Not Running With People of Color

I recently got a good deal on a printed T-Shirt and for those of you who know me, it would rightfully define some of my personality traits. It simply reads: I did not mean to offend you---that was just a bonus. With that said, I am once again going to be the unpopular killjoy that will most likely be offensive to the mainstream mediocre brand of American Christian.  Although my intentions are not to offend, I will most likely be offensive in stating what I believe is necessary truth that needs to be voiced. I am writing this on the heels of a weekend event held in Milwaukee: The Color Run. This yearly event is a well-organized, very popular attraction that is gaining momentum as one of those “cool things you can do for fun” that is for the most part, safe and family friendly. In fact, my sixteen year old daughter attended this year’s event. This being the second year we have allowed her to attend, I decided to take a closer look at what this event was all about. The primary focus of the run is to make people “happy.” Which in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It’s about having fun together in the context of community. So that’s a good thing right? After all, isn’t that what we are focusing on in the church of today? A place of community where we do life together and all is well? I almost betting that a Color Run church movement could draw a great crowd be an effective platform for a creative approach to reaching the lost for Christ. Well, not exactly. 

For a frame of reference, before I proceed to make my point, I want you to examine these images:

 

The upper images are from the Color Run. Perfectly harmless, right? The lower images are from the Festival of Holi, which is a celebration of worship based upon various Hindu legends of good triumphing over evil. In each legend, depending on what region of India of Nepal you may live, the story involves an evil deity being defeated by a good deity. The festival itself is celebrated around the spring equinox---thus the end of winter (Death) and the coming of spring (Life). 

So what is your point Jay? Are we not allowed to have some fun or are you about to compare the Color Run with pagan rituals? Yes, but its not just that. I’m tackling a greater concern which is becoming a more disturbing trend among the American brand of Christian. If you have not noticed, (if you really haven’t noticed, then I guess I am speaking directly to you), there has become a blending of the secular and sacred cultures. Its not that the world has decided to give in and involve themselves in the practices of the church; rather, the church has decided to involve themselves in the practices of culture, polished it off a bit, and slapped the label of endorsement upon it. We’ve joined forces, we’ve locked arm in solidarity, and we have refused to see any significant differences between us and them (After all, this would be considered prideful, judgmental, and downright rude!) Wait, I can hear it now, “Jesus would have run the Color Run, He identified with sinners.” That has about as much fact as the Scripture where Jesus allowed the demons to enter into the pigs, allows them to kill the pigs,  so He could use the pigs to enjoy a plate of bacon! Jesus may have talked to the sinner, reached out to the sinner, eaten with the sinner, but He never identified with them----sinners identified with Jesus. Jesus’ identification in life was crystal clear and it was not with man, but with His Father. He spoke this truth in phrases like, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (John 14:9) and I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus never made statements like, “Look at this world, you can see that I am just like them and I want you to be like them, to live as they live, so that you can identify with them.” In fact the premise of Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus’ commission to the church, was to make the world identify with Him in becoming disciples. (Just in case you need to be reminded, a disciple is literally to be a mirror reflection of who they are following).

In becoming a Christian, there is a metamorphosis. As Paul states, “If any one in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is past and the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are no longer to be identified with our old life. Paul makes this point clear to the Corinthian church, which by the way, continually struggled with their inability to separate themselves from the culture they lived in in serving Christ. Reflect upon this passage:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God (OUR IDENTIFICATION). As God has said, “I will live among them and I will be there God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord.                                                                       

(2 Corinthians 6:14-17)

Evangelism doesn’t take place through blending in with culture, it takes place when the believer stands apart from it and looks drastically different than the world around him. We have somehow convinced ourselves in the American church that in order to be effective in sharing our faith, we need to “do life” with unbelievers. In reality the opposite is true, we need to live in such a different way from the rest of the world, that unbelievers want to “do life” with us! We do have to live in this world and interact with those around us; however, there are limitations and definite lines which we can cross. Every time we compromise our witness by being participants in the things that would identify us with this world, we are allowing identity theft  to take place against Christ---and this is where things like the Color Run come into play. Yes its is something that our culture does; however, what is it identified with? I posed this question to my daughter upon her return: 

“Do we think that God looks at the Holi Festival in India any differently than the Color Run in America? That somehow, He says, ‘They’re worshiping demons overseas and just having a good time in the states?’ Do we think that someone who has never known of a Color Run, and yet, is a devout Hindu, would recognize any difference between the two events?”

  

The truth is, when we place ourselves in various cultural practices, we seldom think about the identity of Christ within us. We pretend that there are no repercussions to our participating in activities that identify us with the world. In essence, we are making Jesus to look like someone He is truly not. He was all embracing to people, but not all embracing of what people did. He did not strive to be relevant, accepted, or even liked. But what He did was to tear apart His culture’s understanding of what it truly meant to worship God, by exposing the falseness of the practices of the day that were not based upon the truth of Scripture. Why? Because His culture was misrepresenting God. Whether it was the Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans, or Syrophoenians , Jesus attempted to correct the perspective of people when it came to their approach in identifying who they believed God to be. In the end, we want to believe that what “we do” doesn’t matter because of our misguided understanding of grace and love. In reality, it does matter whether we choose to believe it or not. One only has to read through the New Testament to see that Scripture is overwhelmingly clear about our identity as believers and our participation in our culture. If what we do is going to misidentify Christ in our lives, making Him embrace things which He never would have identified with, then we are doing nothing more than worshiping the pagan gods while believing that we are just having “fun.”