Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Creepy Christians


A few weeks ago, a friend of mine brought another friend to church for the first time. It was their first experience with church in a very long time. After the service, he gave us what I consider one of the greatest compliments we could receive. He said, "They weren't creepy".


Unfortunately, to people outside the church world, a lot of Christians are creepy. I didn't have to wait long after hearing his comment to run into a couple of them.


The very next day, I was stuck in traffic on the freeway. The road crews were repairing the pot-holed surface and had taken three lanes down to one. Most of us had all gotten in line crawling forward. As I neared the place where the orange barrels squeezed the traffic into final submission a $40,000 SUV went blasting by on the left - a huge Herbalife Distributor decal in the rear window. Just as I was thinking, boy am I glad I'm not a Herbalife dealer, I saw it - less obtrusive, but just as recognizable - the fish - Creepy Christian!


Then this week I got a call on my cell phone. Our warantee has expired on our Saturn and we had received multiple voice messages trying to get us to buy another extended warrantee. I decided to take the call and tell them to not call again. I didn't get a chance to say a word before she jumped into her pitch and told me all the advantages of the warrantee and what would be covered. I finally got a word in edgewise and told her I just wanted to ask to not be bothered anylonger. Her answer, and I quote: "Well, why didn't you say so. All you had to do was tell me! So, you have a blessed day. And rememeber that Jesus loves you!" DO NOT annoy me and then try to witness to me. Creepy Christian!


Which makes me stop and wonder how often I am a creepy Christian. I hope less than I could be, but please, can we who claim to follow Jesus, be a bit more conscientious about how we interface with a world who wants nothing to do with HIM largely because of US.


What's your creepy Christian story? Or better, when you saw a believer really living Jesus in front of others.

4 comments:

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Anonymous said...

I've met quite few creepy christians. For some reason they all seem to profess their love for a bearded fellow with magical powers who was killed a long time ago in a rather brutal manner.

What is creepy is that they almost always want me to love this dead person and try tell me that he loves me too! scary stuff! If that wasn't enough many of them wear a cross - the very same cross this man was brutally murdered on! That really creeps me out!

In fact I've never met a Christian who wasn't creepy when it comes to talking about their undying loving that particular dead person... I am frightened of these people!

Anonymous said...

Well, Christianity seems to have taken a bizarre turn for the worst, making a total mockery of it with denial of anything scientific. When you look at the expansion of our understanding of maths and physics in the last 50 years, it really is unimaginable that there are people who cannot even assimilate their beliefs around this and perhaps have greater amazement about it all. Saying the planet is 6000 years old has to come from the creepiest of Christians.

Kristen Collier said...

Just did an internet search for Creepy Christians, as I'm going to write about it for my new website, below, as I believe it's an issue for women's safety (per my current Duggar column). I grew up in Cleveland, where I was taught as a young girl to trust my instincts, because 1 out of 4 women would be raped in their lifetime. And now, living in MI, when my former neighbor, who was jailed and convicted of molesting a girl, when I found out he was a pedophile, I swore that I would never my instincts, because I thought he was creepy, but my husband said he's just eccentric. And everyone knows SOMEONE creepy in their church, but we often feel guilty for thinking that, since we're supposed to love everyone. So, I want to write an article for my website to encourage women not to feel guilty, but to trust their God-given instincts. Just because we're commanded to love everyone, doesn't mean we need to be alone in the car with them, at church, etc.
And I saw in your music that you like Casting Crowns, I think it was. Check them out, they are SO CREEPY looking! So, thanks for posting this, I may link to it when I eventually write up my article. I believe it's a women's safety issue, because there ARE so many creepy Christians, and when you look at the Duggar scandal, I thought they were creepy from day one.
Kristen