I wish I wasn't a hypocrite, but...
What I'm learning by disagreeing with other Christian Substack writers (and how I'm trying not to be a general internet arsehole).
(Warning: there is slightly graphic animal imagery in this first paragraph, so feel free to skip past to the next paragraph if you need to).
This morning as I was walking my dog, he stopped along the path to sniff a pile of feathers strewn across the grass. This isn’t an unusual sight – cats frequent our street, and it’s common to see the remains of a gruesome fight between a cat and a poor pigeon passerby. Humphrey, still young and curious, must investigate everything, so I stood there allowing him to sniff his way through the story left behind on the lush verge. He was so engrossed with the smells and sensations of the individual feathers that he didn’t notice (nor did I, straight away) the maimed but still breathing pigeon which was tucked underneath the hedge.
My heart broke. I desperately wanted to pick up this poor little bird and nurse it back to health, but the worst thing I could possibly do was draw my dog’s attention to it or bring it into my home. And realistically, it probably wasn’t going to live much longer. Some people are probably going to find this ridiculous, but I started praying for the pigeon. I ached for the pain I could see on its face, and I just wanted God to take its misery away. Was I being silly? I grew up in a culture that was largely indifferent to the suffering of animals, and I always have to fight that inner voice inside me telling me that I’m “too sensitive.”
But immediately, I heard Matthew 10:29 in my head: “Yet not a single sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.” God heard my prayer, and He cared about this bird. I am sure of it. I am so sure that the same God who answers your prayer when you ask to find a parking spot at the hospital is the God who cares for this fallen pigeon who is suffering under a hedge, whose strewn feathers are being investigated by oblivious dogs passing by…
Last week, I had an encounter with a fellow Christian writer whose views are objectively very different from my own. I’m going to attempt to get to the core of this story without giving away any identifying details because my goal is certainly NOT to shade this writer or encourage my own readers to go looking for them (I am using “them” as a pronoun merely to protect their identity).
One thing I’ve truly enjoyed about being on Substack is the freedom to disagree with strangers under an unspoken understanding of mutual respect. I’ve had two separate discussions on Substack in the last seven days which I’d never feel safe to have on either Instagram or Facebook, and in doing so, I’ve been happily reminded of the goodness of people, their minute complexities, and the reality that our varied stories are inextricable from the opinions we hold and share on the internet.
Substack’s algorithm has been feeding me posts from this particular writer, who I do not follow, no doubt because they write with lots of Christian-ey trigger words like I do. But after investigating their notes, it’s clear that our views are very, very different. One post, in particular, had me eager to open a good-faith discussion, and I was pleasantly surprised by their respectful response. It went something like this (I’m sorry in advance for the most vague transcript in all the land):
Me: “I completely understand why you’d feel that way, but my experience of this topic has been quite different. Have you thought about x, y, z? I think you might be pleasantly surprised!”
Them: “Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! I appreciate that this has been your experience, but my experience has been the exact opposite, which leads me to conclude something else about x, y, z.”
In a nutshell, we ended up sort of agreeing, sort of not agreeing, but I didn’t walk away with a bad taste in my mouth. What I did experience, though, as I continued to investigate this writer’s past notes, was a concerning mix of what I can only describe as prideful proclamations in one note followed by incredibly loving, humble posts in the next. They would pass judgment on particular groups of people in one moment and then remind us all (with properly contextualised Scripture) to never judge another person’s faith journey because we simply don’t know what those people are going through. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s easy to spot the hypocrisy, but there’s a really important fact which we often don’t spot when noticing someone else’s pride: we do this, too.
Each one of us, in one way or another, is ignorant to our own pride. We each do that which we’ve just accused others of doing. I am so certain of this because I see it again and again in the people around me – why should I fancy myself any different? Human nature is what it is. Humility is a daily skill which I’m convinced is virtually impossible to foster without the help of the One who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.”
