Matthew 7:13-14 says the following:

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

I have had this passage used against me more than once. You see, I wasn't always a believer. I believed in high school and as a young adult, but I was wounded nearly beyond repair by people I thought were my brothers and sisters in Christ. My church home abandoned me when I needed them most. That really soured my attitude toward Christians (and, thus, Christianity) for many years.

I would come back and want to do well in God's sight. That would lead me to go to the extreme end of fundamentalist conservatism. I'd try and reject all of the things the fundamentalist conservatives rejected. I wanted to believe in Bible inerrancy and verbal plenary. I would cover my head, wear dresses only, earnestly contend for the faith. The only problem was that I was, apparently, contending for someone else's faith and not my own.

Something was wrong, though. I like wearing blue jeans and I like LGBT people and I don't think Roe vs. Wade should be overturned and I like listening to secular music and dancing. I don't place my faith in the Bible. I want to be like Jesus, not a Pharisee.

It's hard to earnestly contend for the faith when every time you do your faith is called into question. If you don't kneel at the altar of the King James Bible you mustn't be a "true Christian". If you don't hate gays and lesbians or calls transpeople perverts you must hate Jesus, because He clearly preached against all of that. Wait, no He didn't, but Paul did and that makes it Jesus' word by proxy. Or does it?

Easy believism is the notion that if you embrace moderate to liberal views on social and theological issues you're simply trying to get into heaven by the skin of your teeth. You aren't really serious about loving Jesus, you just want a "get out of hell free" card by putting forth as little Christian effort as humanly possible. You want to love the world and pretend to love Jesus, because loving the world is easy, but following Christ is hard.

So what is so hard about being a conservative fundamentalist? Let's see:

1. Don't have an abortion, and condemn those who do, support the practice, or actually perform the abortions or facilitate them (i.e., clinic workers and volunteers and pro-choice activists). Well, that seems pretty simple. Most of the people who fight against this issue are men, who will never be in a position of having an unplanned or even dangerous pregnancy, or women who have already gone through menopause or know beyond a shadow of a doubt abortion wouldn't be their choice.

Seems to me it would be much harder to see someone make a decision you wouldn't make, or even understand why someone would, and extend grace, mercy, love and compassion.

2. Fight against LGBT people and their rights. If you aren't LGBT or have a loved one who is, it's pretty simple to hate that which you don't understand.

3. Put your faith in the Bible and believe it couldn't possibly have any errors or could be misinterpreted or mishandled during a translation. It's easier to believe in God when a book you believe was written literally by Him tells you to. Seems to me it would be harder to have faith in the unseen when no concrete evidence can be offered up.

4. Vote Republican. Voting is pretty simple, really.

5. Hate the poor and condemn those on welfare. After all, Jesus was just kidding when He said to sell all of your belongings and give your money to those who need it more than you do.

Seems to me if anyone is suffering from a case of easy believism it's the conservative folks who sit in their ivory towers and throw snippets of Scripture down from it to prove how right they are on issues that don't even personally affect them. It's much harder to live as Christ instructed us to. It's much easier to call your president a "Kenyan Muslim Marxist" than it is to pray for him, despite your differences of opinions. It's much easier to call those on welfare "a bunch of lazy crackheads" than it is to actually reach out to them. It's much easier to call LGBT people "perverted sodomites" than to bother to get to know any beyond the stereotypes. It's much easier to believe in God when you believe the Bible is the ultimate concrete proof of His existence and that He supernaturally preserved it just for you.

How have you exemplified Christ today? Was it easy or hard?