First a confession –- I watch Survivor. I know it’s the symbol of the downward spiral of television into endless reality programming, but there is something strangely fascinating about it. So this past weekend when I was invited to attend a Women’s Holiday Tea with featured speaker “Leslie from Survivor: China,” I knew this was something I had to hear.
For the non-Survivor obsessed readers out there, Leslie was the contestant who walked out of the Buddhist welcoming ceremony during the first episode because she was a Christian. She also broke down crying at one point because she didn’t have access to her Bible. Her tribe voted her off on the third episode, but her short run on the show prompted media mocking of Christians around the country. So needless to say, I was curious as to what she would say.
Her basic message of “good Christians stand up for their faith and go against the flow” wasn’t much of a surprise, but the whole time I just couldn’t get past how uncomfortable I was with her rationales. She laughed at her critics and their fear of Christians because, in her opinion, what they fear (pushy, Bible-banging, judgmental Christians) doesn’t really exist. Since she’s apparently never met a mean Christian, those that think they have must just be delusional. To back that up she told the group that people will actually like you better if you act different and stand up for what you believe. I’m not exactly sure who she was talking about though since, in good Survivor language, she had already told us that good Christians “vote their non-believing friends out of their lives,” but it seemed to resonate with the crowd in that room.
As I sat amongst that crowd of over a thousand women amen-ing and applauding her words, I couldn’t help but hope that there were no actual non-Christians in the room who had been hurt by Christians at one time or another. To hear a woman say that she did the right thing by refusing the hospitality of the Buddhists and that God wanted her to remove the evil influences of unbelievers from her life is the epitome of the stereotyped mean Christian Leslie doesn’t think exists. If there were any non-Christians in the room, I doubt that by the time she encouraged them to pray the prayer so that an angry God wouldn’t send them to hell they were even vaguely open to hearing what she had to say.
The average woman in the room though seemed pleased to be encouraged and affirmed in her religious walk. Although this is Texas and, as conservative evangelicals in a megachurch, they are pretty much in power culturally, the standard churchy myth is that the world is out to get them and they must stand up for their faith by deriding and disassociating from that world. They want to play the role of the oppressed minority, but are in reality surrounded by others exactly like them. Gathering together for an expensive event and hearing how they are known as Christians by their disapproval of others simply shored up the patterns of thought they already had. As much as they disparaged Christians who seek to simply love others, I’m not seeing churches who deliver that sort of message filling up hotel ballrooms to have it heard.
Most of the women there are wonderful women. Some of them are good friends. But I left the event wondering if this sort of message was really one the church needs to continue to hear. At what point do we move past the description of all that we are against and actually take an active stand for something? When do we stop just talking about religion and wishing others would be more like us and instead start doing the things Jesus asked us to do? If over a thousand women could devote an afternoon to high tea and hearing about how we should resist the culture, how awesome would it be if that many women instead took an afternoon to be the hands and feet of Jesus to this hurting world?
But unfortunately it is a lot easier to condemn and disassociate from the world than it is to remain in relationship with and accept hospitality from those different from you. To love our neighbor as ourself and to serve them wholeheartedly might require us to thoughtfully and respectfully engage who they are -– differences and all. Unlike in the game of Survivor, our goal as Christians is not to be in power or end up on top, but to in humility place others first and to assume the position of their servant. But honestly, how can we serve those we are attempting to “vote off”?
Julie Clawson is the author of the forthcoming book Everyday Justice (IVP 2009). She blogs at julieclawson.com and emergingwomen.us.
