What is “Walk the Razor?”
“You’re a pastor?”
I get that question a lot. Actually, that’s the clean version. Usually it’s something like, “No sh*t?”
I’m not sure what it is, really. Maybe it’s the eyebrow ring. Maybe it’s the lack of a clerical collar. Maybe it’s my spiritual gift of sarcasm. Maybe it’s the fact that I am talking with them in a bar over a beer.
Something about me doesn’t scream “pastor.”
The cool thing is when people find out I am a pastor, they expect me to talk with them about Christianity–so I do. A decade or so ago, the conversations I had about Christianity were largely intellectual: they dealt with the authority of the Bible, evolution, or something like that.
But that has all changed.
Most people I encounter now don’t see these intellectual ideas as a barrier. Their worldview allows for more abstract thought. The problem is they never even get to these intellectual arguments because there is something else in their way: Christians.
We are the problem. Our lives are the problem. Our churches are the problem. Our ministries are the problem. Repeat after me: “we are the problem.”
When I talk with my unbelieving friends, they express a revulsion of two kinds of Christians. The first they would describe as kinda mean. This is a Christ-follower who paints a picture of Christianity that is like a big fat giant rulebook. Their favorite phrase is “Thou Shalt Not.”
The second kind of Christian has two faces: their church face and their world face. It’s obvious to everyone around them that their words and actions don’t match up: they say they follow Jesus but their lifestyle denies him.
The Bible has a lot to say about both of these categories and it would do us well to remember them. In fact, it has specific terms for them: “Legalistic” and “Ungodly.”
One of the many problems in our churches is that both of these people act as a barrier between people and Jesus…and this has been the problem in the church for a very very long time.
“Walking the Razor” represents a third option. Ironically, it’s the type of Christianity presented in the Bible. It is a type of Christianity that is not “legalistic,” presenting the faith as a rulebook. It also avoids “ungodliness,” which is nothing more than giving Jesus the middle finger. (Paul called it “crucifying Jesus all over again”).
Eventually, this site will be the home of a book I am working on, but until then it has gone into hibernation. Feel free to explore the old posts or check me out at NoelHeikkinen.com (I blog there nearly every day).
