Is being radical good or bad? I mean, if you mention that word alongside the teenage mutant ninja turtles, its all smiles and laughter, but if you mention it with religion you will more than likely get a completely different response. We have all seen horrible acts committed by different religious groups and the media has labeled them as “radicals” or “extremists.” With the mention of radical religion, you may start to think about 9/11 or Isis. Maybe you start to think about the Westboro Baptist Church, the Spanish Inquisition or even the crusades. I don’t know exactly where your mind goes, but I’m sure when you hear radical and religion together, you get a pretty clear picture in your head. So my question: is it a bad thing to be a radical Christian? Is that going too far?
What exactly does “radical Christianity” look like? Is that what we see on TV when we see Westboro Baptist protesting soldiers’ funerals? Is that what we see when we hear about Christian organizations bombing abortion clinics? Is being a radical Christian telling gay people that God hates them? Does being extreme in your Christian beliefs mean that you are hateful to everybody that doesn’t think like you? Perhaps it actually means something completely different; something that I don’t think very many of us have really considered.
First, to really understand this I think we have to be sure that we actually know what radical means. So for this I call on Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.
Radical: of or relating to the origin (fundamental), very different from the usual or traditional (extreme)
Ok, so now that we are all working from the same definition of radical, what does it mean to be a fundamental, extreme Christian? To answer that question we really need to define what a Christian is.
A Christian is someone that believes Jesus was the Son of God and that He offers us salvation through His death on the cross and resurrection. Christians are believers and followers of Jesus Christ.
The fundamental side of radical Christianity would be taking your walk with Christ back to the origin. The origin of Christianity is quite simply, Jesus Christ. His life, words and deeds form the foundation of Christianity. The Bible contains these lessons for His followers to read and live by. A Christian wanting to go back to the origins of Christianity simply needs to open the Bible and read the lessons that were taught by Jesus. So what did Jesus teach?
Jesus taught love and kindness. If you remember, he made a point to hang out with sinners. He never showed them any sign of hatred, but he would be with them and love them in hopes of saving them (Mark 2:16 & 17). He taught us to love and worship God, trust Him to fulfill our needs and lead us from temptation (Luke 4:8 & Matthew 6:13). He taught us to repent and turn away from sin (Matthew 4:17). He taught us to give to the needy and less fortunate (Matthew 5:42 & 9:21). He taught us that we should be willing to help everybody regardless of personal differences (Luke 6:35, 10:30-37 & Matthew 25:34-45). He even went as far as to say that people would know that we were His followers by the love that we showed (John 13:34-35).
The other part of the radical definition is to differ from the usual or traditional. Well, wouldn’t that mean they would automatically have to differ from what the Bible teaches? After all, if we are all following the teachings of Jesus then wouldn’t that mean you would have to move away from those teachings to differ from the usual? Those seem like a fair assumption, but let’s take a look at what Christianity looks like today just to be sure.
When I look at the world today, I see a lot of what I call “convenient Christians.” These Christians only choose to follow the Bible when it happens to fall in line with what they want to do. When their desire aligns with the Bible, they are Christians; however, when things get tough and following God will cost them something, they simply respond with, “I’m not that kind of Christian.” They choose to not follow all of scripture and instead they pick and choose the scriptures that they want to follow. Leaving the rest and referring to it as hateful. However, these “hateful” statements are generally more likened to a father teaching his children about the dangers of sin. He isn’t trying to condemn them but rather protect them by helping them understand. They don’t see the scriptures in context and therefore they can’t see that every single verse is part of the greatest love story ever told.
The other type of Christian I see the most of is what the media likes to call “radical Christians.” The protests of Westboro Baptist, the abortion clinic bombers and several other hate groups have been lumped into this category. The problem is they aren’t following Christ at all. They may claim to be Christian, but they aren’t radical. They are disillusioned. If I told you that I was a teacher and went into a classroom and told the kids that 2+2=17, are you going to call me an extreme teacher or decide that I’m actually not a teacher at all? Disillusioned Christians will tell the world that God hates anybody that doesn’t think like they do. They love to focus on the sins of everybody else, while they remain oblivious to their own. They take one verse entirely out of context and run with it since it fits in with their personal agenda of hate. Not all disillusioned Christians are out causing massive amounts of damage or boycotting in public; some simply prefer to misinform the people around them. Actually, the ones that you see all over the news have more in common with religious zealots than radical Christians, but more on that later.
One interesting thing to point out with both of these groups is they both choose what parts of the Bible they want to follow, ignoring the rest. Convenient Christians choose the most loving passages they can find to make life all about love and acceptance and completely ignore the passages on avoiding the ways of the world and living a life transformed by Christ, which means, they live just like everybody else. Disillusioned Christians choose the fire and brimstone passages, but they ignore the parts about grace and redemption and miss the love altogether. They spew out statements of hate and intolerance. Essentially, they both fuel each others fire. When these are the types of “Christians” that the world sees, is it any wonder that the world is trying to distance itself from Jesus?
So to break from the norm, even amongst “Christians,” all that you really need to do is actually follow scripture. All of it. God didn’t give us the authority to pick and choose what we accept and what we ignore. He gave us the Bible so we could know Him and follow Him. Jesus came to Earth to point people to God, to further illustrate God’s character, fulfill the prophesies and to take our place on the cross. To be extreme, you simply need to be “on fire” for Jesus.
