about this social media post that I made. Um, I try very hard to um make quick um uh pointed things to say because I want to get people to see the Bible a little differently, and I also want people to attest their assumptions. Uh, this is something I think you have to do when you're teaching. So I said the American church must repent of its white supremacy and its colonialism. I spoke recently about this to you on another episode about how the church has grown and how the church has changed from its old ways. But whenever whenever I say this online, uh, especially, you know, on Facebook, Instagram, and others, um, I get a flood of response. I get some very angry people come to me, and they come in two forms. I I call them howls of resistance. It's like they're if they say the same things, but they say them back to me like howls, you know, like like a dog howling. Well, the first one uh is should I be responsible for what my ancestors did? A lot of times you'll hear this from people uh who who live in the American South because you know, slavery is very present. And a lot of the things about slavery, the legacy of slavery and racism, is much more at the on the surface and and and easier to see in the American South. Um what the problem is is that people don't realize that it's also very present in the North and in the West, in other parts of America. It's not a South problem. The South has to deal with it in a different way because you're surrounded by so much of it. And you do have people in the South that are still very much denial, you know, they're very much in denial. But I I want to just make that absolutely clear because it's really important to this story. So I my answer was tough to them. When they said, should I be responsible for responsible for what my ancestors did? My answer was very tough. I said, yes, very simply, you are responsible for what your ancestors did. Because as long as you're pushing ignorance and avoidance, in other words, if you hide what they did, if you don't deal with history, then um you're just as bad as they are. Because you're perpetuating, you're letting things keep growing and keep happening. You become part of the problem whenever you hide what happened. So um, so you yes, you must repent. We must all repent of that. We must all understand that it's not just us, but it's also the people um, you know, our parents, our grandparents, our distant ancestors. And if you live in the south, a lot of those people were slaveholders. Um, a lot of those people uh were also uh slaveholders and slaves in the north and in other parts of the country. In my part of the country, I live in uh the Seattle area, um, we're surrounded by um indigenous people. These are like American Indians, Native people, and um the way um the American government and the way people like me, like uh you know, white people treated these um indigenous people was just horrible. And um, and just you know, and I mentioned that in my last episode about that, just horrible. So you can see that this is a problem that we all have. And whenever if I deny that that happened, then I am part of the problem. Uh, we the minimum we can do is just to say, yes, it really did happen and it really was that bad. So that's the first thing. Then the other thing that people will say is, why do you talk so much about white supremacy? Why do you talk about slavery so much? You know, uh, you woke people, you'll hear that a lot, right? Maybe that's happened to you too. If you've ever talked about these um topics with people, they'll say, You're woke, or maybe even you've said that about somebody else, as if it's a bad thing. You say, I'm not racist. Why do you have to talk to me about it? Why do I have to hear this all the time? Well, I say that we don't talk about it enough. We try to avoid it so much, and especially in large parts of America, we don't talk about it enough because it is the core of what many Christians think. I'm better than you. And it's so built into our culture. Some people are better than other people. For a lot of for a lot of history, that was white people. For a lot of most of history, that was men. Free white men were better than everyone else. And that is just a fact. That's the way it was that was the American Constitution was written by men like this. They were written by landowners, rich white men. So, you know, they inherently, it was so much part of them. This idea of equality just kind of didn't exist, certainly for women. It took another, you know, hundred and fifty years or more for almost 200 years for them to, you know, start really saying that women are, you know, people too, right? So, um, and and the way people will respond to that uh when they don't like hearing that, they'll say, Well, we're all sinners, right? Have you heard that? So we're all equal because we're all sinners, and it's just whether we accept Christ or not. But uh often this is an excuse, and often this masks and hides what they're really thinking. Because the very next thing they'll say or think is, I'm saved, and those other people aren't saved. So maybe we're all terrible, right? But at least I have the truth and they don't. What they're really saying is, I'm better than them, right? Um and then they'll