She is a Prostitute , am a Christian, how can I will her to Christ?

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash

You ever come across one of those “crazy” Christians that try to convert you on the spot? The ones where they start telling you why you need to turn from your ways, lest you go to hell? Yeah, not much of a warm welcome, eh?

Several years ago I developed a friendship with a girl that was a lesbian. For the sake of the story I’m going to call her “K”.

In becoming friends with K, it revealed some things to me that I wasn’t sharply aware of. I was able to look through her lens when it came to Christianity. Quite frankly, she was intimidated and she didn’t want to be apart of something where everyone was better than her and made her feel like she should be ashamed. Who would?

Regardless, I enjoyed the talks we would have about God and the church. One thing that kept coming up was the persecution and condescending attitude that she received from people claiming to be christians.

I remember when I first asked K if she believed in God, she said that she used to, but certain things drove her away from the church. The things that drove her away from church were the people.

The very people that were called to love and serve others, were the people that couldn’t stand K’s lifestyle. They decided that she didn’t belong among them. My first thought when K was telling me this story was, “why do believers do stuff like this?”

It’s as if Christians want to take the gavel away from God. It’s like they want to protect Heaven from people that they believe don’t belong. Some Christians like to decide who should be let in and who should be kept out. Where does that authority come from? It isn’t from God.

To those Christians I would say this:

Do you really believe that you are holier, in more favor, and loved more by God? When Jesus said not to judge other people, or to the same measure that you judge them, you will also be judged — did that sink in?

Like, we can’t cherry pick pieces of scripture, misunderstand those pieces, and then grant ourselves the authority to start telling people what they need to do to get into Heaven, as if we’ve got it all figured out.

K asked me once if I would go to church if I was her. I honestly didn’t know how to answer her question. My first thought was that I wasn’t her, so I didn’t know how truly afraid of the church she was.

I was left with wonder. I tried to relate her question to something in my life, but I was coming up blank. I was finally just honest with her. I told K that based on her experiences, I probably wouldn’t. But I followed that with the important missing piece of the whole circumstance.

She didn’t know Jesus.

She met a bunch of people that were claiming to be “Christ followers”. But even Gandhi said,

“I like your Christ, but I don’t like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”.

There was something historical that K was experiencing.

She was experiencing a misrepresentation of Christ. I told K that these people from the church that she had met, sounded like they were not representing Christ very well. I did tell her that I’m not perfect either, and that I do a terrible job myself at representing Jesus sometimes.

But, I wanted to make a greater point to K. I told her that the message of thegospel is not condemnation. The message of the gospel is love. Jesus is love.

I told K that I think the first thing Jesus would want her to know is that he loves her, as is, right now. She was taken aback. She admittedly stated that no Christian had ever spoken to her in such non-threatening language about God before.

In all this time of interacting with Christians, none of them decided to tell K that God loves her and wants a relationship with her.

I honestly apologized to her on behalf of the confused Christians out there. I have my bad days too, but I wasn’t about to let K leave the conversation thinking that God only wants to send her to hell. The biggest conclusion K had made about Christianity was that God existed to punish people, and everyone in the church existed to reinforce that to her. What an awful feeling that would give someone.

I told her the story about Jesus stepping in to help a woman who was caught in adultery. Some men brought her up to Jesus, and they told him that she needed to be stoned for the adultery that she committed according to the law of Moses in the old testament. Men gathered around and they continued to egg on Jesus to tell them that she should be stoned. Instead, he did something else.

Jesus stood up and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” The men began leaving, one by one. He then turned to the woman and asked if anyone condemns her. She responded by saying that no one condemns her. Jesus then tells her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more” (John 8:7–11).

There are so many aspects and important pieces to this story. But, the point I wanted to make to K was that Jesus primarily wants to protect her heart.While there may be people lining up to condemn her, that is not his firstpriority. His first act to this woman was one of protection from harm. He shows love in doing this.

How often is the first act of a Christian to a nonbeliever, one of protection and love? It’s something that troubles me because I think we’re still getting it wrong. My identity lies with Christ. I am a Christian. I do not want to be associated with a group of people that go around and condemn people for their sins, especially without looking at their own. it’s disappointing.

K did eventually give me the relief of saying that she felt less threatened, now that she knew God wasn’t just aiming to strike her down as soon as she walked into a church. She still had her reservations, but her image of Jesus was changing. Even if it only changed a smidge, that’s all I could ask for in one conversation.

K ended the conversation admiring the fact that we could be friends even though we were so different. The two of us really did make an odd friendship. One that I’m proud of. K moved away a while back, and we don’t really talk much. I can only hope that the Christians she encounters can treat her the way Jesus would, with respect, dignity, and love.

I think it’s a real dangerous game that Christians play.

Picking bits and pieces of scary scripture out of the Bible in hopes that you canhammer it into the minds of people that find you offensive, isn’t exactly what I would call “great witness”.

If only we could be mindful of our own transgressions. We might be able tocarry a humble heart into conversations like the one I had with K. We might be able to be a fraction of a representation of Jesus, which would allow us to love other people, at the very least. There’s something about presenting our negative opinions about other people’s life choices that doesn’t fit the narrative.

We’re all in this together and I don’t mean to sit here and ramble about just the negativity that the church can sometimes bring. There are so many good people in the church who are working to truly serve others on a daily basis. I don’t want the misrepresentation of a few bad examples to be the overarching theme of this. But I also don’t want to make light of a situation that is very real in the minds of nonbelievers today.

As Christians, we just have to do a better job representing Jesus, who was the ultimate loving servant.