It’s been about two and a half weeks since our sweet Zekey passed away. I think about him every day, almost all day. But when I think of him now, I don’t usually remember the sweet, mischievous little guy running our house in Westerville. Nor do I think of the sickly little boy bedridden at my parents’ house in Toledo. No, when I think of Zeke now, I see a tall, handsome young man with tons of dark hair, big brown eyes, and a big smile on his face. I see him standing in front of me, without seizing, without twitching. He is ready to talk to me. We’re about to have our first conversation.

This is Zeke as he is now, in heaven with Jesus awaiting his resurrection. He is whole. He is healthy. He is untainted by that damnable disease.

Although Zeke’s life was short, and he was sick for almost half of it, he has left a profound impression on this world. If you’re reading this, then it probably means that his life and death have moved you in unexpected and unlikely ways. I believe that this is God calling you.

The central message of Christianity is something we Christians call the Gospel, a word that literally means “good news.” Christianity is a “good news” religion. It exists to tell the world that something good, something true, something beautiful has happened, and now everything can start to get better again. Everything can start to be remade, rebuilt from its brokenness–even you and me!

One of the things that I love most about being an evangelical is that the Gospel is constantly put front and center in my life because I hear it proclaimed from the pulpit in church nearly every week. I see it in action in the lives of my friends. I watch as it transforms people, moving them from sinner to saint. And we evangelicals are careful to tell you that there’s nothing you can do to earn this Gospel, this salvation. It’s a free gift from God. It comes by grace, through faith. You can’t buy it. You can’t work for it. You can’t earn it.

Why is that? It’s because of what the Gospel is. The Gospel is an event, a story. It’s the story of Jesus.

Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 15.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to [many].

The Gospel is the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. When we proclaim the Gospel, we proclaim the news (which just so happens to be very, very good) that Jesus died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, appearing to many. The Gospel is a proclamation of historical fact, which like all facts of history, can neither be changed nor earned.

This is a profound comfort. A comfort so glorious and gracious, in fact, that we find it very difficult to live with. The fact is that you and I are prone to change the Gospel. We’re apt to add to it, to make it earn-able. We engulf it in doctrinal tests to determine who’s out and who’s in. We define it in terms of behavior, turning the Gospel into some sort of morality test. (Which, of course, isn’t good news at all, because if Jesus is the standard of morality, then who among us could ever hope to pass that test!) We’re all tempted to add things to the Gospel, but adding anything to the Gospel destroys it, changing it from an event in real time and space to a philosophy, a doctrine, a list of rules, or a set of behaviors.

But the Gospel is not abstract. It is not intangible. It is not conceptual.

The Gospel happened. The Gospel is blood and flesh, nails and wood, thorns and fists. The Gospel is a tortured scream, an agonized groaning, a declaration of God-forsakenness. It is a desperate look to heaven, a final breath, a surrendered spirit. The Gospel is a suffocated man on a Roman cross. A man who was God. Now dead.

The Gospel is myrrh and aloe, a king’s burial. It is strips of linen, a stranger’s tomb. The Gospel is silence. Burial.

The Gospel is the first breath back from the dead, renewed hands folding up burial clothes. The Gospel is a stone rolling away from the inside, terrified soldiers, gleaming light. It is an angel laughing, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It is the tears of Mary, hands grasping at the gardner’s feet–Jesus’s feet. The Gospel is two men walking along the road talking with a stranger, the risen Jesus they did not recognize. The Gospel is doubting Thomas’s fingers running across the wounds on Jesus’s hands, proof which led to his declaration of faith: “My Lord and my God!” It is Jesus and Peter, sharing a breakfast of reconciliation. “Do you love me? Feed my lambs.”

This is news. World-changing news. But this news cannot be changed. This news cannot be earned. You can no more earn the Gospel than you can earn the Revolutionary War. It is an event that happened long before you were born. Earning it is simply not part of the equation.