say things like, Um, I have the blood of Jesus, and that blood of Jesus protects me, and it doesn't for them. Those non-believers are going to hell because they're not believers, they are inferior. Now, like I said, they don't like that language because that implies something that they that there's great shame about. So let me tell you a little bit about the response. So I told you about the response I get online, but sometimes that response happens personally too. There's this person, uh, this uh lady who really loves what I say, loves my content, has been very, very supportive of what I have said. And when I talked about this, um, and she talks about this social justice, she talks about equality, um, she talks about um how um she's very um sad about the way the country is going, you know, and really hopes that we change and become better. So, you know, a lot of great, great things, a good uh ally she is. But when I talked about slavery and admitting it and repenting from it, even if you weren't the one that did it, she gave she got very angry at me. In fact, she even just kind of slammed the door shut uh figuratively. She just basically, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. And it, you know, I go, why? I mean, you're so open-minded, you're so you're so great. But what happened is I pushed a button because she comes from a very old Southern family in uh comes from a part of North Carolina and a very uh and has a family that goes back many generations before the um Revolutionary War. And um, she goes, We've been told so many times to repent over and over and over again, and I just get really sick of it. And um I said, Well, but I didn't tell you to repent. I said, we all have to repent. And I said that if you are not ignorant, pushing ignorance, and you're not avoiding, then you're not part of the problem. And I perceive, now of course I don't know this person really, but not very well. But at least I go, I don't perceive that you are part of the problem. But that wasn't uh good enough because there was deep shame there. And um I said, this isn't a southern problem, just like I said to you. Now I I told her, I go, I have a sister. My sister has lived in Alabama for 40 years, and she is uh uh married to a um into a family that um is very old um from Birmingham, Alabama, uh very old Southern family, has been there for you know hundreds of years. Uh, I don't know that they probably did own slaves, at least they were part of that culture, right? And they had money, so that they probably did, or at least they were part of that culture. But the thing about them is uh, and my sister is that she understands that and they understand that, that you can't hide the past. When you hide the past or you pretend that it really wasn't as bad as it really was, then you're part of the problem. So I saw I I'm familiar with that. Um I have a brother who lives in North Carolina, and he's not as close to this kind of a thing, but North Carolina is a very interesting place because there was a measure of freedom for um freed slaves um that really wasn't anywhere else in the South in North Carolina for about 30, 40 years after the Civil War, and then all of that got shut down really, really hard and was and it was went backwards really hard. So there's a very hard, difficult history in that part of the country. But it's so important for us to understand that that's also true in my place in Washington State. My Presbyterian, I'm a Presbyterian pastor. So my group of people, my denomination, the Christians like us, did terrible things only here and in Alaska, because Alaska is part of our um our Presbytery, our group of uh churches, um, just uh even into the 1960s and 70s. And you think, well, you know, that's the distant past. Well, 1960s and 70s weren't that long ago. I was alive then. Probably your parents and grandparents were certainly alive then. So you have to kind of look at it that way and understand that um people try to push away, they bury this thing. It's very important to understand what's going on when we do this because we all live with shame. We all have shame about um things that people said about us, maybe the way we look, um, maybe some habits that we have, um, about our ancestry, uh, about things that bad things that you did or people you know did, or things that you saw that were terrible, and you feel ashamed about that. It's just part of being a person. Well, if there's something that you know, and part of dealing with life is that as you get older, you start having to deal with these things. But what shame does, if you don't deal with it, is hides things because it's the most painful feeling you can have is shame. And you hide things, you push them away. And that's clearly what this um what this lady that I was talking to. I mean, uh a good person, somebody I wish who was my friend, you know, but um not, you know, because I'm a pastor, you know, you don't really always have uh people that you're ministering with as friends, but but at least somebody I could feel, you know, a kinship, a closeness to, um, but uh because of shame, she just doesn't want to hear it and she moves on. And and it gives me such pain when I see that because you see it a lot, especially when you're in