I feel sorry for non-believers. We Christians can be so fickle, hypocritical and downright confusing.
Years ago, I was laughing with Cammie and Daisy (the characters in the Introduction of, Life in a Christian Bookshop). We had been discussing an author named, Joshua Harris who had written a book called, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. This was about what he believed to be the biblical method of courtship, leading to marriage.
In fact, with him, there was no courtship – that is what made the book so popular – he didn’t even kiss his girlfriend until his wedding day.
I hadn’t read the book, but going by how popular it was, he seemed to have got it all figured out as to how to conduct himself before the big celebration.
The content stirred up much interest among single Christians and those who were currently in love with someone. I was kind of jealous of him because he seemingly was an expert on relationships.
I distinctly remember sitting at the table in Daisy & Cammies’s kitchen, and saying,
“Ha, ha, in a few year’s time, he’ll write a sequel and call it, I Kissed Marriage Goodbye.”
They had a good chuckle about the irony, but I felt guilty as soon as I said it. Worse still, never in my life did I think this throw away comment was actually going to come to pass.
Worse than that, not only has my flippant joke become a reality, because Joshua and his wife did get divorced, but he has renounced his book and by his own admission, turned away from God completely.
We are not talking about a few hundred disappointed readers. When I worked in the Christian bookshop, his title was the number one best-seller for many weeks. In the USA it remained in the top spot for far longer than that.
I have lost count of the amount of times an upstanding Christian in the public eye has fallen away in the most crazy way.
When Jesus said, “In the last days, the love of many shall grow cold.” I naïvely didn’t realise how many I would be aware of.
In my book, Why You Make God Smile, there is a chapter about the benefits of limiting time on social media. Yes of course this is no new revelation and I’m sure millions of people have already written about this; but it was fun putting a poem together and expressing my feelings on the subject.
But it is true that YouTube in particular, highlights how exasperating we Christians can be.
You listen to your favourite preacher (Person A) and the message encourages you and inspires you to grow closer to God, then suddenly they say something that’s completely heretical and it stuns you.
Instantly up pops a video by Person B who has done a 40 minute talk on why you should avoid Person A because they are a false teacher. Person B goes on so much that it becomes evident that they have a problem with judgementalism, even though they are right about Person A.
Then Person C appears talking about how you shouldn’t have anything to do with Person B because they are teaching false doctrines. However Person C begins misinterpreting the bible to the point of lunacy and you stop the video.
The next time you log on, Person D is warning people to stay way from Persons, A, B, & C because they all endorse the teachings of Person E.
You get the pattern.
This continues until you get to Z and the cycle begins all over again and you feel like throwing your electronic device across the room.
“Read your bible for yourself!” screams an irate scholar who is well versed in Hebrew and Greek and cannot understand why people waste time listening to this stuff.
This person is right, however, even he falls into error by adding,
“You may interpret it as you wish.”
So what is the conclusion to this matter?
Those of us who claim to be Jesus followers, whether genuine or not, need to apologise to non-believers for putting them into a whirl of confusion.
I am sorry that ‘my lot’ are appearing to be so wishy washy!
As a Christian writer myself, I find Joshua Harris’s story mind blowing, but I’m pleased to say that I have managed to glean one snippet of wisdom from him.
In his Tedx Talk, Strong Enough to be Wrong, he says,
“The great news about learning to admit that you’ve got something wrong, is that you don’t have to be so afraid of being wrong. Which means, you could move towards people that see the world differently from you and not be so terrified that they may change your mind.”
I love that. I love that despite the fact that I think he is still wrong, because like Jon Steingard, he has shut God out of his life altogether.
I love it because I too must learn from Joshua’s statement. I have to remind myself daily that even Christians will differ greatly to my own interpretation of what I believe God is saying to me in his word. I musn’t fear them. I must never be too proud to admit that it could be me who is wrong.
But as a christian writer who has a heart to see people saved, I mean what I say. If I had an issue about a certain biblical principle, I respect you enough to be honest and tell you from the start, or not venture down that path at all. You will see from my books, God Loves Children, Life in a Christian Bookshop and WYMGS 1&2, that I am not afraid to admit my faults, expose my sins and acknowledge where I need to change in my thinking.
If I’m going to come back to you years later and claim I made it all up, or no longer believe the things I said about Jesus, I may as well toss my pen in the trash and take down this website immediately.
Joshua Harris’s readers were right to complain. He sucked them in then spat them out, and expected applause for his behaviour by over-focussing on how strong it is to come clean.
I’m not trying to make myself look better than him. When he wrote, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, he was barely out of his teens. I’m just promising that I have been honest with you and intend to continue to be.
And this is what you deserve!
If you have taken time to read a book, you may not necessarily be entertained or moved emotionally by it in any way, but you at least deserve consistency.
However, one thing I know I am not wrong about, is that God is real and he loves every human who has ever been conceived. He doesn’t love our behaviour, but that is completely separate from how he feels about us as people. Mankind is inherently evil, no matter how good we think we are, and this separated us from a divine Father who is holy. But while we were still sinners, God made a way to reconcile us back to himself, through his only son Yeshua – Jesus Christ.
Sadly, Joshua & Jon believed this, then changed their minds, but the damage was already done because they had a string of fans who had hung onto their every word. The rope they were clinging to was suddenly cut, and these fans fell either to their own spiritual death, or were badly injured in the process.
My promise to you is that I will not suddenly announce years down the line, that I didn’t really mean anything I said in my books and that God is not God afterall. You deserve better than that.
You deserve to be told the truth from the start.
A truth that will not waiver even if I see something upsetting, find a bible verse that seems contradictory to what I read previously – or because I suddenly don’t feel like God is there anymore.
I am not saying I am better than these two guys, nor is it my desire to criticise, for the Bible warns:
“Let anyone who thinks he stands, take heed lest he falls.” (1Corinthians 10:12)
But as a Christian author, it is my responsibility to tell you that I am dedicated to remaining close to the Lord and to always be aware that deception can happen to anybody who becomes complacent in their walk with Him.
I admire Joshua Harris for his bravery in confessing he made a mistake. I am pleased Jon stepped down from his ministry rather than continuing to live a lie. But as a person who is also presenting christianity publicly, my heart really goes out to the people who were let down.
Many people are losing out. They are refusing to embrace the truth because of some who are causing confusion and making following Jesus look like a joke. When the eternal future of people’s souls are at stake, it is not funny.
Love ‘n stuff,
