How Do We Follow Jesus Without Being a Jerk? — Popular Edition

The title of this book asks a question I need to keep asking myself.

How do we follow Jesus without being a jerk?

I spent quite a few years, particularly my younger, more enthusiastic ones as a believer, being a jerk. There are a number of occasions I can remember when I now wish I had just shut up! But once words are out, they are impossible to delete. Damage is done despite apologies. To those I may have hurt along the way, I deeply apologise. I hope you have had the chance to recover and heal from my words and actions.

It is easy to think of someone else who ought to read a book with this title. Rather less comfortable to consider that we might occasionally still deserve a copy ourselves. Preferably handed to us gently.

I write as someone who cares about faith and wants to examine how we practise it. Our conviction may be sincere, our intentions generous, and our understanding carefully considered. Even so, the person on the receiving end of our certainty may experience something very different from what we intended.

That gap deserves our attention.

My years of involvement in international aid and development, including our work connected with Myanmar, give this question a practical setting. When we offer help, we also enter a relationship in which power matters. We may have access to money, information, opportunities or influential people. Those resources can do considerable good. They can also make it difficult for someone to disagree with us.

Can a person accept our help and decline our invitation? Can they question our assumptions without risking our goodwill? Do they have a meaningful say in what happens next?

These questions belong wherever followers of Jesus serve. They matter in a village in Myanmar, and they matter in a Western neighbourhood, a church office or a conversation across the kitchen table.

I want to explore how what we do in Myanmar can inform what we do in the West. That requires humility about the comparison. Communities have their own histories and priorities. Our work is open to scrutiny too. The useful connection lies in the questions we bring home: who decides, whose voice is heard, and how freely people can respond.

Many of my studies have also given me an interest in belief, suggestion and influence. Influence is part of ordinary human life. We learn through relationships, respond to stories and find meaning in shared experiences. A powerful feeling can be deeply significant. It still deserves careful interpretation, especially when someone uses it to claim authority over another person’s decisions.

I began this study wondering whether resistance to religious pressure helps explain Christianity’s changing place in Western societies. The research asks us to hold that possibility alongside other explanations. People leave, stay, join and return for different reasons. We owe them the courtesy of listening before deciding what their choices mean.

For this book, I return particularly to Jesus as we encounter him in the four Gospels. He is not always comfortable reading. There is tenderness, but also challenge; welcome, but also demanding invitations. Following him involves more than becoming agreeable. It calls us to examine how we use power, how we respond to refusal, and whether our conduct is consistent with the care we profess.

I am grateful to Dr Michael Crudge, my friend whom I have seen too little of. His research on the church’s relationship with people beyond its own circles helps bring an essential question into focus: are we willing to take seriously how others experience us?

I hope these pages encourage that willingness.

Some readers will approach this book with a strong faith. Others will bring disappointment, suspicion or painful memories. You may be unsure where you stand. You are welcome to read, question and disagree.

The book asks something of me as its author, too. I cannot reasonably invite believers to listen more carefully while treating my own conclusions as beyond challenge.

My hope is that we can speak honestly about Jesus and become more attentive to the people with whom we speak. That our service gives people greater freedom. That an apology comes more readily when we have caused harm.

And that, when someone meets us, they experience enough kindness and honesty to continue the conversation.

Stuart Corlett