And yet we do. We change it. And I think most of us change it one way–we limit it. We say, “Sure, Jesus died and rose again. God loves the world so much that he offers salvation to everybody for free! That’s all true and it applies to every one…every one, that is, except for me. I am depressingly special, because I still have to earn my way back to God.”

This is what we believe in our deep, deep hearts, isn’t it? We think that God only likes us if we’ve had a day of little to no sin. We think that God will only bless us if we set the course of our lives to accomplish some great thing for him. We so easily forget that the Gospel is a true story that does not change as the years pass. It’s not a philosophical statement. It’s not a logical argument. It’s not even a doctrine! The Gospel is a statement of historical fact. It’s the story of Jesus.

When we change the Gospel, when we believe that God will only accept me if I don’t sin or that I have to somehow earn God’s saving grace, we are denying the story, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We change it from the story of Jesus into the story of me. We put ourselves into the middle of the story of the world. We say, “I’ve got to pull myself up by my own moral bootstraps. I’ve got to make my way, against all odds, back to God!”

But the Gospel is not about you; the Gospel is for you. It’s the story of Jesus dying and rising for you. You don’t have to do anything to earn his death and resurrection. That already happened. What could you possibly do to earn something that already happened? Could you earn the Revolutionary War? How ridiculous! And yet everyday we live our lives as though we have to earn the Gospel, that God loves us so much that his Son came, died for our sins, was buried, rose again, and was seen by many.

We receive the Gospel. We receive it by faith. We say, “Okay, God. This is what you’ve done. I can’t change that fact. I can’t go back in time and pull you off the cross. I can’t do anything to earn what you’ve already done. I believe it. I receive it. Thank you.” The Gospel has happened, and that is good news. Jesus’s death and resurrection have provided the means for you to be reconciled back to God, to be forgiven of all your sins, and to be made new. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to earn it.

Imagine this fictitious scenario: Mark Driscoll walks to the stage this Sunday morning, looks straight into the camera as he lets out a wry smile. “This whole Jesus thing is nothing but a bunch of *bleep*. You pansies that believe this stuff are ignorant fools, more equipped to knit your grandma a pair of socks than do anything useful to society.” He goes on for 45 minutes mocking Christians, berating Scripture, and blaspheming God. For the rest of his life he writes books and gives lectures for the sole purpose of destroying Christianity.

This, of course, if it actually happened, would raise all kinds of issues for people who know and love Mark, but one of the most important ones is this: What is Mark’s eternal destiny? In the face of such a fall, it would be difficult to say that Mark will still enjoy eternity with God. He has, after all, abandoned Jesus. If, then, his eternity will be spent apart from God, in hell, what are we to make of his fruitful years of ministry–years in which he prayed, worshipped, preached, and evangelized? What are we to make of his faith during this time? Was it genuine? Or was it a farce? In other words, can someone move from genuine, saving faith in Jesus to genuine, damning rejection of Jesus?

This is, essentially, the question Scot McKnight poses in his new ebook A Long Faithfulness, where he exegetes the five warning passages of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews sternly warns its readers about falling away: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallenaway, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” (6:4-6) This is just part of one of five major passages that warn about the dire consequences of leaving the faith.

One of the core tenets of Reformed theology, what McKnight calls “resurgent Calvinism,” is “meticulous sovereignty,” which means that God determines everything, whether good or evil. The recent tornado that destroyed Moore, OK, for instance, was, in this view, sent from God. He even determined which elementary school would be destroyed, which children would perish, and which would be spared. In terms of salvation, meticulous sovereignty logically leads to a doctrine called double predestination, which means that God determines, beforehand, which people will receive salvation and which will receive damnation.

If God determines all things, including salvation, then it is impossible for any human to choose or un-choose God. If meticulous sovereignty is true, then nobody has any say in their eternal destiny–each one is subject to the choosing (or not) of God. If God determines all things, then it is impossible for someone to move from genuine, saving faith to genuine, damning unbelief because God either chooses you or he doesn’t. You do not choose God. You do not choose to believe or disbelieve. There is no room for the human to switch positions.

