Freedom to...?

I was just thinking about my previous post...hope that I didn't offend anyone. But I have been thinking more about the freedom we have in Christ.

In the last few days I have had several conversations about judgement and forgiveness. I know that I tend towards a hardline, black and white. But living outside of my home culture has helped me to desire to shed whatever external criteria I have had to judge by. You see, while I live here I live with the knowledge that I am judged by the colour of my skin. No matter what other external ways that I conform in, I cannot change the colour of my skin and eyes. And the colour that my skin is speaks to the people around me, I am always working back from the assumptions that it leads people to make.

People, generally, use externals to judge, desiring conformity and uniformity as indicators of unity. Often the result of this is that deeper issues and uncomfortable topics are sidestepped in favour of trying to making everyone look the same. A good example of this is the French government's attempt to enforce conformity by restricting the wearing of symbols perceived to be religious. So it is illegal to display your religious affliation...external conformity is legislated in an attempt to produce national unity.

As Christians I think that we shouldn't be subject to the fear that has led to this kind of legislation. In fact the Bible is limited in it's instructions on outer appearance, instead the writers show a preference for teaching principles rather than directives regarding things like clothing and hair. This results in guidelines that are broad enough to make it hard to comment on a person's spiritual condition by looking at their appearance. Then there are other 'questionable practices'...watching TV/movies, schooling choices, household decoration, spending styles...nevermind the hot topics of alcohol and cigarettes, decisions for all these things need to be guided by biblical principles rather than a set of dos and don'ts.

About a year ago I came across this quoteby C.S. Lewis: How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.

In context of the things I have been thinking about, I think that we have lost this very thing that C.S. Lewis is describing. Maybe we are even afraid of it, and so the church has resorted to judging by external criteria. The result has been that we don't want to dig deep, we satsfy ourselves with an external conformity and never look beneath the veneer to see if there is life.

Of course, life is far more complicated if we refuse to endorse external conformity...but maybe then the church would be filled with saints, who are gloriously different. And then we would truly be a welcoming place that drew people in by the love that was present. Like Jesus said, we will be known by the love we have for each other.

As B and I watched BARAKA the other night with our friend John, we were all delighting in the wonder of creation; and also the wonder of the diversity of beauty, not only in the Natural World, but also in humanity...can you imagine the scene in heaven at the end of time...every nationality of person you have ever seen, whether in a photo or on television or walking down the street...they will be represented!!!

I am convinced that when the people are gathered from every tongue and tribe and nation the atmosphere with be more like a conglomerate of episodes from National Geographic than anything else we currently experience. We will stand in the midst of the throng of humanity and know that C.S. Lewis was right when he observed the glorious differences in the saints.

So despite what might have come across in my previous post, I want you to know that I expect there to be distinct revelations of Christ in each of us. The end test is that: we all stand on Christ, the life that we live is in Christ and the character we long for is His character revealed in us.