um, you know, when you deal with addicted people, if you know any people who who struggle with alcoholism or drug addiction or other problems in their families like that, then you you know what shame is. That's that's really hard because they want to avoid the truth. And that's what the Christian church has done, right? The Christian church has avoided the truth about its past, especially about uh its racism, its slavery, it's colonialism, saying, because built into colonialism, the reason why um a uh one group of people can go to another country and then rule over them and then try to change them is because they say, I'm better than you. Um, and that's so built into our European Christian culture. A lot of times missionaries have done this in the past. They're my missionaries are much better today than they were um, you know, years ago. But in uh especially generations ago, missionaries went to these cultures and they go, Well, I'm white, I'm Christian, and I'm going to bring them Jesus, which means also I'm gonna bring them my white culture because it's just better. I have better techno, I have better technology, I have better knowledge, I have better. And wow, that's a hard thing to to, you know, first of all, it's not true. Um, and secondly, it's a really hard thing to get to get rid of and get away, push away. So I want to tell you then a little bit about First Peter, because I think First Peter can kind of help us get away from this. They deal, they dealt with they had the same problems in the New Testament that we do, about groups of people thinking that they were better than other people. If you read really closely, you can see how we um today have used these um Bible verses and scriptures as ways of propping ourselves up and saying that we're better than other people for in modern times. Because if you don't read it carefully, you'll think that, for example, that Paul liked once some groups, you know, like the like um the Gentiles more than the Jews, or they liked this group and more than that. Well, you know, he may have liked it, but you know, the one thing about Paul is he was always fighting for equality to say that in Christ, whether you're Jew or Greek or uh free or slave or your man or your woman, he says that a couple of times. Um, all are the same basically in Christ. And that's why we should look at it. So let's let's look at First Peter because I think this gives you the especially uh kind of this idea about, well, I'm saved, you're not saved. Um, and and how people will say that, you know, like it's a fact without realizing what they're doing is they're saying, I'm better than you. Um, so uh in 1 Peter 3, there's lots of things about um, you know, to be strong and to stand up for what is right, and um, and and that will be and that will be hurtful sometimes. In verse 13, he says, What will it harm you if you're zealous for the good? But happy are you even if you suffer because of righteousness? You know, sometimes doing the right thing can get you in trouble. Don't be afraid or upset by them. Instead, regard Jesus Christ, the Lord, as the holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, what you believe in, um, be ready to defend it. Now, um, this verse has been used pretty badly by others to just say, well, I'm gonna be a warrior for God. It doesn't really say that. It's what it's really saying is that you have a hope to be able to, you know, it's very Valid. My hope is valid as like your hope is valid. Listen to me. That's what it is. And then I'll skip down to verse 18. Because this is really important, very pivotal. It says, Christ Himself suffered on account of sins. It doesn't say your sins. It doesn't say their sins. It just, or it even doesn't say per you know, personal sins. He just says Christ Himself suffered on account of sins. In other words, the people who put him to death couldn't stand the truth. And they were being sinful. That's what caused that. Once and for all, he says that he offered himself, he suffered once and for all for their sins on behalf of the righteous one and on behalf of the unrighteous one. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive in the spirit. And there's more to that. But if if we get out of this mode of thinking, well, you've got the secret, um, you have the knowledge, and I don't, or you you are bad, and I'm good, I'm better. There's none of that here. Christ suffered for all on account of sin. Not your sin, not my sin, but all sin. And suffered both for the righteous one and for the unrighteous one. Because some people are righteous and other people are not. But but some people are evildoers and some people are uh do good. Um, right? But so what this does is this takes away, if you read it well, and you read it and you read a lot of the Bible well, it takes away that I'm saved, you're not saved out of this. Because it's not really about that. It has been driven into us so hard that we think that we're superior when we're saved. It doesn't say, and in fact, the Bible is very careful about that, about talking about saving of humanity, saving of many, the saving of uh of all who call out to the Lord will be saved. So it really takes away um the main argument that a lot of Christians use in kind of separating