The question then arises: Is this view consistent with biblical teaching? This is an important question to explore and answer. Does the Bible teach that God is the sole determiner of all things? Through his exegesis of the five warning passages of the book of Hebrews, Scot McKnight sees that God is not the sole determiner of all things, but that he has sovereignly given human beings the freedom to choose, and to un-choose, him. The author of Hebrews, McKnight observes, is addressing true Christians with genuine faith who face the very real threat of becoming apostate–that is, of walking away from Jesus and forfeiting their salvation.

The text calls the audience believers, and it warns them that they must obey or they will not enter the rest. It does not say, as so many have claimed, that if they don’t obey it proves they did not have faith. Instead, it calls those who have believed to continue in obedience or they will not enter the rest. If the argument works like this, the case is all but finished. The author thinks believers can disobey in such a way that they do not enter the rest.

Going back to our fictitious example of a potentially-apostate Mark Driscoll (the sad reality is that many pastors have followed the path laid out above), it would be intellectually lazy and biblically unsound to say that, because he renounced Christ, that he never in his entire life actually believed in Jesus. To say that those who fall away never truly believed conflicts with the testimony of the author of Hebrews. Those to whom the unknown author wrote were baptized believers, full-participants in the local churches. They were operating in the gifts of the Spirit. They were living the full Christian life.

If [the original audience of Hebrews] are not Christians, then no one is. If they are Christians, then the nerve of meticulous sovereignty has been severed, for the author conceives of the audience as Christians who not only can, but, in some instances apparently have, apostatized from the faith. That means they are damned. They have un-chosen God.

Scot’s exegesis is sound, and his conclusion is devastating to the doctrine of meticulous sovereignty. According to the book of Hebrews, human beings have the freedom to choose or un-choose God. If a couple gets divorced, does that then mean that they never loved each other? Of course not. In the same way, the act of apostasy does not mean that the apostate was never a true believer. We are free creatures. We have been granted this freedom because God loves us, and desires an agape-love-based relationship with us. Agape love is only possible where there is freedom.

This is an important essay, and a relatively quick and easy read. If you have questions about eternal security, human freedom, and God’s sovereignty, I highly recommend you download this ebook (it’s only available electronically) and give it a careful read.

There is no doubt in my mind that gay marriage (or, marriage equality) is one of the most important issues of our time. For many people, it has deep, personal significance, and therefore deserves to be treated with respect. In this post I would like to lay out, as briefly as possible, my thoughts on gay marriage. While I have already sketched my thoughts about marriage on this blog (and if you have read that post you already know where I stand on this issue), I would like to talk specifically about gay marriage. My hope is to contribute something to the larger, cultural discussion, that is both gracious and thoughtful. You can judge for yourself whether I have done so at the end of this post.

Let me begin by sketching, as best I can, the current case in support of gay marriage.

Marriage is a basic human right, and human beings ought to be free to marry whomever they choose, insofar as that person is a willing participant in the relationship. Love does not discriminate between genders; homosexual love is qualitatively the same as heterosexual love. A gay man’s love for another man is essentially the same as a straight man’s love for a woman. To deny two consenting adults the freedom to marry is discrimination of the first order, akin to racism, and definitively unAmerican. Our nation’s deepest values, after all, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–at least two of which are flatly denied to homosexual couples through the prohibition of gay marriage. Therefore, gay marriage is not simply about marriage; it is about civil and human rights.

I hope that I have captured the essence of the argument in support of gay marriage, though it is not my intention to debunk this argument. In fact, if I were to approach the issue from a purely American standpoint, I could not debunk it. Within the American political and cultural climate, this argument is perfectly logical, and we, as a people, would have a moral obligation to immediately legalize gay marriage.

