Michael Stipe has an amazing voice, but he’s a little odd. OK – he’s not a LITTLE odd. He’s a lot odd. He can hit notes I couldn’t imagine to hit and he makes millions doing it. But he is also bisexual and an avowed atheist. He claims to be a Buddhist, which is ultimately a religion that denies a personal God and focuses on the human’s ability to transcend this existence.

Stipe is the guy who wrote the R.E.M. song, “Losing My Religion.” The lyrics of the song revolve around a God who is almost there but is not; a God he wishes were there and is not.

Born into an Air Force family, Stipe and his family were constantly on the move. He lived in Georgia, Texas, Illinois and Texas. He lived in the Bible belt; he knew many Christians and yet still became a Buddhist.

Why am I bringing up the lead singer of an alternate rock band from the 1990’s on my blog?

Because in 2004, Stipe produced a film called Saved! The film depicts a group of teenagers at a non-descript Christian high school somewhere in the Bible belt. Anyone who has been around Christian schools can tell you right off the bat that Stipe and the crew of the movie nailed the look and feel of these places.

The teachers are hypocrites (the principal is actually having an affair with one of the characters’ mothers), the students are either fake, rebellious or self-deluded. People are talking about Jesus like he is some kind of mantra or magical word.

One of the main characters, a girl ironically (and intentionally) named Mary gets pregnant when she has sex with her boyfriend, who is then outed as gay and sent to a place called “Mercy House.” When Mary finds out she is pregnant, she feels like an outcast and for the first time in her life begins to see through the façade of the Christian cocoon she has lived in all her life.

Eventually, Mary is befriended by a handicapped boy named Roland and a Jewish girl named Cassandra, who was sent to the Christian high school because she got kicked out of the other private schools she attended. (By the way, Cassandra has a fish outline on her car through most of the film.)

Roland’s sister, Hillary Fay, is the consummate Christian good girl. She is trying very hard to be good; to the point that she is really, really annoying. She becomes the antagonist of the story. First she breaks Mary’s confidence about her gay boyfriend and calls a “prayer circle” to pray for him. Then she attempts to convert Cassandra through a series of typical processes. And finally, she defaces the school and frames Cassandra and Mary to get them out of her life.

Ultimately, Mary meets the boy of her dreams, the father of her child returns on prom night to discover her pregnant (he comes with his boyfriend), her mother decides to let Mary keep the baby and Roland falls in love with Cassandra. Cradling her little girl, Mary remarks:

Life is too amazing to be this random, meaningless consequence of the universe.

So, now you’re wondering why I brought up Michael Stipe and his insanely anti-Christian film. Here is why.

This is how they perceive us. Who is ‘they’? Well, THEY ARE. Everyone who is not us, not Christians, not in the church, has a certain preconceived notion of how Christians are. This preconception might be based on previous experience, it might be based on films like Saved! It could be based on absolutely nothing, but the point is that it is there.

The reality is that in the film, the only people who behave like Christians are the ones who are not Christians. The unbelievers behave better than the so-called believers. Essentially, the message of the film (and I believe Stipe’s life) is that the Christian God works for Christians but doesn’t work for real problems. Real problems require real solutions and Christianity isn’t about real solutions.

You might hate that I’ve suggested that, but you need to deal with it. It is the reality for most people around you today. They do not perceive Christianity and its God as relevant to their world. Whether it is stained glass and cathedrals or contemporary Christian music and hand-raising, Christianity is not REALLY concerned with loving your neighbor and caring for the downtrodden. It does not really have a market on how to live, who to accept and who to condemn.

In fact, most people think Christians are just angry or arrogant.

They might think Jesus is ok, but his followers are wack.

I say all of this to remind you that the solutions of the film are more in line with Jesus than most people want to believe they are. Does Jesus approve of homosexuality? Fornication? Drunkenness? No. Does Jesus love these people who do these things, not out of obligation but out of genuine affection? The answer is yes. Does Jesus want them to continue in a lifestyle of sin? No, but he does not just bring conviction – he brings healing. In fact, conviction without healing is arrogance, elitism and well, Pharisee-thinking.

The Christian should be the first to leap to the side of the persecuted homosexual at work and say, “Stop this!” and love that person. Christ will not accept their sin in the kingdom, they will eventually have to leave it at the door and step in but that does not mean we become the persecutors. We have to love that person – not out of obligation or duty but out of genuine affection, not out of a guilt-complex driven desire to evangelize that person but to simply speak truth and love into their lives, to show them true love.

The harsh words of Christ were not for them – those outside the faith – but for us, those in the faith, those who knew better, who claimed to know God. For these heretics, he reserved his fiery speeches about hell and his whip and scourge.

Our faith is NOT about being right or persuasion. It is about compassion and love. It was liberal then and it is liberal now, but it is still true.