Lord, Save Us...

My wife picked up a book yesterday and I haven't been able to put it down. It's called Lord, Save Us From Your Followers, and it's also been made into a compelling documentary film. The author/producer, Dan Merchant, is a follower of Christ who set out to discover why Christians and non-Christians seem so hostile to each other in the public square; why those who don't profess to follow Christ feel like Christians hate them or view them as the enemy, and why Christians feel so threatened by those who don't share their belief system. What he discovered is both compelling and entertaining, heart-warming and unsettling. You can find out more for yourself at http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/.

Dan Merchant's concern over the current state of religious dialogue in America (or lack thereof), and his response, represent a groundswell of new thinking in Christian circles around the country. Many Christians are re-thinking their relationship with the larger culture, and figuring out how to join the dialogue about religious faith in some other way than by what Merchant calls the "bumper sticker culture." As a person who wants to have great conversations about faith with people in my community who believe very different things than I do, I think this is very important stuff.

There will be more to come as I finish the book and watch the movie, but the 10-minute trailer was enough to captivate me. One particular segment was hard to forget, as Merchant set up a confession booth at a gay pride event and confessed his own lack of compassion as a Christian to individuals who attended there. His confessions and their reactions are hard to forget. How does that strike you? Are people who have a distaste for evangelical Christianity winsome or repulsive to you? Are participants in evangelical Christianity winsome or repulsive to you? There aren't easy answers, but it's more than worth the time to struggle with them.