However, I do not approach this issue, or any other, as an American. I approach this issue as a Christian whose faith in Jesus is authoritatively informed by the Bible. Based on how I read the Scriptures, I make the following assertions:

The Church, especially the evangelical church and the individuals who compose her, needs to repent of the way in which she has treated homosexuals.

Whatever we believe about homosexuality, there is no excuse for the way the Church has typically treated homosexuals. What we see in Jesus is that God has not treated any human being with contempt or disgust, but has graciously given each of us sinners infinite worth. Rather than extending that grace and worth to homosexuals, we Christians have played the part of the ungrateful man whose massive debt was repaid but who would not forgive the smallest amount owed to him.

I, too, have participated in this hypocrisy, contempt, and disgust. I have told innumerable gay jokes. I have used caricature and overdone imitation to get laughs. I have been thoughtless, careless, and judgmental toward homosexuals. For all of that, I am sorry. I was wrong.

God is neither impressed nor moved by our notion of romantic love.

Somewhere along the way we have developed this idea that there is no higher thing than romantic love. Though billions of people have lived lives at least as happy and healthy as our own without romantic love, we take it to be as important to our well-being as the air we breathe. It is worth fighting for, dying for, or killing for. Romantic love, we believe, is inherently good, and therefore anything that stands in its way must be evil. We are lost without it, and therefore entitled to it. Romantic love is a fundamental human right.

God does not share such a high opinion of romantic love. Don’t get me wrong, God likes romantic love–after all, he created it. But I believe that he created it as an aid to human life, not as the aim or highest ideal of it. Romantic love aids us to have good marriages where union and intimacy are present more often than not. But, as almost all of us have experienced, romantic love can be a real pain. It is no fluke that the ancient Greeks depicted Eros, the god of romantic love, as a mischievous child-god who caused love to grow between two people who had no business being in love. (Think: Evil Cupid.) Romantic love, while a beautiful and glorious thing in the appropriate context, can create feelings within us that, in the wrong contexts, blind us to the truth. 

But perhaps the most important reason that God is not impressed by our overwrought notion of romantic love is that it keeps us from pursuing the greatest love–agape. I’ve written and spoken on agape extensively, so I don’t want to get into it too much here, but I will say that agape is the love that lays down its life, forgoes its rights, forgives sins, and brings life where there was death. It is the love most clearly on display at the cross of Jesus, and it is the love that all who follow Jesus are called to demonstrate. Agape is the love that sustains eternal life, the love upon which the Great Marriage–between Jesus and the Church–will be founded. The agape of God is the most adventurous love story and the most beautiful love song, a poem of love beyond compare. This is the love that is no mere aid to life; it truly is the highest ideal to which we can aspire, for it brings us to the lowest point of ourselves–of dying to ourselves–which is the point at which we will most fully find God and flourish.

Romantic love (Eros) is idolatrously worshipped in our culture, by Christians and nonChristians alike.

While this assertion is related to the previous one, it is worth stating clearly. We worship romantic love. Eros is the god of our age. It dominates our art and entertainment. It gets ratings and sells books. It is, quite literally, everywhere. But Eros makes a fickle god, and I believe that we are experiencing a pandemic of sexual confusion as a result of our idolatry.

This idolatry has manifested itself within the church through our normalization of marriage and marginalization of singleness. We don’t know what to do with people who, like Jesus or Paul, don’t get married. We spend more time teaching our young people how to choose the right spouse than we do training them to become like Jesus. Again, romantic love is important, but agape love is more important.

God created humanity as male and female; this gender complementarity is vital to human flourishing.

It is not for nothing that God created humanity male and female. The vastness of his image could not be borne in a single man–the man needed a complement in order to accomplish his God-given task. Each sex brings elements that are vital to create a good society in which humans and creation can flourish; Adam and Eve each bear one part of the complete image-of-God-on-earth. To forsake one gender in the most basic and important of human social units–the family–whether through divorce, death, or gay marriage, is to throw off the balance of creation and create environments that are adverse to human flourishing. One of our most basic needs as human beings is to have both a father and a mother.

