When Bad Christians Happen to Good People

This is a piece I did for another site about six years ago. Several things I've read recently have brought it back to my mind, so I thought I'd share it here. I visited the website mentioned in the article and found that it's very much still in existence and up to date.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. –Brennan Manning

I’ll bet the title of my pearl really caught your eye, didn’t it! Well, I really can’t take credit for it. It’s actually the title of a wonderful book I just read by Dave Burchett, which reaches out, to both Christians and those who have been turned off by Christians. Many things have been said and done under the guise of Christianity, things which have caused irreversible damage.

I was born into a church-going, Christian family. I can never remember a time that I didn’t believe in God. I was not one of those who had a life-altering conversion experience. God has always been a part of my life. This is not to say that my faith has always been unwavering.

My earliest experience in faith was a positive one. When I was six years old, I was diagnosed with a relatively uncommon leg disease affecting my hip joint. The surest way to treat the disease was to put me on crutches for a period of three years. As an alternative, the doctors suggested putting me in leg braces, which had worked in some instances. If, after six months, there were no change in my condition, I would be put on crutches for the duration. The braces extended from my feet to my hips with a metal bar holding my legs apart, keeping the thighs out of the pelvic socket. I had a specially fitted wheelchair equipped with a platform to hold my legs in this rigid position. In spite of the pain and blisters on my heels, I don’t remember this being a terrible time in my life. In fact, I was honored to be the flower girl in my sister’s wedding.

Even at this young age I had faith that I would be healed. I was taken to the home of a local missionary preacher to be prayed over several times. I think this memory is so vivid because “laying on hands” was not a part of my own denomination’s ritual. God chose to work through this man and heal me. When I went for my three-month check up, there was no sign of disease on the x-rays. Some might argue that I would have been healed from the treatment anyway, but I considered it a miracle. The basis for my faith was established.

Fast forward to my father’s illness. As I related in a prior pearl, I was never told that my father might die. For years I thought I was shielded from this knowledge because I was so young, but I later learned that no one acknowledged the fact that he might die. The mantra was “pray and he will be healed”. Based on my own healing experience, I did just that. I prayed with absolutely no doubt in my mind. Within six months he was dead from cancer. My world was rocked! Not having been prepared for death made the grieving experience confusing and that much harder. I railed against God and questioned His existence. I could not believe He hadn’t answered my prayers!

My faith was stronger than I thought. I could never quite push God out of my life. Over the next six years I managed to draw close to Him again and reconciled the fact that prayers are not always answered in the ways we expect them to be. When my mother became sick with cancer the summer before my senior year in high school, I asked my brother, a doctor, to tell me the truth about her illness. He made it clear that she was seriously ill and would probably die. I appreciated his candor. It helped me to view the situation realistically. I didn’t discount the fact that God could intercede and work miracles, but I was prepared for the worst in the event that He didn’t. I knew that many were sincerely praying for my mother. I also knew that I was praying with all my heart. However, my prayers were different than with my father’s illness. I focused more on praying for strength for myself, peace for my mother, and that God’s will be done.

When my mother died, it was no great shock. I never really felt betrayed by God, just sad. Here, though, is where the “bad” Christians come in. Several well-meaning, but “bad” Christian relatives proceeded to say, “if we had only prayed right, your Mother wouldn’t have died”. This was repeated many times and carried a sense of implied blame.

Fortunately, my faith was too strong to buckle under the burden of these insensitive statements. As I’ve matured, so has my faith.

It’s sad how often we encounter “bad” Christians. The pro-lifers who think it’s okay to bomb an abortion clinic, the religious- right-extremists who insist on imposing “their way or no way” beliefs on everyone, those who think only the “big” sins count as sin, or even my daughter’s peers who tell her that she isn’t “saved” because she hasn’t been baptized the right way (she was sprinkled as a baby rather than immersed).

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always a “good” Christian. Reading Mr. Burchett’s book opened my eyes to many ways that I can improve my life. To those who are Christian and can admit that you might sometimes be a “bad” Christian, or those who have ever had a damaging experience with a “bad” Christian, I would highly recommend that you read this book. You can find out more about it at Dave Burchett's website. (written June 2002)