Commentary: Which is more offensive, the cross or Christians?

In 1845, Frederick Douglass felt the need to clarify something.

His Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, exposed not only the brutality of slavery, but also the hypocrisy of professing Christians who participated in it and defended it.

In an appendix, Douglass wrote: “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.

“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ. I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”

His problem was not Jesus. His problem was what people had done in Jesus’ name.

Years later in 1919, missionary E. Stanley Jones asked Mahatma Gandhi what Christians could do to make Christianity more credible in India. Gandhi replied, “I would suggest, first, that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ.” (Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, pgs. 118–119).

Both men recognized something Christians must never forget: People can encounter a version of Christianity that obscures the Christ it claims to represent.

Jesus warned his disciples that following him would bring opposition: “If the world hates you, know it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).

Those words certainly matter, especially for Christians who experience genuine persecution. But they can also become an easy dismissal of every negative reaction to Christianity: “Jesus said the world would hate us.”

There is a significant difference between being rejected because we faithfully represent Jesus and being rejected because we have represented him poorly.

Not all opposition is persecution

Writing to Christians who knew genuine suffering, Peter asks, “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” (1 Peter 2:20). Later he writes, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (3:17).

Peter expects opposition, but he is also remarkably concerned about why Christians experience it. There is no virtue in being disliked simply because we are disagreeable.

Yet, Christians can sometimes speak harshly and call the response persecution. We can caricature people who disagree with us and interpret their anger as hostility toward the gospel. We can treat unbelievers as threats rather than neighbors whom we are called to love.

Then, when people want nothing to do with us, we reassure ourselves Jesus said the world would hate us.

Maybe. But perhaps we need enough humility to ask whether Jesus is really what they are rejecting.

Who was threatened by Jesus?

An uncomfortable irony runs through the Gospels. The people we might expect to be threatened by Jesus often seem drawn to him.

Tax collectors ate with him. Sinners gathered around him. Lepers approached him. Samaritans became heroes in his stories. The poor heard good news. People pushed to the margins of respectable society kept discovering there was room near Jesus.

As Pastor Chip Ingram once put it, “Jesus shared meals with people long before they shared his values.”

In fact, some of Jesus’ fiercest opposition came from established religious leaders. That should make Christians uncomfortable.

Jesus was not crucified because he was too compassionate toward the vulnerable. Certain religious leaders sought his death as his teaching and authority increasingly threatened them, and the climactic confrontation centered on his identity.

When the high priest asked whether he was “the Christ, the Son of God,” Jesus’ answer led to the charge of blasphemy (Matthew 26:63–66). They handed him over to Pilate, who authorized his crucifixion under Roman authority.

The people most threatened by Jesus were not always the people we would expect. And perhaps that should change the way we think about our own “enemies.”

Uncomfortable questions

It is easy for Christians to imagine ourselves standing beside Jesus against a hostile world. We identify ourselves with the disciples, the faithful remnant, the persecuted church. But the Gospels invite a more uncomfortable question: If Jesus walked among us today, are we certain we would recognize him?

Would we rejoice when he sat at a table with people whose lives made us uncomfortable? Would we listen when he challenged traditions we had confused with Scripture? Would we welcome his rebuke if our pursuit of holiness became an excuse for superiority? Would we follow him if doing so meant loving people we had already decided were our enemies?

The danger is not merely that Christians might be rejected by the world. The danger is we can become so convinced we are defending God we fail to notice when he is confronting us.

That is part of what makes the story of Jesus’ crucifixion so eye-opening. Religious conviction alone does not guarantee we are standing on the right side of the cross. Sometimes, it can blind us to the One hanging on it.

Which is more offensive?

The goal of Christian witness is not to make everyone like us, nor should we soften the truth to gain the world’s approval.

Jesus never promised his followers a life without enemies. But he did tell us what to do with them: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

An enemy is not someone we have permission to mock, dismiss, or dehumanize. An enemy is someone Jesus commands us to love.

And that command is not disconnected from the gospel we preach. Paul reminds us, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Just two verses later, he goes even further: “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (v. 10).

In other words, Jesus does not merely tell us to love our enemies. He shows us what that love looks like.

At the cross, Christ laid down his life for those Scripture calls his enemies. Surely, that should shape how we speak to, and about, those we are tempted to regard as our own.

That means speaking truth without contempt. Pursuing holiness without superiority. Holding convictions without treating those who disagree with us as enemies. And when opposition comes, perhaps our first question should not be, “Why do they hate us?”

Perhaps it should be, “What are they seeing when they look at us?”

What are they rejecting?

Did they reject Christ, or our arrogance? Did the gospel offend them, or did we? Are we suffering because we refused to compromise our allegiance to Jesus, or because we treated someone Jesus loves as our enemy?

Sometimes, faithfulness requires courage, but other times it requires repentance.

Our calling is not to make the gospel more palatable or ourselves more offensive. Our calling is to represent Jesus faithfully.

If people reject us because they have genuinely encountered Jesus through us, we can remain faithful and entrust the consequences to him. But if people reject Jesus because of what they have encountered in us, we should have the humility to ask why.

As Pastor Dave Adamson once put it: “If people hate you because of Jesus, that’s expected. If people hate Jesus because of you, that’s a problem.”

The cross is offensive enough. We don’t need to add ourselves to it.

Taylor Standridge is a Christian podcaster and producer who loves to help people understand who God is and how to live faithfully according to his goodness, grace, and generosity. His writing has been featured in Peer Magazine, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT Magazine, and NextStep Disciple. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.