SALVATION, NOT CONDEMNATION

Ask most secular people what they think of faith, religion, church, or Christianity, and it is likely that they will mention being judgmental.

Even when they do not have much contact or interaction with church people, many of these people feel they are being judged or condemned by church people. It is one of the reasons that people are afraid to venture into a church or into church contexts. That was the dynamic in the garden after Adam and Eve first sinned.

The sound of God walking toward them was enough for them to imagine that they were hearing His judgment. God had not said anything, but their consciences condemned them nonetheless. In a sense, they attributed this judgmentalism to God, and they hid from Him. Our fear of judgmentalism often reflects more about us and our state of mind than it does about God’s attitude toward us. While some churches are judgmental, the perception of these churches might similarly be colored by people’s expectations of condemnation, partly based on experience and popular representations, but also partly a response similar to Adam and Eve’s instinct to hide from the approaching God. Unfortunately, such anticipated condemnation can form real barriers for many. This could also have been our perception about God sending His Son into the world—except that Jesus explicitly rejected this understanding of who He was and what He came to do. Jesus sought to disarm the anticipated condemnation, defuse the fear that kept people at such a distance, and repair the relationship between God and humanity as far as possible. It was not God who broke the relationship between Himself and humanity, but it is always God who is working to restore what was lost.