“Do all the good you can,  By all the means you can

In all the ways you can, In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.: —  John Wesley, on what it means to be a Christian.

All of my life, I’ve read the books of the great Christian  and other moral philosophers – Plato, Arendt, Kant, Smith, Aristotle –  and Christian scholars: Merton, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, Christ, Augustine, even Pope Francis.

Here I am, far down the road, engaged in the life of  a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist lay preacher who thinks gay people are deviants headed for Hell.  He thinks I’m going there as well, if I don’t wake up and get saved.

It is a strange position for me to be in, apart from the obvious.  I am a volunteer in Art’s home, working to make him more comfortable. My work has nothing to do with faith and Christianity. Except it has everything to do with it, I am coming to see.

As a volunteer, my job is not be anyone’s friend, savior, or rescuer. I am just there to help out when I can. Art, as he is wont to do, is a boundary buster, he has challenged, even forced me, to make some moral and ethical decisions, to decide who I am.

So I am deep in Christian theology and thinking these days – me, a Jew turned Quaker, a non-religious man allergic to anybody’s sacred dogma – and averse to telling other people what to do or judging them harshly for being different.

Art considers himself a pious and devout Christian – our relationship is now officially controversial, judging from my messages  and e-mails – and who am I to tell Art otherwise? It is not my business to argue with him or tell him what to think.

I’m just trying to get him comfortable.

There is a debate raging these days about just what a Good Christian really is, and me, of all people, in the center of it.

I am in a deep and rich dialogue with people I somewhat arrogantly call “Good Christians,” they have found me, and I have found them, I suppose it was inevitable. We share many values.

On November 17th, here on the blog, I wrote a column about my realization that Art is teaching me about what it means to be a good Christian because I am reaching out to him despite the vast and sometimes troublingly different ways in which he and I look at the world.

Today in my Post Office  Box (P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816), a letter from Suzanne, who lives in the South.

“Dear Mr. Katz.,” she wrote from Florida, “what a wonderful blog you wrote on Art and Christianity…I grieve for Art and his unhappy view of life. To me, the Christian life is reaching out to the world, knowing how much God loves each one of us in sending Jesus to atone for our sins and to be our companion in our lives. It’s taken 83 years for me to realize this.  I wish better for Art (I have written him before) and I admire you for walking along with him.”  – Suzanne.

I admire Suzanne for taking this walk with me. I like what I know of the Christian life, it seems a compassionate and meaningful life to me.

I am not a Christian, and Jesus Christ is not my God – I don’t really have one – but that doesn’t matter to me, Suzanne and I both believe that faith is about reaching out to people in need, not condemning and judging them and turning our backs because we might not like them very much. To me, that was Christ’s message to the world, and it has attracted good and loving people for centuries.

“To be a Christian,” wrote C.S.Lewis, “means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” In our culture, we forgive no one anything, especially people with different beliefs. Anything is better than them, even cowards, liars and molesters.

Christian Week defines “Good Christians” in this way. “Good Christians are kind and decent people. Good Christians are compassionate, generous and resourceful. Good Christians are relentless advocates for those who find themselves on the wrong end of the score and diligently work to address injustice.”

Good Christians are often to be seen helping the refugees I work with, not running them out of the country.

Good Christians are what I wish to be and try to be, and Good Christians overlook my many faults and shortcomings and offer me encouragement and support in my life every single day, even though I am quite different from them.

They reach out to me, send donations for the Army Of Good. They love the idea of doing good.

Other people who say they are Christians damn and curse me for being different from them. Are they also “Good Christians?”

I look out at the news sometimes, and I wonder who captured the Good Christians and their ancient faith and hid them a way, pushed them to the side.

The people I see all the time on the news and in our political life talk a great deal about God and Jesus and Christianity, they are nothing like what Lewis and Wesley and Christian Week or Augustine or Merton  – or my friend Suzanne – write about and describe. These angry  Political “Christians” better hope God is distracted and busy elsewhere, because it won’t be pretty if he is real and comes back to check on things.

From my strange perch out in the country, I think of the Good Christians and I know they are out there. But I sometimes think their faith has been stolen and that they are hidden away, waiting for a safer time to come out. Or perhaps they are just working quietly, like me, choosing to try to do good rather than fight about it.

They are the real deal.

In that, I have faith. I believe it will happen. I believe the Good Christians are more powerful than the opportunistic and hypocritical ones. They are a fad, a cult, the Good Christians have been out there a log time.

To me, hypocrisy is the lowest form of life, and people who hide behind Christianity or any faith to hurt and persecute those who find themselves on the wrong end of the score – those who practice injustice rather than fight it – are among the worst hypocrites of all.

Can I excuse the inexcusable?

No, I think, not yet. But I can’t claim to being a Good Christian, I have no right.

That’s the thing about the hero journey. You are always on the path, you never will get there. I excuse Art fully, and openly. Because although he would angrily deny it, he is on the wrong side of the score and needs some help.

Although he was shocked to hear it ( I have told him,) it is Art that has caused me to believe this. Because in reaching out to him, and standing with him at this lonely and angry time in his life, he is teaching me what a Good Christian really is.