I noticed one day that people treat me differently when they hear I am a "minister's wife." Suddenly, they begin to censor their language, hide their secrets, and laugh less... as if I'm married to a pipeline to God who will snitch on their "sins"! As if the Almighty, All-Knowing God has to hear their "dirt" from me!! How do I explain, "But he's a Unity minister; we're different!"

With our Puritan background, we tend to confuse our mixed-up moralizing with spiritual truth. We say we believe that God is love, that God is the Infinite Power in the Universe... and then anthropomorphize this Power into a moralistic old man with a beard, sitting up in the sky, taking notes on everybody's foibles to try to keep them out of Heaven. (Is there a Population explosion up there? Is there overcrowding in Infinity?!)

Talking about humans trying to understand God, Unity writer Emilie Cady said it was like trying to hold the infinite "in the quart measure of our intellect." God is just too much for our little minds... and so we mold Her into something we can handle more easily.

Here in the Bible Belt, we are surrounded by folks who don't seem to have the foggiest notion of what Jesus was really talking about. It's gotten so I am embarrassed to be lumped into the same category as many of the people who call themselves Christian. I don't want to admit kinship with the bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and foolish thinking (Creationism as a "science" class!  Good grief!) that many Christians practice.

Last week a member of our church said he watched Rev. Ralph Sexton, a local fundamentalist preacher, on TV. During the broadcast, Sexton held up a copy of our Unity News & Views and told his congregation that it was satanic and promoted the Anti-Christ because it promoted homosexuality and advertised massage and herbs.

How do you react to hearing that?  I had to work hard to get to "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." On the one hand, we like to get any publicity we can! Surely somebody in his audience will be intrigued enough to go looking for our paper!

But mostly I feel sad and afraid for our nation. So many people listening to so much misunderstanding... so much divisiveness and fear in the name of a Teacher who taught love and acceptance. And all those young children growing up with heads taught not to use critical thinking - how to separate the wheat from the chaff - and full of self-righteous morality.

I know that most fundamentalists are good-hearted people doing their best to follow the understanding they've been taught. I truly admire their dedication. They support their beliefs with their votes and with their checkbook - something we "liberal" Christians could learn a lot about.

My difficulty is with the preachers leading them down the path of separation... and giving other Christians a bad name in the process.

I am proud to be a follower of Christ. The Jesus teachings are a treasure-house of spiritual wisdom that we have just begun to tap almost 2,000 years later. His influence on our world has the potential to be profound and truly transformational.

And I know that He would tell me, "What is it you do if you love only people who are NOT fundamentalists!?"  Oh, His teachings always cut so deep. In fact, that's the problem. They're hard!  As G. K. Chesterton said in 1910, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

And so, we often take the easy way out - like a cook making Christian soup with all the wrong proportions:

• 1 quart of morality (mostly from the Old Testament, or from Paul, the original P. R. man, who didn't have much of a clue about what Jesus was really talking about)
  
• 1 cup of dedicated fervor or zeal
  
• 1 tablespoon of missionary outreach
  
• 1 teaspoon of love & acceptance
  
• Season ~ according to what will sell on Sunday or on TV
  
• Serve with dogma and authority (dress in a suit for additional weight.)

It's no wonder we have so many "un-churched" -- the people so turned off by religion that they'd rather not be identified with anything "Christian."

I wish we could reach these people and let them know there's a different way to be Christian... that a "religion" can still be "spiritual"... that the teachings of Christ are pure and beautiful and eminently practical! For me, this is the most compelling reason for expansion for our Unity church.

Some Christians do a lot of good in the world. But not enough so-called Christians have really caught on to this love thing that Jesus was teaching. I await the day that all the followers of Christ can be proud to be called Christian.