Lisa paused and softened her tone. “And here is the part that bothered me, something I never told them. What they didn’t know is that I had an abortion — a long time ago. It was not an experience I would wish on anyone. But I can feel my friend’s dilemma because I lived it. I am not sure the Christians I hung out with that morning get that.

“I guess the truth is I was hoping for some empathy myself.”

Lisa is describing one of outsiders’ most significant concerns about present-day Christianity: Christians are judgmental. Respondents to our surveys believe Christians are trying, consciously or not, to justify feelings of moral and spiritual superiority. Outsiders think of Christians as quick to judge others. They say we are not honest about our attitudes and perspectives about other people. They doubt that we really love people as we say we do.

And judgmental attitudes are particularly difficult for Mosaics and Busters to swallow for two reasons. First, they are insightful about people’s motives. They have been the target of endless lectures, sermons, marketing, and advertisement. If you bring up unsolicited advice, they mistrust your motives. They wonder what’s in it for you when you offer your opinion.

Second, the new generations are increasingly resistant to simplistic, black-and-white views of the world. We do not have to like this element of their generational coding, but it is a feature of the way they process life — nothing is simple. They esteem context, ambiguity, and tension. Often judgmental attitudes come across as overly simplified, old- fashioned, and out of step with their diverse world. With young people, how we communicate is as important as what we communicate. God is wise enough to handle a complex generation, and his people need to be as well.

Yet an entire generation of those inside and outside the church is questioning our motives as Christians. They believe we are more interested in proving we are right than that God is right. They say Christians are more focused on condemning people than helping people become more like Jesus. Could this be telling us we have lost something in the way we articulate and describe God’s expectations? Are we more concerned with the unrighteousness of others than our own self-righteousness?

After having talked to and researched thousands of outsiders, I reread major portions of the Bible to get a clear sense of God’s attitude toward outsiders. Judgment is central to the Bible’s message, but I was surprised at how relentlessly Scripture warns believers against being judgmental. In addition to Jesus’s cautionary words, the Bible makes it clear that God, not humans, should judge. It is God’s job, and he does it impartially while exposing the true motives of people’s hearts.

If we want to change the perception of outsiders that Christians are judgmental, we have to see them as God does. This is easy to say but tough to do. It affects so many areas of our lives. How do you perceive single parents, gays and lesbians, people with tattoos, your neighbors, your pastor’s family? You do not need our research to know how easily self-righteousness and moral superiority come to us. But we are not the judge; God is.

The writer Philip Yancey offers a great insight about judgmental attitudes, pointing out that the opposite of sin is not virtue; it is grace. We need to move beyond expecting people to behave according to our expectations, and instead try to help connect them to God’s purposes.

You probably know the parable Jesus told of the prodigal son, which featured a delinquent child, spending his father’s inheritance, a resentful brother, and a distraught father. As you interact with people in your neighborhood, school or office, do you see them as God sees them – as his children, in desperate need of his remedy? In what ways are you a prodigal yourself? Are you extending people the same unconditional love displayed by the father figure? Or, in your heart, are you most like the older brother – resentful and arrogant?

A WAKE UP CALL

Do the negative images that people have of Christians get your blood pumping? Keep in mind; the terms and concepts that outsiders throw at us are loaded. Sometimes the criticism is meant to push our buttons, but that is not always the case. These are important issues because often they reflect very real ways in which the Christian community has mistakenly portrayed itself to a skeptical generation.

There is much more we have to understand about outsiders if we want to represent Christ effectively to this culture. We are at a turning point for Christianity in America. If we do not wake up to these realities and respond in appropriate, godly ways, we risk being increasingly marginalized and losing further credibility with millions of people.

Mosaics and Busters deserve better than the unChristian faith, and they won’t put up with anything less. And, unlike any previous generation, they will not give us time to get our act together. If we do not deal with unChristian faith, we will have missed our chance to bring a deep spiritual awakening to a new generation.

You have choices. You can deny the hostility, you can refute its causes, you can harass those Christians who are trying their best to represent Jesus in a completely new context, or you can deal with the increasing hostility of outsiders in ways that honor God. Jesus pioneered this approach. He listened to the Holy Spirit so he could point people to his Father. He engaged his culture and its people with respect and love.

He was in but not of the world.

That doesn’t sound like unChristian faith at all.

FROM UNCHRISTIAN TO CHRISTIAN

A young generation of outsiders is raising significant criticisms of the Christian faith and its people. Knowing the problem and diagnosing the hostility are just the start. How will we respond? What will we do to address the unChristian perception of our faith?

And so it comes back to those critical questions: What will we do? How will we respond to what young generations think of us? If Mosaics and Busters say we no longer look like the people Jesus intended, what do we do about that? How do we move from unChristian to Christian?

To shift our reputation, Christ followers must learn to respond to people in the way Jesus did. In other words, to reverse the problem of unChristian faith, we have to see people, addressing their needs and their criticism, just as Jesus did. We have to be defined by our service and sacrifice, by lives that exude humility and grace. If young outsiders say they can’t see Jesus in our lives, we have to solve our “hidden Jesus” problem. This may be the hardest thing in the world to get right. We have difficulty just admitting that we have a problem. The truth is we all have much to learn, and the more mature we are in our faith, the more we are able to see our need to grow.

If we are willing to examine our lives, I would like to suggest four insights that can help us move from being unChristian to being known as true Christ followers, enabling us to more accurately represent Jesus to skeptical outsiders. These insights emerged from my research adventure of the last three years. These perspectives stem from the way Jesus lived.

1. Respond with the right perspective. The first insight is that Jesus had the right perspective when facing criticism. He did not seem to be bothered by critics the way we are. Scripture emphasizes that believers will not be popular and that the message of the cross doesn’t make sense to outsiders. Jesus even taught that we would feel “blessed” when we face persecution for following Christ. Paul writes that if we suffer because we are Christians, we should praise God because we are connected to the name of Christ. He was not willing to be defined by his enemies. When his detractors wanted him to make a clear statement against something, he always seemed to redefine the boundaries of the debate. He kept opponents off -balance, leaving them flustered. If his inquisitors tried to corner Jesus about religious laws, customs, and restrictions, his response was oft en to raise another question or to tell a story that changed the parameters of the argument.

2. Connect with people. Another way of moving from unChristian to Christian is to take a sober assessment of how Jesus influenced his disciples. It was primarily through relationships and friendships.

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