Jesus the bearded woman

Many thanks to Paul Coughlin, author of 'No more Christian Nice Guy', whose book assisted myself to realise why women like church and men don't. Much of the following is from his book, and it might appear a little disjointed, the reason being I have just selected a few paragraphs from various chapters.

How come when we ask, What Would Jesus Do ? we almost always some form of quiet response, when he often spoke and behaved in undeniably rugged ways ?

Jesus, the dissident, brought the world both – the kind of conflict and division needed to shake things up for our own good.

Niceness makes people agreeable, not good. Nice people don't get crucified.

We need to see and emulate all of Jesus, gentle and rugged and all points in between.

Phillip Yancy wrote “In my prior image, Jesus’ personality matched that of a Star Trek Vulcan : he remained calm, cool, and collected as he strode like a robot among excitable human beings on spaceship earth. That is not what I later found portrayed in the Gospels … Indeed, he seemed more emotional and spontaneous than the average person, not less. More passionate, not less.

If we compare these actions of Jesus to the behaviour of the average guy in most churches today, and if we were honest – we’d say that Christ is not a Christian. We wouldn’t pray to him, we’d issue prayer requests for him.

Here’s our popular nice guy misconception : Jesus didn’t drink, swear, get angry, use sarcasm, confront, avoid questions, grow impatient, or complain. Conversely, the record shows that he did all of the above, and the gospel includes no apology, confession, or repentance for any of them.

The church encourages Christian men to be passive , and this leads to broken relationships and opportunities. Christians are taught that it’s sinful to tell others what one really thinks and feels. This is damaging because people are naturally expressive.

Why does contemporary Christianity encourage mild living when Jesus showed more passion than anyone else around him ?

Jesus was illegally slapped by an official at his so-called trial, and instead of literally turning his other cheek to be slapped again, he stood up for himself and insisted this this abuse, this bully, follow legal protocol. He didn’t follow protocol with the high priest; as recorded in John 18, when questioned about his teaching, Jesus said everything he taught was delivered publicly, that nothing was said in secret. “Why, then do you question me” he asked. To his attacker, Jesus responded, “If I have said anything wrong, tell everyone here what it was. But if I am right in what I have said, why do you hit me?” Jesus did not follow our Church’s current teaching about being a doormat and laying down personal rights, he assertively retained them and laid them down when he chose, not when anyone else required it. Jesus admonishment to ‘Turn the other check” does not mean to accept abuse; its means to not return evil for evil. Protecting yourself verbally or physically is simply that, self-protection.

The late youth minister Mike Yaconelli once told about meeting Mother Teresa. “She’s tough as nails. She’s uncompromising and she irritates people. She’s willfull and domineering. She gets angry. She’s not nice, but no one would say she isn’t good.”

Christian men in general fear that they won’t behave like “Christians should” if they free themselves from expectations I’ve tried to show are unbiblically unfounded. They fear what their religious leaders will say, what the crowd might think, what their family and friends may do. These are the same exact groups that surrounded Jesus in the Gospels ; none always understood or accepted him either, yet he let none stop him.

“In this world you will have troubles. But take heart ! I have overcome the world” ( John 16:33 )

If earthly trouble is inevitable, living small is not the answer; that just means the Nice Guy pointlessly lives small and has troubles all the same.

“God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self discipline ( 2 Timothy 1:7 )

Contrary to what you’ve been told by some scripture twisters, you are not a slave to other people. Rather you are an agent of God’s redemptive power that serves other people as you choose. Sometimes this means telling people no without giving them a long explanation or having a concrete reason that they need to hear.

Your thoughts and feelings should be valued ; don’t justify them to people who think you shouldn’t have thoughts and feelings.

Thank you God for Paul