Homosexual activity is contrary to God’s sexual design and purpose, and the Bible consistently names it as one of several sexual sins.

I have heard the arguments that the Bible is not talking about committed, monogamous homosexual relationships when it condemns homosexual practice; that the authors of Scripture did not know about sexual orientations; and that the passages in Leviticus were only concerned with pagan, cultic sexual practice. I am not convinced by this exegesis. The testimony of Scripture is clear that homosexual practice, like infidelity and bestiality, lies outside of God’s design for sex. (I’d like to take a hot second to make the remark that most of the marital relationships in Scripture do not, in fact, reflect God’s design for sex and marriage, either.) God designed sex to achieve a purpose, and contrary to popular teaching both within and without the Church, the purpose of sex is procreation, not to be the ultimate demonstration of romantic love. (I take this as biologically self-evident, and if I were a Darwinian Evolutionist, I would be even more adamant on this point than I am.) As with all created things, the purpose of sex informs the design, and not the other way around. In other words, because the purpose of sex is procreation, sex is designed to be an act of unparalleled union, intimacy, and pleasure. God designed sex this way because these are precisely the things that are most important to a child as he grows–to know that his parents are united, that there is a shared intimacy within the family, and that the parents are pleased with one another and the child. 

When sex becomes about the gratification of sexual desire, or merely a demonstration of romantic love, it becomes disconnected from its created purpose. Like anything else, when sex becomes disconnected from its created purpose it becomes a caricature of itself. We have embraced the caricature. We have replaced the design for the purpose. We have mistakenly declared that the purpose of sex is pleasure, intimacy, and union. Pregnancy is the last thing we want out of sex. (And yes, I think that abortion is extremely relevant to this discussion, but I don’t want to get into that here.) Based on this assumption, very little sexual activity can be declared out of bounds. When sex becomes about pleasure, intimacy, and union, only rape and certain kinds of pedophilia can be wrong.

But the truth is that God has fenced sexual activity in order to create healthy families, which in turn create healthy societies. In this sense, what appears to be a great big “NO” to human desire and happiness is actually one resounding “YES” to human flourishing and joy. On a global scale, the purpose of sex is to populate the world with healthy, whole human beings who rule the earth with strength and wisdom.

It is neither gracious nor loving to encourage and support others in sinful behavior.

Many Christians believe that the most gracious and loving thing we can do for our homosexual neighbors is to help them achieve marriage equality. While I understand this notion, and believe that it is rooted in good intentions, I think it is misguided. Here is why: Our access to the grace and agape love of God is entirely dependent upon our repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ. Grace and agape love forgive and expel sin, not foster and enable it. As the representatives of Jesus Christ on earth, we do no favors to anyone by enabling and supporting sin of any kind, and specifically to our homosexual neighbors by enabling and supporting gay marriage. When we fail to graciously and lovingly call people to repentance, we fail to bring them to the cross of Jesus.

The Gospel offers hope for all who find themselves in bondage.

This is the Gospel: Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was dead and buried, and he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. This is news of an event that has actually and already happened. The Gospel is the most powerful force on the face of the earth. If Jesus overcame death, and if you follow and trust Jesus, then there is nothing that can keep you in bondage. There is real, tangible hope in the Gospel that can’t be found anywhere else. You do not have to be in bondage to the god of romantic love. You do not have to be in bondage to your sexuality. You do not have to be in bondage to the sins you have committed or the sins that have been committed against you. Jesus has overcome the world and all of its sin, evil, and idolatry. When you find yourself in Jesus, then you, too, have overcome all of this through his power that lives inside of you.

Conclusion: I cannot support gay marriage.