Being extreme doesn’t necessarily mean that it is bad. It simply means that you go the extra mile. That you are “all in” with everything you do. What direction extreme religion takes depends entirely on the teachings of that religion. Taking something to the extreme can only make the actual characteristics more extreme. If the religion is: loving it will be more loving, hateful becomes more hateful, and violent is more violent and so on. God is love and the Bible is the story of how much He loves us. You can’t take the teachings of Jesus and reach a conclusion of hate no matter how “radical” you are.
Of course people still attempt to do it and they have been attempting it since Biblical times. Remember when I mentioned zealots earlier. Zealots were a political group during the Roman rule of Judea who were attempting to overthrow the Roman Empire. They could quite easily be likened to terrorist. They would incite riots and take violent measures to attempt to overthrow the government. They even managed to incite a large scale revolt that is known as the first Jewish-Roman war. I’m sure every single one of them believed they were doing God’s work. They were attempting to force the Roman’s out of Judea and to free God’s people from their heathen conquerors. I’m sure they considered their mission to be a holy one. The Zealots were around during Jesus’ time, in fact, one of His disciples was known as Simon the Zealot so it’s not much of a mystery what his background was.
Not much is said about Simon the Zealot in the Bible but I believe that we can safely draw two conclusions from him being included among the disciples. First is that since Jesus called Simon to follow Him we can safely assume that he was not already following Jesus as a zealot. Every single disciple had to stop the life they were living in order to follow Jesus. Simply by choosing to follow Jesus in His ministry meant that they were going to be leaving their current life behind. We see that in action when He calls Simon Peter (not the zealot), Andrew, James and John to follow Him. They were all fisherman and they immediately stopped what they were doing to follow Jesus. We can see it again with Matthew the tax collector. When Jesus said, “follow me,” it says that Matthew “got up and followed Him.” They didn’t continue living their lives and catch up with Jesus when they could; they stopped this life to start a new life as a disciple. The second thing I believe we can learn is that Jesus still loved the zealots. They weren’t excluded from being transformed by Christ, which means we should also still love them. We should love them as somebody that is outside the church and still needs to be called to Christ.
The so-called radicals of today have far more in common with the zealots of history than they do the actual definition of radical. Both groups have decided to take matters into their own hands in transforming the world around them. I’m sure the groups today believe that they are doing God’s work, but if you want to do the work of God, the means are just as important as the end goal. Once you start using methods that are against the loving nature of God then you are no longer acting in God’s service. If you aren’t acting in God’s service then you aren’t following Christ and if you aren’t following Christ then you aren’t being a Christian.
In reality, to follow Christ and live according to his example, you have to be a radical Christian. Jesus was completely sold out on the idea of showing love and offering people eternal salvation. He was so extreme in this that He laid down His own life taking a punishment that He didn’t deserve to offer us the righteousness that we could never earn. He always spoke with love, but He never denied that there was only one God or that he was the Son of God, the Messiah, and The Perfect Lamb. Even when speaking the truth meant His own death, he didn’t back down. We have to be Christ followers even when that isn’t the popular opinion. We have to be extreme in our commitment so we don’t fail to speak the truth when we face adversity.
John “the Revelator,” Simon Peter and Paul were all radical followers of Christ. They dedicated every ounce of themselves to His service. Did they speak words of hate and intolerance? Did they lash out violently at non-believers? No of course not, they spoke and acted in love. They lived according to the words, life and deeds of Jesus Christ. They didn’t back down and they didn’t stray away from the teachings of Jesus. In fact, except for John, they were all killed and martyred for their faith, because they refused to recant their testimony. John, instead of being killed, had the ever so pleasant experience of being exiled to the isle of Patmos.
When I look at the world today, I see a lot of lost people in the world. They are searching for answers, healing, and meaning in a life that has left them broken and weary. They struggle to get through the day because they feel empty: drained of energy and joy. Their hearts are calling out for something to fill the hole that has been left, but the world is blinding them to the cross. The question we need to ask ourselves is what will it take to open their eyes. What will it take to show them a love that eclipses understanding, a beauty that surpasses description and a freedom that transcends explanation? The uncertainty of the world has left them feeling abandoned and hate only drives them away. Perhaps the answer the world needs is radical Christianity. Christ followers that are all in for Jesus and showing the world a love that hasn’t been seen since Biblical times. Christians that are sold out to the idea of bringing people to Christ so they, too, can experience the eternal love and grace of our Heavenly Father.
The world has been shown an inaccurate picture of Jesus. Honestly, if you listen to what the world says about Jesus; I’m not sure that I would want to follow that either. The world’s view of God is a far cry from the truth and radical Christianity is the only way to give people the real picture. A life completely dedicated to go the extra mile in His service is the only way that people are going to see what God is really like, and how much He really loves them. Being a Jesus “extremist” is the only way to change the world for the glory of Jesus Christ.
I am a Christian. I am a follower of Jesus. I believe in the Bible and I believe that every word of it is God-breathed. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way to eternal salvation. I am wholly dedicated to His service and will stop at nothing in showing His love to the world. I haven’t been called a “Radical Christian” yet, but goals people, goals!