But this inherent hypocrisy makes it really freaking hard to show people the love of Jesus because we’re meant to be examples of Christ-likeness. Friends, I suck at Christ-likeness. I’m not saying this so as to absolve myself of the responsibility of calling myself a Christian with the “Oh-well-see-I-never-claimed-to-be-perfect” excuse. No, I say this as someone who overreacts and loses her sh*t after a long day caring for a sick dog; I say this as someone who wakes up every morning and feels first a sense of despair and then a sense of bitterness – neither of which are fruits of one who is living in the company of the Holy Spirit. I say this as someone who was reading through another writer’s notes thinking “Oh dear God, I literally held that exact same opinion 10 years ago. How could I have been so blind as to think that I had the right to pass such judgement? And wait… what views do I hold now that I’ll once again be ashamed of in another 10 years’ time?”
(I want to pause here for a moment to acknowledge that this self-reflective “How am I still being prideful?” question is great when done in the peace of knowing that the Spirit will reveal it to you and you don’t need to strive so hard to figure it out; it’s not, however, healthy to dwell on this question if, like I once did, you suffer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and you’re actively ready to agonise and prostrate yourself on the altar of your own sin. Self-loathing can be its own idol, growing like a mental illness monster ready to devour you in the name of “pursuing holiness.” If you’re suffering with a mental illness, don’t practice the habit of asking “What am I doing wrong?” every day. Practice the habit of “How is Jesus sanctifying me?” Much more freedom. Much more wholeness. Much more in keeping with receiving the gift of grace that He won for you.)
Okay, back to the story. So why am I telling you about this? I must admit, I know that writing a post lecturing you about humility might be, ironically, the most prideful thing that I can do. But if you’ve been here a while, you know that I like to speak candidly, from a place of processing (quite messily) what it means to follow Jesus.
When I talk about pursuing humility, I cannot emphasise enough that I. suck. at. it. BUT I also don’t want to put on false humility (a prettily cloaked version of pride) and pretend like I’ve learned nothing from living as an opinionated, outspoken millennial Christian writer. I HAVE THOUGHTS. AND I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT HAVING THOUGHTS.
Over many years, I have alienated myself and needlessly hurt other people when sharing things which I felt SO convicted to share at the time. I regret writing some of the things that I wrote 10 years ago. I regret not imagining others complexly, as John Green so often likes to put it. And in having this disagreement with a fellow Substack writer last week, I was reminded of a few gentle lessons that the Holy Spirit has taught me over these last 10 years. So in good faith, I want to share them with you now, not from a place of “I’ve got this all figured out” but from a place of “How can we help each other become a little more like Jesus and stop screwing up and maybe live with a bit more peace and love for one another?” Doesn’t that sound… less exhausting? Man, I sure think so.
3 things I try to remember when practicing humility
Whenever you see faults in someone else, see if you can learn a bit more about their story. When disagreeing with someone, we are often quick to share the experiences which have shaped our view (and this is good because others need to hear that people have experiences which differ from theirs); but do we then give someone else space to share their own experiences? Often I find that the crux of an argument lies in the fact that we want things to exist in black and white, and unfortunately, two people’s incredibly different experiences of the world can result in them having entirely different conclusions about something. I’m not a relativity junkie, but sometimes I think things can be more complex than we’d like them to be, and making space for another person’s story can trigger compassion. John Green calls it imagining people complexly. Ted Lasso says “I’d rather be curious than judgmental.” The moral of the story is this: can you listen as well as you can speak?
Where can you see yourself in that person? We kid ourselves if we truly think that we are NOTHING like our internet enemy. It’s disturbing, really, how well we can disassociate. I literally see Christians on the internet calling OTHER people pharisees, and in doing so, they sound a lot like a pharisee from where I’m sitting. Oh, but look! Where am I now sitting? In the judgment seat! Like a pharisee. Oh dear, it WOULD seem that humbling ourselves is a tricky business indeed. What I’m getting at, here, is that if we truly sit down and look at ourselves plainly, we’ll discover the unfortunate truth that we are just as blind in some area of our life or another as the people with whom we disagree. If we deny this fact and pair it with an unwillingness to hear other people’s stories, we’re really, really sucking at Christ-likeness. Jesus sat with people from every background, he listened, he loved, and he healed. How often might we be an example of Christ simply by disarming our opponent with the loving gesture of listening – of helping them feel seen as we see ourselves in them? Of finding where we are more alike than different? Perhaps I’m living in an ideal world, here, but isn’t an ideal world what the prayer “on Earth as it is in Heaven” is all about? I will fight for an ideal world where our Christ-likeness heals the world of its bitter pride, its blindness, its needless internet disagreements. I will optimistically fight for a world filled with the kind of love that saved me.