God’s design and purpose for life, love, sex, and marriage leave no place for gay marriage. This is hard news for many people. But if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is an opportunity for life, glory, and a love that does not fade with time and age. I believe that God is offering us something that is far more wonderful and incredible than anything our sexuality can offer. Does it sound good now? No, it sounds like bad news, doesn’t it? Hateful, even. But then again, the cross sure looked like defeat and folly for a while, too. Then came resurrection.

And that’s the way it always is with God. He leads us to this place that demands our death, asking us to do something we believe will kill us. And in a way, it does. But then comes resurrection. On the other side of God’s demand is a life more full and flourishing than we ever thought possible.

When I was in full-time ministry, I would often lament the fact that all my friends (at least the ones I saw and interacted with on a regular basis) were Christians. This seemed wrong to me for many reasons, not least of which that my life and faith felt too insulated as a result. Being inside of this isolated, relational bubble caused my soul to atrophy, and created an inner detachment from that which I believe to be most true. I imagine that this is true of any tribe or affiliation – whether religious, ethnic, political, or whatever. The more we isolate ourselves from the outside, the more sickly and diluted we become.

I’ve come to conclude, then, that it is good for my soul to have friendships with those outside of my tribe (which is evangelical Christianity). This, of course, means that having friendships with nonChristians is vital for my inner well-being. So, how do I do that? How can a Christian and a nonChristian form a true friendship? Is such a thing possible? Or will there always be some kind of underlying, evangelistic/judgmental/I-don’t-want-to-go-to-your-church tension? I’d like to share a few observations (we can even call them “tips!”) that I’ve made, and picked up from others along the way, for both Christians and nonChristians on this issue of cross-cultural friendships.

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5 Tips for Christians

1. Don’t be weird (unless you’re weird). Sometimes we can get so focused on evangelism that we become awkward around nonChristians, like the geek who somehow gets to dance with the prom queen. We think that one wrong word from our mouths will doom this person to eternal damnation, and so we find ourselves doing and saying ridiculous things because we carry the weight of their potential salvation on our shoulders. But that’s not your responsibility. Each person’s salvation, yours or your friend’s, is based on a relationship between the individual and God, facilitated through Jesus Christ. So relax. Don’t be weird, unless you’re just naturally weird. In that case, be yourself!

2. Shut up and listen. Sometimes the best way to proclaim the Gospel is by making eye-contact and closing your mouth. Listening is a lost art, as it seems more and more that everyone is just waiting for their turn to talk, or “multitasking” by “listening” while looking at their smart phone. In a world of frenetic noise, one of the greatest gifts we can give to another person is to endow them with the dignity of being heard. It’s okay if your friend has a completely different/unbiblical/nonChristian perspective; they deserve to be heard. Listen without arguing. Ask questions so you can more fully understand their life, thoughts, and perspectives. I believe that Jesus can speak as powerfully through sincere silence as he can through even the best sermon. (And that’s coming from a preacher!)

3. Don’t assume that you’re morally superior to your nonChristian friends just because you are saved/have the Holy Spirit. The sad reality is that despite having access to the Creator God through the Holy Spirit, despite knowing Jesus, despite having seven different versions of the Bible on our bookshelves, we Christians simply do not live more noticeably moral lives than our nonChristian neighbors. Perhaps we should all take a lesson from Paul, who at the end of his life said this, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.” If Paul is the worst sinner, then what are you? There is simply no room for self-righteousness in the hearts of those who follow Jesus–nothing could be further from the heart of God. As Paul said elsewhere, “In humility consider others better than yourselves.” I think this is especially important for Christians to grasp and live out in our friendships with nonChristians.

4. Be honest. By this, I suppose that I mean that you shouldn’t try to manipulate your nonChristian friends into becoming Christians. It’s better to just be up front about it in a way that is appropriate to your relationship. After all, honesty is what makes relationship possible. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with telling your friend, “I hope that someday you know and love Jesus as much as I do, because he means everything to me.” What is wrong, in my opinion, is steering and manipulating conversations for the sake of conversion.

