Ghandi and Missiongathering

So an ad on the side of Facebook caught my eye this evening. The ad was for the self-professed "Emerging" San Diego church, "Missiongathering," whose pastor, Rich McCullen, is an open and practicing homosexual. Anyway, that's not directly where this post is headed, but it does give you a sense of Missiongathering's theology. My interest is really directed right now at the ad campaign they have for Easter. Basically, it consists of a quote by Ghandi, "Your Christians are so unlike your Christ," with the added tagline, "Missiongathering is changing this."

I don't think that Missiongathering gets the irony in their slogan (nor do I think Ghandi really understood what he was saying). I will deal with Ghandi's quote first. Ghandi intended his statement as a criticism of Christianity. Basically, how good can Christianity be if Christians aren't able to emulate their founder's life? However, the unintended point that Ghandi makes is actually one about Christ, not Christians. From the Christian perspective, it is not surprising that professed Christians would fall short of Christ's example. Christ was, is, and always will be God. Imperfect man will always be infinitely less than the perfect Christ, so from a certain point of view, Christians will always be "unlike" Christ. Christians don't claim to be perfect; instead, they claim that Jesus was perfect. Ghandi's statement can be seen as making the same point about Christ's deity. Yes, Christians are to be like Christ. However, true Christian doctrine doesn't see this process (sanctification) as an ever-increasing improvement on the same old sinner, but rather a process where "Christ in us" is more and more visible while we become less.

The irony of Missiongathering's statement is that they too are making a point that they did not intend. Missiongathering intended to imply that they are really making Christians ("people") more like Christ. Knowing a little something about their doctrine, what they are (sadly) doing is "making" Christ more like the "people" (i.e. they are portraying a false version of Christ that fits their own notions of socially-liberal post-modernism). So in a way, they are indeed making "Christians like Christ," not by bringing Christians up to Christ's standard, but by lowering Christ to reflect current society.

All of this would be comical if it weren't so grievously sad.