Squashing the Ephitet Ugly Evangelical Christians

In 1955, the floodgates for air travel were opened wide.  Many wealthy Americans started to travel across the globe to different places unknown and unfamiliar to them.  Naturally they were shocked by the culture and customs of the people in the strange places they were visiting. The local people likewise were shocked by the tactless and inconsiderate manners of some of the American tourists. Some tourists expect things to be exactly as they are at home and getting upset if they couldn't find an air-conditioned hotel room or ice in their soft drink or someone who speaks English. That's why the American tourists have earned the reputation and epithet as the “Ugly American”.

Ugly American is a pejorative term (pejorative are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste).  The term Ugly American used to refer to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless and ethnocentric behavior of American citizens mainly abroad, but also at home because a stereotypical representation of an American tourist as a brash and insensitive philistine.  The Encarta dictionary defines "Ugly American" as: stereotypical offensive American: a loud, boorish, nationalistic American, especially one traveling abroad, who is regarded as conforming to a stereotype that gives Americans a bad reputation.  Dictionary.com defines "the Ugly American" as: Pejorative term for Americans traveling or living abroad who remain ignorant of local culture and judge everything by American standards.

The epithet of the Ugly American was very popular in the decades of the mid-fifty until the 20^th century. Now we are in the 21^st century, things somewhat have changed. The attitudes of people towards the Americans have changed remarkably well. According to a recent article on CNN.com, the world doesn’t think “Ugly Christians” are quite so ugly anymore.  This perception is fading and diminishing because the American people are now brimming with every race, color and creed.  Also because of intermarriage between with the different ethnics groups in America, the really American people as a race are now a mixture of other races and nationalities.  It is very hard anymore to distinguish and isolate true and pure blooded American.  They adapted and blended with the cultures and manners of life of all the people in the American neighborhoods.

So the “American tourists” seem more able to adapt easily with the particular culture and manner of people in the country they are visiting, for the reason they are already familiar with the various peoples and cultures that exist in their midst.  Also the younger generation in those foreign places welcomes the “American tourists” with an open arms.  Thanks to the worldwide television by satellite and the worldwide web.  They are familiar already with the American way of life through these mediums and they are not shocked a bit when they see Americans exhibiting their eccentricities and perhaps their oddities.  They seem to want also to experience in their life the “American Dream” by which the average American exponentially advocates.

The Statue of Liberty, iconic symbol of the American Dream

 

By way of introduction to this topic, I would like to relate a story I read or heard about Dwight L. Moody and Charles H. Spurgeon.  

For your information, Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 - December 22, 1899) was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts (now Northfield Mount Hermon School), the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers. 

 Whereas, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was a British Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers".

The story goes this way:  While in London, D.L. Moody visited his friend and colleague, C.H. Spurgeon in his home.  Moody when he arrived at Spurgeon’s house, he saw Spurgeon smoking a big Cuban cigar.  Moody exclaimed “you are a man of God, yet you are smoking!”  To which Spurgeon quickly rebutted “you are a man of God, yet you are very fat!”

This simple story or similar stories about the all-too-common-human faults and frailties of Christians have spawn a new epithet stereotyping all Christian as "Ugly Evangelical Christians."  The stereotyping of all Americans as "Ugly Americans" is replaced with the tag "Ugly Evangelical Christians."  This byword is also pejorative, defamatory or abusive word or phrase coined upon us evangelical Christians.

That's why I cannot underestimate the importance of our Christian testimony.  Because people judge the claims of Christ and the veracity of Christianity by the reflections they see through our words and by our deeds.  Even their perceptions of our attitudes and by what we are thinking.   

Some people regard the church as simply the place to "hatch, match, and dispatch." They see the church is nothing more than a place to get baptized, married, and buried.

One person says this about Christians: "The problem is that all the Christians I see when I go to Church to give it a chance, I notice how everyone in there looks desperate. It is sad. Everyone looks like a crack head that hasn't gotten their fix for the day. Also the women are always chubby and look unhealthy like they couldn't run a mile in under 10 minutes. Am I being ethnocentric, or is this part of the Christian religion. To not care so much about your physical appearance/cleanliness?"

Jesus Christ in his famous discourse on the mount of Olives in Matthew 5 used the metaphors of salt and light to describe us Christians and how we ought to live in this present evil world. See Matthew 5:13-16.  He used these two images to describe our Christian's influence and our Christian's testimony in this world.

Firstly, we are likened to salt.  The properties of salt is pure white, it preserves food from putrefaction, it serves as seasoning making food pleasant and palatable. The whole issue of salt is the seasoning, the influence you might say.  Like some one said, “The salt is no good if it never leaves the salt shaker, it is only a decoration to the kitchen table."  We are not to draw away from society, we are not of the world but we live in the world. We deny the function of the salt when we fail to be kind, merciful, and peacemaker.  And if we as Salt don’t rub against those who have no flavor, those who are perishing, who will?  

One of the ways non-Christians judge us is the way we speak.  Scriptures are full of warnings about the use of our tongue.  For examples in Eph 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Col 4:6  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.  

Some Christians instead of being Salts of the earth, they are insults.  They bring insult to the Christian religion as a whole thereby bring an occasion for non-Christians to defame the name of our God.  Thus we are being stereotyped as the Ugly Evangelical Christians.

Secondly, Jesus likened Christians to lights.  Jesus said that He was the light of the world (John 8:12).  We Christians are only the reflectors of that one true Light.  To be a light of Jesus is to live His life on earth.  In other words our testimony should reflect the life and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The functions of light are to expose darkness, light serves as guide, and light is to be seen.  We are to dispel darkness which envelope the whole world.  Every Christian is a light to help others find salvation. Paul wrote in 2Co 4:6  The God who said, "Out of darkness the light shall shine!" is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts, to bring us the knowledge of God's glory shining in the face of Christ.  We are guides to people who are in darkness.  We are to show them how to live.  We need to be a light at all times.  The light of our lives shines not that people will be attracted to us but to the Light Jesus Christ.  Jesus said Mat 4:16  the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned."  

Some of us instead of being the lights of the world and the delights of all people by our  testimony, we rather like blights to the world, making our world more blighted or deteriorated morally and spiritually.

The apostle Paul admonishes us in Php 2:14  Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15  that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.  

He likewise charged Titus in 2:7  In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, 8  Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.  

The apostle Peter also has his share of admonition for us in 1Pe 2:11 I appeal to you, my friends, as strangers and refugees in this world! Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul. 12  Your conduct among the heathen should be so good that when they accuse you of being evildoers, they will have to recognize your good deeds and so praise God on the Day of his coming. 

Our flavorful influence as the Salts of the earth and our delightful testimony as the Lights of the world are two of the ways by which we can squash, suppress, put down, diminish or better yet eliminate the epithet tagged on us as Ugly Evangelical Christians.  We should not allow the epithet to become the epitaph inscribed on our tombstone when we are dead. 

My fellow evangelicals, may we live our lives as the SALTS and LIGHTS of the earth.   And may the God of grace and peace will guard your lives at all times as He equips you with the ability to abound in every good work.  Amen!