Finally, can you learn to let go? Can you find peace in releasing yourself from the need to convince someone that their own pride is hurtful? Can you trust that if they truly are following Jesus, the Holy Spirit will show us all the Truth in the end? If I’d have spoken to myself 10 years ago and told her to stop passing judgment on people of other denominations, lifestyles, eating/drinking habits, relationship decisions, church choices, Biblical interpretations (need I go on?) I don’t think I could have done it. I was so convicted and convinced that the world needed the revealed truth of Scripture which I had to share (such is the nature of being an opinionated writer, remember?). Now don’t get me wrong, I shared a lot of good and healing words in those days, and people do need to hear uncomfortable truths sometimes, but I also shared a lot which only serves to show me now that the Holy Spirit is the only One who can reveal the truth to people, and sometimes, it was me who needed the truth. Sometimes, I was wrong. Sometimes, I still am. There is rest in letting go and accepting that this is true for all of us, and we don’t actually need to be right all the time (or convince others of our rightness) to be a witness for Christ. Sometimes, the best witness is resting in the security that all Perfect Truth will indeed be revealed in the end. No longer must we strive, no longer must we shout, no longer must we convince ourselves and others of our own rightness. Suddenly the world opens up as we embrace love and curiosity and, dare I say it, a humility which offers genuine rest for our souls.
Seeing that pigeon in the street this morning was such a reminder that we all carry suffering in unique ways, and God genuinely cares about them all, even when nobody else sees us. Just as He knows when each bird falls from the sky, He alone can see the deep wounds we carry when others, sometimes strangers on the internet, are only interested in inspecting the first glance of loose feathers that fell away in the trauma of our stories. How differently might we inspect those “feathers” if we humbled ourselves and realised that there was a wounded person somewhere, suffering under a bush that we can’t see? How much better might we show Jesus to the world if we gave into the urge to pray for strangers on the internet the way I wanted to pray for that little pigeon?
Every single person holds their views on life due, at least in part, to the stories they carry. And it seems like such a cliché when we talk about treating people with compassion because we don’t know what they’re going through, but it’s the truest cliché out there (in my humble opinion, ha!).
See, the thing is, Jesus really did know the stories of each person he met. He knew the story of the woman at the well. He knew the story of the tax-collector called Matthew. He knew the story of the Roman soldier who asked for his help. The world is a big place full of a lot of stories that we don’t know, but He does.
I’m not saying this to preach at you. I’m not saying this to flex my knowledge of Scripture. I’m saying this because I truly hope that you, like me, are compelled by how someone could be God incarnate, know the depths of our stories and our souls, and not only choose to see us and heal us but die for us. That’s wild to me. That kind of love is something I don’t think I’m capable of. But I’m compelled to find out if, by some grace of seeking humility with the help of the Holy Spirit, we might one day all find ourselves more capable of that kind of radical love than we ever thought possible.
All my love,
P.S. I have done an audio recording for this particular post, which I’m making freely available to all of my readers. If you enjoy consuming my essays in this way, consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive audio narrations of every post from now on. And whether you support my work through a paid subscription or for free, I want to say a massive thank you for being here, allowing me to write and do the work which I feel wholly called to do. Bless you, friends.
So well said! Love this perspective and insight. We are too quick to pick up our quills and use them like swords online
This is lovely and so heartfelt, Christina. Thanks for sharing! Good food for thought for us all. We are always works in progress. Recognizing that is more than half the battle.