5. Don’t feel like you have to own all the crappy baggage of Christianity. We’ve all been through it before. We tell someone that Jesus loves them and died for their sins, and we get a response like this, “ZOMG! BUT THE CRUSADES!” The last Crusade was over 700 years ago. Can we move on, please? “BUT WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH!” Well, I don’t go to there. …I’m happy to own all my own baggage, and God knows there’s enough of it to turn anyone away from becoming a Christian just like me. But I don’t feel any sense of responsibility to own things like the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, or fringe churches of which I am not a part. To apologize for things others have done and with which I disagree seems dishonest.

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5 Tips for NonChristians

1. Don’t stereotype your Christian friends. Nobody likes to be stereotyped, and yet sometimes it feels like it’s culturally acceptable to lump all Christians together into one ridiculous caricature. This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but the average Christian doesn’t look like a white man from Kansas. On a global scale, the average Christian is actually an asian woman. There really is nothing more culturally, ethnically, socially, or politically diverse than Christianity. It’s not acceptable to stereotype other groups, so please extend the same respect to your Christian friends. I’m not saying that you need to pay attention to all the nuances or subgroups of Christianity, but just be aware that there are all kinds of people in the world who love Jesus and have given their lives to him.

2. Be yourself. I’ve often felt like my presence has made nonChristians uneasy because they don’t want to offend me, particularly by their use of foul language. (When you work in the broadcast industry, you hear A LOT of foul language!) While I appreciate the thought, I don’t want to become someone else’s social conscience, and I think a lot of Christians feel the same way. You shouldn’t feel like you have to change who you are when you’re around your Christian friends. While I can’t speak for all Christians, I think it’s safe to say that we want to get to know the real you, and we deeply believe that God loves you as you are now. Like it says on the front page of this blog, “You don’t have to get all fixed up to find God, because God got completely broken in order to find you.”

3. Shut up and listen. This is just something that’s true for all relationships. Specifically, your Christian friends are deeply invested in things that are eternal. The most important thing in the world to them is the God who created the world, and they really want to tell you about him and how much he loves you. I’m not saying that you have to accept that and embrace it in order to have a healthy relationship with your Christian friends; I’m just saying that you should listen to them when they tell you about God. He is the most important thing in their lives, and as with the top priority in your life, that subject matter deserves to be received with respect. Sure, they may not have it all figured out, and there might be some other stuff that seems weird or false to you that comes along with the core of their beliefs, but that’s true for all of us. What’s most important for all human beings in relationship isn’t being agreed with, it’s being heard.

4. Know that your Christian friend really, really wants you to love Jesus. There, the cat’s out of the bag. All the cards are on the table. Your Christian friend wants you to become a Christian. However, it’s not so that you can be assimilated into some religious sect, but because we truly believe that in Jesus there is life and healing and peace and so much else that just can’t be found anywhere else. Think of it like this: If your friend found a huge amount of gold deep in the heart of a mountain, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Well, Jesus is much more valuable than gold, and he’s a person! This might sound weird, but being the one to “introduce” you to Jesus would be a top 10 highlight of your Christian friend’s life.

5. If you feel like your Christian friend is manipulating conversations in order to proselytize, tell them. Because we really, really want you to love Jesus, we can sometimes lose our sense of propriety in a friendship. We are, at times, also motivated by the fear that you will spend eternity apart from God in hell, and fear causes us to become desperate. This fear can lead to all sorts of strange behavior, including manipulation and becoming judgmental. If you sense that your Christian friend is doing this to you, don’t be afraid to bring it up. You could even say something like, “Listen, I know you want me to love Jesus and become a Christian, but I’m not ready for that. I understand that it’s really important to you, and that you may even be afraid for me, but I don’t want to be judged or manipulated by you. I want to be friends.” Most Christians, and most people, will respect that kind of honesty, and change their behavior accordingly.

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What other insights do you have? I’d love to hear more thoughts that would apply to and from both perspectives.