CAUTION! DO NOT ENTER!

Picture this: You are sitting in a room with a group of so-called "Christians." A new believer asks a question. The room falls completely silent as if a one-hundred-year-old glass has just been broken. People shift in their seats and the leader takes a deep-breath. What did they ask? What broke? What suddenly pitted these generally nice people against each other so suddenly? You don't understand and you look to your Christian friend beside you, she says in hushed tones, "Here we go..."

There are some things in the Christian faith that it seems that Christians themselves are not willing to talk about. Some have been burned by these things themselves, some have only heard of the devastation that came from these conversations. People leaving churches, people bashing each other. Most people from the outside see the desention and recognize a group of Christians by that very trait. Issues like baptism (sprinkle vs. immersion), instrumental music, praise teams, and other seemingly unimportant things become great "taboo" phrases among Christian circles. Why is that?

I think that it is because our generation has been hurt and burned and heard the stories from our parents. We are so afraid of these hurtful conversations that we often fail to engage in them in the first place. A major trait of the post-modern thinker is the pluralistic mindset of this generation. Unlike most of our parents and grandparents, we are not afraid to say that more than one viewpoint might just be okay. We are afraid to even admit that though, because that is not accepted by the older generations.

Like a road marked "Do not enter" we flee these issues. I think that we should be more willing to discuss these issues. It is a huge turn-off to non-believers and new Christians when we shut down their questions because we don't like talking about them. Perhaps we need to become even more post-modern in that we are conversational and communal about bring about solutions and truths. Sometimes, as we stand at the intersection of Christianity and Culture, we should not be afraid to go around the "do not enter" sign set by tradition and discover what may lie on the other side for ourselves.