themselves from other people. So um let me, there's another piece of advice in here because I I so when uh this person I was talking to that or that you know responded very negatively to my um um call for repentance uh based on what our ancestors did, um I go, how do I deal with that? I don't agree with her, but I did reach out. I did say, I didn't mean you, I didn't mean southern people, I meant all people, and that I don't perceive that that's what you're doing. Uh I you know, of course I don't know, but I'm not saying that that's what you're doing. So I tried to make to build a bridge to her because there's something valuable in that conversation. Sometimes you gotta let it go because I'm not gonna change, and that probably is what will happen here is I will not change that person's mind. The the shame, the pain is just too deep. There's no point in me doing it. Sometimes you hear in the New Testament about when the disciples go into a town and they aren't accepted. Uh, you know, Jesus just says you shake them off like like dust from your shoes. It's not um as uh uh mean as it sounds. It's just saying, you know, and there's also this thing about throwing pearls before the swine, throwing, throwing, you know, knowledge to people who just aren't going to care or understand. Yeah, you know, you sometimes you you just have to choose that carefully. Sometimes people come back to me and um and I I think about how to respond, especially on social media, because um the people there there are people I want to target, people I want to talk to, people like you, you know, who will take the time to listen and understand, and uh especially young people, and I I I want them to get the right message. So I will be careful to choose what to say to the person in response. Sometimes the person could be very mean, can say the wrong thing. So when I respond to them, I go, okay, who am I talking to? Am I talking to that person or am I talking to other people that will read it or will respond to it? Well, sometimes I'm talking to that person because I think that maybe if they heard it a little bit different, you know, um, I've studied the Bible very deeply, and there are things that people say about it that are wrong, and um, and I can correct them or I can help them understand it in a different way. And and if if I think that they will benefit from that, then I will tell them. I will pick that fight, so to say. But I I try very hard not to just pick a fight to pick a fight, you know, just for entertaining myself. Um, no, I do it, I try to do it that way. But the most important thing is I want that the people who are hearing it will benefit from it too. Sometimes I know that the person that I'm talking to will never get it, never understand, will always just be in opposition, but that the people that are either reading it, sometimes when it's in person, like in a church setting or something where I'm like, oh, no, that's not really it. I'm not sure that that person was gonna get it. But you know, people are looking at you all the time, and when especially when you're like a pastor, but any kind of uh the way you behave when you're being opposed, um, other people watch and they can really benefit from that. Because if you do it in a graceful way, a loving way, a caring way, um, or you do it in a way where it's instructive to other people without knowing, you know, how that other person, you know, or even if you know that other person's never gonna get it and it's gonna stomp off, then you then you have to think that way. So I always say that it's important uh to be strategic in that kind of thing, especially if you're in a leadership role. Um, so when you do that, uh and you get better at it, it takes a lot of practice. That's one thing I think that uh pastors and leaders uh really develop over time if they care enough to do it and they do a good job of it, is they develop this very um uh patient, calm way of talking. Um, and they know when to poke and they know when to pull back. They know when it's good to instruct people, and they know when um it's not it makes no point, or maybe it's even destructive to instruct them. It's sometimes people will say things that you know are theologically a little bit wrong and maybe not good, but I I have to make my decision. I go, you know, um, if that's it's okay if they believe that, that's fine. Let them believe that. Don't don't try to correct people for just to be right, right? You want to do that to help people, and it's something you get really good at over time. And it's something that, especially if you're younger and you struggle with that a little bit, if you struggle and you get into sort of like verbal fights and stuff like that. Well, sometimes debating's fun and good, and you know, as long as people respect each other, it's fine. But always think about it in terms of skill development. You're develop you're developing a skill, how to deal with difficult people and how to pick the fights that need to be picked. And sometimes picking the fights that need to be picked can get you into a lot of trouble. Um, this is why Jesus was uh stalked, um, arrested, crucified. Because he was picking the fights that were important and people really hated him for it. Um, this