You Shall Know the Truth and It Will Make You Odd

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

That statement has been haunting me lately. It's attributed to one of my favorite writers, Flannery O'Connor. I'm not positive she actually said this simply it wouldn't surprise me if so, since this kind of quote is right in her Southern Gothic wheelhouse. All the same, it's arrested me always since I came across it over my sabbatical this summer.

Considering I think it's true.

It'southward a riff on Jesus' words in John 8:31-32, "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you bide in my give-and-take, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth volition ready you complimentary." The idea is that following Jesus non only brings u.s.a. into a life of truth but a truth that leads into real liberty. Of course, I concur with Jesus. I can do no less. But O'Connor ¹ takes Jesus' words about the life of a disciple in some other direction. And not an reverse one I might add together. She argues following Jesus volition also "make yous odd."

Indeed, it might exist truer today in our mail-Christian world than the 1950's America in which O'Connor lived where Christianity (for right or incorrect) had a more esteemed place in the culture. In our historic period, Christians are increasingly seen in a more negative low-cal than the past. In the eyes of post-moderns, followers of Jesus are a pretty weird bunch.

• They believe Jesus (who still rates equally a skilful guy to most anybody) is God'due south Son. He was born of a virgin, rose from the dead, ascended to sky, and (get this!) is supposed to return one twenty-four hour period with the fullness of the kingdom of God. And even crazier, they think he'southward the one style to salvation! Tin you lot say non-inclusive?!?!
• Christians likewise recollect God exists in three distinct persons merely somehow is one God. What gives? Tin can't these people do simple math?
• These people affirm that the Bible, something rapper Macklemore famously said is just "a book written 30-v-hundred years agone," is the bodily Discussion of God. Like information technology's really a volume inspired from start to cease by the God of the Universe? Please!
• Consequently, these Christians believe the Bible is to guide them in their deport. Like, it'due south THE authority in their life. This is where they actually look out of touch! For example, they recall there are gender roles in the church and home. How regressive! The fact that they notwithstanding believe gender is static and not dynamic is crazy in itself. They also think sexual ideals circumduct effectually the sanctity of marriage whereby they use outdated old world ideas like "virginity" for the unmarried and permanence of the bonds in matrimony. Don't even get u.s.a. started on what they retrieve of same-sex activity relationships!
• These people gather each week to sing erstwhile songs, pray prayers to their invisible god, requite (read: throw) away their coin, go people moisture in some weird ceremony called baptism, and to acme it off, they eat bread and beverage wine thinking somehow Jesus is magically with them in the event. They do this all in "church" as one big exclusive family unit (err, cult).

The list could continue, but suffice to say the schism between authentic Christian expression and the spirit of the age has widened over the years and volition but continue to practice and then. Biblical Christianity in the West will increasingly exist less highly-seasoned (and more appalling) to the world around it. Simply put, nosotros'll appear odder and odder as fourth dimension goes on. And no ane likes odd.

This is where the force per unit area comes for the Jesus follower. Office of taking up your cantankerous and following Jesus will likely mean how well you can handle being seen as odd – to being the different person, the one unlike your non-Christian peers.

What to do? Bluntly, some Christians/churches/denominations capitulate. They accept decided that being accustomed by the culture is more than of import than being true-blue to Jesus and the Scripture. You open them up and they say the same things the fallen world says (and ironically what the Bible explicitly teaches against, justifying their interpretations with weak if not baroque rationales). This reminded me of some insightful comments from a secular article discussing New Atheism where a couple of commenters shared what they believed to exist the reason why it hasn't taken root in culture.

Commenter i: At that place are many people who identify with a religion, but don't at all alive up to it in practice–gay Catholics, for case, or the entire Episcopalian denomination. It is probably more tactful for progressivism to say that it "embraces all religions"–while in reality, of course, this means that it "embraces all people who call themselves religious, just are willing to have progressive orthodoxy." Lapsed believers who can't bring themselves to alter how they place, comfortable sinners who don't mind shirking the commands of their faith, and the vast spiritualist hordes volition flock to them. New/militant disbelief alienates all those people, and there are many of them.

I would likewise suspect that this is a far more effective manner to undermine religion. Let people phone call themselves believers, but gradually erode the traditional pregnant of what it is to believe, until there'south nothing problematic left. It's probably what the New Atheists should accept done, would take done if they were more devious and organized.

Commenter Two: This is my sense as well. Establishment progressivism is too invested in hollowing out Mainline Christianity and wearing information technology as a skin suit.

What'south the win as they draw the "progressive" church? There isn't one. Even atheists realize that churches who abandon the "oddity" of their orthodox, historic religion are actually seen every bit something less than the Christians they claim to exist. This kind of Christianity-as-mere-skin suit doesn't even fool atheists. They clearly see that some who profess religion in Jesus have jettisoned (or "hollowed out") plenty biblical Christian orthodoxy that they don't fifty-fifty speak anymore for the faith they say they represent. This isn't a win for progressive idea in the church building simply the glorious failure of it, and one of the chief reasons why mainline denominations have been losing folk at alarming rates for generations.

I'd argue faithful Christianity needs to encompass the oddity of their Christian-ness. It will be part and parcel of Jesus' call for his disciples to deny themselves, take upwardly their cross daily and follow him. (cf., Lk. 9:23) We'll look differently, speak differently, live differently than the earth around usa. I don't mean this in some fundamentalist way that is weird for all the incorrect reasons (east.g., anti-intellectual, anti-arts, etc.) but a difference that is evidenced merely because our allegiance is to a king and a kingdom not of this earth. Believe me, that solitary will brand us stand out. It will make the states odd.

I get a taste of this every time I talk with someone who, later in the chat, finds out I'm a pastor. Immediately, the topics change, the tone adjusts, and the trunk language shifts. To them, I'm non a regular guy anymore. I'm dissimilar. I'thou odd. Among my uncomfortable oddities is that I must believe things (like actually strongly) that probably are in conflict with their values, decisions, and lifestyle. Then, instead of just having a regular conversation like a real person, it'south piece of cake-stepping around the pastor-dude until an get out strategy from the conversation is found.

I've got some advice for you lot if you're a Christian really trying to follow Jesus today. Get used to it. What I experience will at some signal mirror what you experience as your faith bubbles out of your everyday life. You'll more than and more be the odd 1. At to the lowest degree you should be.

Just don't permit it scare y'all. Embrace it! That'south correct. Embrace your oddness! In a globe where people are looking for hope, information technology won't be found in the carbon copies of worldly similitude. Those expressionless-stop answers are being regurgitated everyday past culture and it'southward pretty clear they're found lacking. But the church building – and the historic, orthodox gospel it both proclaims and demonstrates – can be a life-giving culling in the cultural wasteland. As nosotros live out the mission of Jesus and his gospel in winsome, loving ways we demonstrate a different city that lives by a dissimilar story for a dissimilar purpose contrasting the myriad of soul-shrinking narratives the world runs after.

Information technology'south non the oddness of living out of our faith that hurts us, on the contrary, it'southward the fear of being odd that holds us back. Indeed, our departure may be the best weapon we have in showing the globe who Jesus is and the kingdom he brings.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall brand y'all odd.

But you are a called race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous lite. Once you lot were not a people, just now you are God'southward people; in one case you had non received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the mankind, which wage state of war against your soul. Keep your acquit amongst the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the mean solar day of visitation. – i Peter 2:9-12

Footnotes

1. Let'south operate nether the assumption the attribution is accurate

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Source: https://blog.yanceyarrington.com/2018/08/30/the-truth-shall-make-you-odd/

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