Welcome, but so far
Ironically, the graveside experience I mentioned yesterday was the authentic exception at the Billy Graham Museum. Seeing on an actual tombstone that which I only read in a book before was moving for precisely the same reasons the rest of the museum was not. Visitors were shuffled from one video to another. We traveled for a YouTube experience.
I wonder if the Christian testimony in the 21st century doesn't fragment something similar. We have hundreds or thousands of friends in the media sense of the word. We reach out, but only far enough to offer the same carefully curated version of ourselves indistinguishable to whoever happens by. The museum could have offered more engaging glimpses of the changing, fallible Billy Graham behind the carefully cultivated picture in a televised image or press release. Christians called no less than Graham to engage with the Gospel, have the opportunity to show how it engages us in different areas and in different stages of our lives.
The Billy Graham experience changed scenes slightly as visitors were ushered into the house in which he grew up, and my hopes for an authentic perspective roused again. The house, after all, we were told, had been moved four miles, floor paneling and all, to make this encounter possible. Watching the moving house would have been fun. Moving through it was underwhelming. Velvet ropes kept us at a distance from experiencing life as it would have been experienced in that little house. The feeling of, come close but not too close was rendered emphatic by a sign in a chair which read with 2018 abrasiveness rather than mid-20th-century suggestion, "DO NOT SIT."
Is that the offputting experience even of those we invite closer than our social media presentation? Have we perfected the, "It's too bad you can't stay," before anyone even get to the door? Are we afraid that those we invite in might see that our lives and our homes are lived in and therefore subject to smudges and scattered artifacts of life from time to time? Or, do the rings of access, or non-access, suggest something more sinister, on our part if not for those who must selectively represent Graham's legacy for purely practical purposes?
With our careful sense of control, do we exhibit the same spirit James 2:3-4 upbraids? We have, as some of James's readers must have, preconceptions of whom we will let in, and on what terms. Being seen with someone similar to the persona we want to show the world helps us, so we offer a more intimate welcome. We can make room for someone less cultivated, less cool, less self-sufficient, but only if offering them showy grace elevates our status.
I wonder if the Christian testimony in the 21st century doesn't fragment something similar. We have hundreds or thousands of friends in the media sense of the word. We reach out, but only far enough to offer the same carefully curated version of ourselves indistinguishable to whoever happens by. The museum could have offered more engaging glimpses of the changing, fallible Billy Graham behind the carefully cultivated picture in a televised image or press release. Christians called no less than Graham to engage with the Gospel, have the opportunity to show how it engages us in different areas and in different stages of our lives.
The Billy Graham experience changed scenes slightly as visitors were ushered into the house in which he grew up, and my hopes for an authentic perspective roused again. The house, after all, we were told, had been moved four miles, floor paneling and all, to make this encounter possible. Watching the moving house would have been fun. Moving through it was underwhelming. Velvet ropes kept us at a distance from experiencing life as it would have been experienced in that little house. The feeling of, come close but not too close was rendered emphatic by a sign in a chair which read with 2018 abrasiveness rather than mid-20th-century suggestion, "DO NOT SIT."
Is that the offputting experience even of those we invite closer than our social media presentation? Have we perfected the, "It's too bad you can't stay," before anyone even get to the door? Are we afraid that those we invite in might see that our lives and our homes are lived in and therefore subject to smudges and scattered artifacts of life from time to time? Or, do the rings of access, or non-access, suggest something more sinister, on our part if not for those who must selectively represent Graham's legacy for purely practical purposes?
With our careful sense of control, do we exhibit the same spirit James 2:3-4 upbraids? We have, as some of James's readers must have, preconceptions of whom we will let in, and on what terms. Being seen with someone similar to the persona we want to show the world helps us, so we offer a more intimate welcome. We can make room for someone less cultivated, less cool, less self-sufficient, but only if offering them showy grace elevates our status.
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