is like civil rights leaders, civil rights leaders like John Lewis or Martin Luther King Jr. or others um just uh carefully saying the things they said uh made people so angry that they wanted to kill him. So uh that can happen. And there are people who just, you know, and it happened sort of uh in this video that I did that where I explained um when you should repent or that the church needs to repent, um, that got taken bound down by Facebook. It stayed up on a couple of other services, but it got taken down on Facebook. And the reason was because I was promoting um violence, it said. And I go back and I look through the script and I listen to it and I go, that's a total lie. But what happened, I'm sure, is that I really offended somebody and then they complained, and then uh um, if you do that, um the algorithm will take it and then will take it down, and you have to appeal it. That's always happened that that's happened to me a couple of times, not real often, but when it has happened, I always win the appeal because I never promote a violent violence or never promote something that is harmful in my in my uh conversations, in my videos, especially. But um it that does that does mean because if you're telling the truth, especially about things about religion and or things about um racism and uh uh about things that are really difficult subjects, like white supremacy, for example, you're gonna make people angry. It's just gonna happen. It's just part of the business of doing it's it's part of tell truth telling. I don't look for those opportunities really. I do know that when I talk about those opportunities that people are gonna be angry and that I'm gonna have to push back sometimes. But I choose it carefully. So that's what I'm hoping that you get out of this is that when you do this, is it it doesn't make any point. And we see this in um in uh 1 Peter 3, but we also see in other parts of the New Testament. It's like if you're gonna argue, make sure you're arguing for um for a good purpose. One of the things I talked about a couple weeks ago um on here is I talked about Peter and um in the story of Aeneas and Sapphira, and it's very, very harsh. And I I thought, you know, maybe that was a mistake. And sometimes you do see that sometimes in the um early part of the church, is uh you see Peter making mistakes, you see other disciples making mistakes because they're learning, right? And they get better at it. And um, if Peter wrote 1 Peter, we don't know, um, but at least was written in Peter's name. Um 1 Peter is filled with wisdom. It doesn't look like the same Peter that um you see in front of Jesus saying uh um impulsive things, nor do you see is it the same Peter that you see in the early part of the book of Acts. Is you see a more impulsive Peter, you see a more uh black and white thinking Peter in those days, and then you see a more mature Peter later on. Same thing happens with Paul, too, is Paul we get this huge um view of Paul, but that view of Paul happens over uh 20, 30 years, a really pretty long period of time. And um, and he's learning. And you can see if you look at it really closely, you can see how he's learning. And you know, that happens to you, that happens to me. I'm I you know, I've learned so much in the last uh uh 30, 40 years, and especially in the last couple of years, in the last five years. Um, I'm learning so much. I'm learning from you, I'm learning from people at church, I'm learning from people on uh social media that I do a lot of, and uh I learned from podcasts. I just uh interviewed on my regular podcast, I just interviewed um a couple of famous um biblical scholars, and it was humbling uh to learn from them, but um, but also it felt so good because um they respected me, um, they listened to me uh and um and they explain things really well. And it's just it feels so good. And I'm hoping that that's something that you feel too, and especially as you get better at it, because if you if you work hard at at this, you'll you'll become the person that you hope to become, uh, especially when you're witnessing, you're talking about um your faith. Uh you just get you just get a lot better at it as you get older. So that's my advice to you, is there's a lot of wisdom there, and you can take advantage of that. So, with that, uh, I just uh want to thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful. I hope that you can see that um sometimes people are reacting in kind of an immature way. They're reacting in a way uh that's filled with shame. They're acting in a way that I'm better than you. And that's a huge problem in Christianity today. It's a huge problem in our society about people not being mature and gracious and just assuming that they're better than other people. And uh, you know, in really overt ways and also really quiet, subtle ways, too. So uh anyway, I I you know take the time to understand that difference and be calm and understand that if when you deal with shame, when you deal with your own um challenges in a in a good, healthy way, that you'll be a better person and you'll be a better speaker, and you'll you'll be able to withstand some of these hard things that do happen in life. So, with that, I say uh God bless you and thank you.