Popping the Bubble

The Christian Bubble. Just about every student who has sat in chapel or engaged in a conversation with friends has heard this term. When I was in my first year or two, I honestly found it endearing. I had my Christian friends, my Christian professors, my Christian mentors, my Christian hellos and goodbyes, my Christian smile, my Christian music, my Christian life inside my Christian Bubble.

The only times I really even left the campus during my freshman year were to involve myself in activities that didn’t fit into the Christian Bubble: clubs, parties, enjoying a cig on the curb outside the baseball field. I was so wrapped up in my life on campus.

Then, New York happened. My comfort level, my bubble, completely popped. I lived in Manhattan this summer, attending classes at New York University. The original plan was to determine whether or not I was capable of placing such a large distance between my mother and I.

But in the process of removing myself from the Christian Bubble, I found my limits tested. No longer did I have my Christian support system. No longer did I have worship service. No longer did I have my Christian (insert word here). I had nothing. And it was terrifying.

After I had been an emotional mess for about two weeks, I met Michael. He was my polar opposite. Extremely tall, super skinny and flamboyantly homosexual, Michael and I hit it off and became fast friends.

A few weeks later, I mentioned to him something I had heard at a church I was attending in Brooklyn. His mouth dropped. “You’re a Christian?” he asked. We didn’t talk any more about it that day, but one muggy, rainy afternoon, while we were holed up in the library, he began to ask me about God. Of course, having no real experience in this sort of situation, I stammered over my words and probably made way too many mistakes, but Michael just sat there listening to me.

When I was done talking, he said, “You know, every Christian I have ever met has made me feel like I was defective for being gay, like I had an incurable disease. I thought that was just what Christians believed. Why aren’t you like that?” I told him that I loved and cared about him because that is the kind of person God made me, that I wanted to be his friend to show him God’s love, and that my personal, ultimate goal was not to ‘cure’ him or make him straight but to show him the mercy and grace of a relationship with Christ (although, I am sure it didn’t come out so eloquently.)

He was astonished. He literally could not grasp the concept of a Christian loving that way.

How sad is that?

Sojourners’ Magazine profiled APU in an article titled “Bursting the Christian Bubble,” an article about the Ministry and Service Office and how members of our university are attempting to live their lives in a way that better reflects Christ rather than in a way that reflects their bank accounts, skin color or class. The article was pretty accurate in describing the way APU used to be and the changes that have been made in the past five or six years that have allowed APU to have a bigger impact on the surrounding community.

When I hear about what Azusa thinks of APU, I either hear “People in Azusa hate APU because the only people they care about are themselves,” or “People in Azusa love APU because they bring so much business to the area.”

I am sorry, but that is completely unacceptable. It is our responsibility as Christians to show the love of Christ to all people. It is our responsibility to provide for those who have been placed in situations more difficult than our own. And it is our job to love others in a humble, selfless way regardless of the outcome.

In the magazine it says, “Students are disturbed by their own ignorance and privilege and the deafening silences of their churches that often fail to connect the implications of injustice with active faith.”

We should be disturbed. But not simply by our own ignorance, but by the ignorance of generations before us that caused people to believe things like my friend Michael.

Matthew 28:18 says “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations…” But before we can use all of the training and Bible classes and hundreds of thousands of dollars that we have spent on an education, before we can make disciples, we must GO. Go downstairs if you live off campus and befriend your neighbors. Go down the street to the elementary school and get involved. Go somewhere!

Don’t allow yourselves to get caught up in the Christian Bubble. Force yourselves to follow God’s command, to love on others, and to serve in the way Christ did, so that maybe someday, if someone comes to Azusa to take summer classes, gets to chatting with an Azusa resident and builds a loving friendship, they won’t ever have to hear “I didn’t realize Christians were like that.”