Bryson Panas

I grew up in Oklahoma, which means that Bible Belt culture has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. This means I've been exposed to church, but I've also been deeply confused at times. The bible belt has a weird mixture of moralism and authentic spirituality that is hard to describe until you experience it. As a teenager, I went to church because my family expected it, but it never resonated with me. I knew some Bible stories, but could never understand how it was relevant to my life on a day-to-day basis. It seemed like the point was to try hard and live a good life. I had owned a Bible growing up, several in fact, but I had never gotten past reading the first few pages and putting it down. Most of my spiritual perspectives were shaped by observing those around me. And the subtext I picked up was that being a Christian was about living a good moral life. Even though I thought I was pretty smart, it wasn't until college that I learned how much of a misconception I had about who Jesus was and what he taught. It was shocking when I learned being a good person wasn't the main point of the Bible. I've learned that religion attracts two types of people: those who find refuge and shelter in the grace and love of Jesus, and moralists who want a set of rules that will help them to feel good about themselves. These two things are not the same. In fact, they are polar opposites. But sometimes both groups will call themselves Christians. I've spent a lot of my life helping people to see that these two mindsets are not the same. This video of Matt Chandler does a great job of showing how many people have been exposed to moralism, not Jesus, in church settings. Christianity isn't for those who have it all together. It isn't for the morally strong and upright. It isn't for the proud and the blameless. It's for everyone who realizes that they cannot be those things. It's only at the point that we realize our inability and our need that Jesus starts to make any sense. The entire point of the gospel is not how attractive we are and how much God wants us on His team. It's how broken we are and how God still deeply loves us in spite of our deep flaws and imperfections.